Future NT 2024: 12 months of hits and misses for the economy

The Northern Territory economy had some hits and misses over the past year but it took a little help from our friends. Read what happened as we launch our Future NT 2024 campaign.

If major projects in the Northern Territory were a football match, commentators would have described the past 12 months as a game of two halves.

The big three major projects the government wants to drive economic growth and a $40bn economy were stalled by the courts, due process and disinterest.

The last of those, Arafura Rare Earths’ Nolans project in Central Australia, had been treading water for more than a decade as the company tried to find debt and equity backers.

Tamboran Resources and Empire Energy were soldiering on with their gas projects in the Beetaloo but Santos was noticeably missing from the project as it tried to negotiate its $7 billion Barossa gas development through the courts.

Natalie Charlesworth newly appointed Federal court justice in the Federal court building.

Then, after years of fog, a degree of clarity emerged, beginning on January 15 when federal court judge Natalie Charlesworth delivered a damning condemnation of the tactics deployed by green and cultural campaigners to thwart nation-building developments like Barossa.

Santos’ Darwin LNG life extension project aimed to revive the Wickham Point plant - which has been dormant since production from the Bayu-Undan gas reserve ended last year - using gas from the Barossa field, about 300km north of Darwin.

To offset emissions Santos plans to develop a carbon capture and storage facility at Bayu-Undan to sequester CO2 from Barossa, but the life extension was on life support after a successful 2022 appeal by Tiwi Island TOs forced the company to again consult with islanders and then with that overturned and pipeline work set to resume, an 11th hour injunction last November forced another delay.

But Justice Charlesworth’s January 15 Judgement ended the cultural and judicial shenanigans – hopefully once and for all – when she found environmentalists lied to traditional owners and distorted and manipulated instructions they tried to stop the pipeline being built.

Justice Natalie Charlesworth delivered a scathing rebuke of lawyers from the Environmental Defenders Office and a University of Western Australia academic as she rejected the application to stop the Barossa pipeline passing the Tiwi Islands.

Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher. Picture - Supplied

Justice Charlesworth said the academic had made an untrue statement to “coach” Tiwi Islanders “so as to achieve their objective of stopping the pipeline”.

The delays added at least an extra US1bn to the total project cost and at least another year to its rollout.

By April, construction on the pipeline phase of the development was more than two-thirds complete.

Still fresh from that economic shot in the arm, in March Canberra rolled into town armed with a cheque book and committed $840m in loans to underpin the Arafura project, which had previously been seeking only about $250 from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

Then Eva Lawler, who is unambiguously pro-gas within a Northern Territory framework, signed Tamboran to an agreement to supply about two-thirds of the Territory’s gas requirements.

From an education standpoint, a major win came for Charles Darwin University in May when the commonwealth committed $24.6m to establish a medical school at the university from 2026 - the first of its kind in the NT.

The money means CDU will be invited to apply for an ongoing allocation of 40 students commencing Commonwealth Supported Places a year.

The federal government’s Territory spending spree continued in May, when it was revealed the 2024 Integrated Investment Program had allocated $14bn to $18bn over the next decade to strengthen bases in the NT, northern Queensland and northern Western Australia.

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said “the lion’s share” of that funding would flow to the NT, with nearly $400m on the Robertson Barracks redevelopment, $1.5bn on RAAF Base Tindal and hundreds of millions of dollars going into the United States Force Posture Initiatives training areas.

While the big picture had suddenly taken a turn for the better, the economic fundamentals that have always underpinned the local economy have struggled for sustainability post Covid.

The Territory’s population declined by 67 in the December 2023 quarter following a revision by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and almost 4000 people moved interstate than moved here from interstate last year.

Darwin airport tarmac upgrades have been one of a number of hits to tourism which, after a bumper 2022, has continued to decline this year.

The collapse of Bonza, despite the best will in the world, hit Territorians and the Territory where it hurts; wasting our time, our money and our emotion.

In the year to March 31, tourism generated $2.7bn for the Territory economy from 1.65 million total visitors, a total decline of 3.2 per cent, with average nights stayed dropping 0.4 per cent to seven, but the average visitor spend increasing by 5 per cent to $1658.

Despite a promise for the Territory to have 11,430 new homes by 2030, dwelling approvals have bottomed, with the latest figures showing that, in annual terms, the number of residential building approvals in the Territory decreased by 35.9 per cent and in the year to May they dropped by 39.4 per cent to 368. In 2012-13 there were 2158 residential building approvals.

Retail turnover in the Territory increased by 0.2 per cent in May and by 3.6 per cent to $3.9 billion in the year to May.

In the March quarter, the value of engineering construction work done in the Territory decreased by 4.6 per cent and was down one per cent year-on-year.

Federally, the Greens backed a Senate inquiry into the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct.

The NT News’ Future Northern Territory campaign returns for its third year, as the push to create a $40bn economy by 2030 continues. To purchase a ticket to the event on July 18, click here.