Ms McCARTHY - 2008-05-07
How does Budget 2008-09 help attract more major projects to the Territory?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Arnhem for her question. The budget delivers for Territory families, as we have been saying, and it also delivers for the economy. One of the drivers of the economy, obviously, is large-scale projects that not only deliver millions of dollars worth of investment into the Northern Territory, create thousands of jobs but, by their very presence, the spin-off is confidence for people to invest in other sectors of the economy.
We have committed a record spend for infrastructure in this budget - $870m to be spent right across this great Northern Territory of ours, providing infrastructure incentives needed to get people to invest here. A small example, in the member for Stuart’s electorate, is with roads to open up horticulture investment. That is going ahead. That investment, and those jobs, would not occur without government investment in that fundamental infrastructure.
Darwin Port: $59.5m for East Arm port this year; $35m for an overland conveyor; $24.5m for reclamation at East Darwin Wharf; and hard stand to expand the port. What this infrastructure is doing is opening up investment opportunities in the mining sector in Central Australia because, now, that infrastructure is in place to get products on to the wharves and the ships for export, directly generating investment income in the mining sector. This translates as jobs for people in Central Australia, even though the money is actually being spent on the wharf in the Top End.
As for roads, there will $270m-worth of funding right across the Northern Territory. As far as mining goes, for the Bringing Forward Discovery initiative, there is a further $5.5m for the program. This is about assisting mining companies, junior explorers to actually target their exploration activity in the Northern Territory. Compare what we are doing now in the Northern Territory with when we came to office in 2001. At that time, there were over 900 applications for exploration licences sitting on the CLP minister’s desk that were unprocessed - over 900 of them, because of a political football called native title. That stymied investment in the Northern Territory for many years. We have worked hard to clear that backlog.
Ongoing projects that will support engineering activity in the Northern Territory include the Montara, Skua and Swift oil field developments in the Timor Sea. There are companies in Darwin now winning significant contracts for supporting those drilling exploration activities. There is the Blacktip gas field in the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf. The pipeline will be built this Dry Season - again, significant jobs for Territorians. If we look at what GEMCO is doing in processing an expansion on Groote Eylandt - confidence to invest, confidence to export, and jobs for Territorians.
It was great to be at the Darwin Convention Centre on Friday for the International Grocers Association’s first meeting. It was a low-key event to kick the convention centre off, but still fabulous. The spin-off that will come in additional investment in the Territory through businesses and convention groups coming here and seeing investment opportunities, we cannot quantify.
These are all great projects that lead to confidence to invest in the Northern Territory and jobs for Territorians. I would like to add one more to that list; that is, the $12bn INPEX project. If we can secure that project from Western Australia, not only will there be a direct investment of over $12bn for our economy, and we stand to have at least 4000 jobs for four to five years off the construction phase, but what we get is further certainty for investment right across the economies of the Northern Territory over many years ahead.
We want Darwin to be Australia’s second international gas hub. I can assure Territorians, we can have both. We can have $12bn worth of investment and we can protect our marine environments in our harbour. We can walk and chew gum. We can have both - unlike the environmental and economic vandal who sits opposite who would say to INPEX: ‘Off you go to Western Australia. Western Australia can have the jobs. Western Australia can have the investment. Western Australia can have the economic flows into the future’. He would also destroy Glyde Point regarding its fragile environment and ecosystems.
Madam Speaker, we can have both. This is a government that has a vision for the Northern Territory, has confidence in the Northern Territory, believes that we can have investment development and protect our environment as opposed to the economic vandal who sits opposite.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Arnhem for her question. The budget delivers for Territory families, as we have been saying, and it also delivers for the economy. One of the drivers of the economy, obviously, is large-scale projects that not only deliver millions of dollars worth of investment into the Northern Territory, create thousands of jobs but, by their very presence, the spin-off is confidence for people to invest in other sectors of the economy.
We have committed a record spend for infrastructure in this budget - $870m to be spent right across this great Northern Territory of ours, providing infrastructure incentives needed to get people to invest here. A small example, in the member for Stuart’s electorate, is with roads to open up horticulture investment. That is going ahead. That investment, and those jobs, would not occur without government investment in that fundamental infrastructure.
Darwin Port: $59.5m for East Arm port this year; $35m for an overland conveyor; $24.5m for reclamation at East Darwin Wharf; and hard stand to expand the port. What this infrastructure is doing is opening up investment opportunities in the mining sector in Central Australia because, now, that infrastructure is in place to get products on to the wharves and the ships for export, directly generating investment income in the mining sector. This translates as jobs for people in Central Australia, even though the money is actually being spent on the wharf in the Top End.
As for roads, there will $270m-worth of funding right across the Northern Territory. As far as mining goes, for the Bringing Forward Discovery initiative, there is a further $5.5m for the program. This is about assisting mining companies, junior explorers to actually target their exploration activity in the Northern Territory. Compare what we are doing now in the Northern Territory with when we came to office in 2001. At that time, there were over 900 applications for exploration licences sitting on the CLP minister’s desk that were unprocessed - over 900 of them, because of a political football called native title. That stymied investment in the Northern Territory for many years. We have worked hard to clear that backlog.
Ongoing projects that will support engineering activity in the Northern Territory include the Montara, Skua and Swift oil field developments in the Timor Sea. There are companies in Darwin now winning significant contracts for supporting those drilling exploration activities. There is the Blacktip gas field in the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf. The pipeline will be built this Dry Season - again, significant jobs for Territorians. If we look at what GEMCO is doing in processing an expansion on Groote Eylandt - confidence to invest, confidence to export, and jobs for Territorians.
It was great to be at the Darwin Convention Centre on Friday for the International Grocers Association’s first meeting. It was a low-key event to kick the convention centre off, but still fabulous. The spin-off that will come in additional investment in the Territory through businesses and convention groups coming here and seeing investment opportunities, we cannot quantify.
These are all great projects that lead to confidence to invest in the Northern Territory and jobs for Territorians. I would like to add one more to that list; that is, the $12bn INPEX project. If we can secure that project from Western Australia, not only will there be a direct investment of over $12bn for our economy, and we stand to have at least 4000 jobs for four to five years off the construction phase, but what we get is further certainty for investment right across the economies of the Northern Territory over many years ahead.
We want Darwin to be Australia’s second international gas hub. I can assure Territorians, we can have both. We can have $12bn worth of investment and we can protect our marine environments in our harbour. We can walk and chew gum. We can have both - unlike the environmental and economic vandal who sits opposite who would say to INPEX: ‘Off you go to Western Australia. Western Australia can have the jobs. Western Australia can have the investment. Western Australia can have the economic flows into the future’. He would also destroy Glyde Point regarding its fragile environment and ecosystems.
Madam Speaker, we can have both. This is a government that has a vision for the Northern Territory, has confidence in the Northern Territory, believes that we can have investment development and protect our environment as opposed to the economic vandal who sits opposite.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016