Cunningham: The federal government needs to help grow the Territory, and fast

Our biggest cities are so congested they’re almost unliveable. Eleven years since Kevin Rudd flew to Darwin with a plan to develop northern Australia, we might pause to wonder where we would be today if he’d got his way, writes Matt Cunningham.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd receives a hug as he visits Parap Markets in Darwin, Saturday, Aug. 31, 2013. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch) NO ARCHIVING

When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd flew to Darwin in 2013, he came with an ambitious plan. His harsher critics accused him of concocting this idea on the back of a napkin while he was on the plane.

But Rudd’s plan – ultimately not implemented because he lost the election – is the closest thing we’ve had in recent history to a serious discussion about the development of northern Australia.

Rudd’s plan was to create a special economic zone in the Northern Territory.

By 2018, he planned to reduce the company tax rate in the NT from 30 per cent to 20 per cent.

“My personal objective for the Territory given its unique remoteness is for it to have a company tax rate one third lower than that of the rest of the country,” he said.

“All we’re talking about is giving people a bit of a leg up and I think most Australians when they come to Darwin say that’s a fair thing.”

Eleven years on, we might pause to wonder where we would be today if Rudd had got his way.

Election13 Darwin: Former PM Kevin Rudd, happy to receive a Mary's laksa as he meets shoppers, market vendors and tries local food during a visit to the Parap Markets in 2013.

Because in 2024, Australia and the Northern Territory both have a population crisis.

They are, however, crises of a very different kind.

According to data released this week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia’s population grew 2.5 per cent last year to almost 27 million.

Victoria and New South Wales each added more than 185,000 new residents.

Queensland’s population grew by more than 141,000, and Western Australia’s was the fastest growing state, its population increasing 3.3 per cent as it added 93,800 new residents.

Over the same period, the Northern Territory’s population grew by just 0.9 per cent as we added a paltry 2,400 people.

Our biggest cities have become so congested they’re almost unliveable.

Traffic each day grinds to a standstill while the cost of housing is out of reach for ordinary wage earners.

Here in Darwin it still takes 15 minutes to get to anywhere, while our housing market – apart from a brief blip during Covid – has been flatlining for a decade.

The latest ABS building approval figures paint a bleak picture.

There were just 24 approvals for new homes in April.

CDU Vice-Chancellor Scott Bowman.

“The figures confirm that the Territory is on track to record one of the worst years on record for the construction of new private sector dwellings,” Master Builders NT chief executive Ben Carter said.

It’s a crisis in anyone’s language, and one that needs an emergency response.

The Country Liberal Party is promising grants of up to $50,000 for new home builders if it wins the election, and Labor is expected to announce its own incentives before the August poll.

Addressing the shocking rise in the crime rate is also crucial if we want more people to move here and stay.

But the people with the real power to pull some levers on our population issues are based in Canberra.

About 100 extra troops are moving to the Top End following the Defence Strategic Review. That’s only about 10 per cent of the number that have moved south over the past decade, and despite the DSR making clear our biggest military threat is a lot closer to Darwin than Duntroon.

And now, as our southern cities choke and the cost of living rises out of control, the Federal Government has promised to halve the number of international students it allows into the country.

Charles Darwin University vice-chancellor Scott Bowman was in Canberra last week trying to convince the relevant ministers that if this policy was enacted universally, it would be a disaster for his university and the Territory more broadly.

“Up here in the Northern Territory we are absolutely desperate for people, we have got staff shortages in just about everything and we need people here,” Bowman says.

It seems likely the Commonwealth will make an exception for the Territory when it comes to international students, but what’s really needed is a concrete policy to develop the population of the north.

It’s a well-known fact that the number of federal politicians coming to Darwin is inversely proportionate to the relative humidity.

As they board their jets and head north to escape the southern winter, they would be well advised to get out their napkins and start hatching a plan.