Territory needs a family focus

NEW population research shows the NT is having trouble attracting people to the Territory. What? How?

NEW population research shows the NT is having trouble attracting people to the Territory. What? How?

This is the best place to live in Australia, and we know it. We don’t have to sit in traffic for 30mins to get to work; we don’t have to suffer through winter; we eat laksa for breakfast; and double pluggers are perfectly acceptable footwear.

What more do people want? Better career prospects, apparently. They also want better protection against crime and cheaper options to venture to the southern states. As people living in the NT start to have children, they move closer to their families for a better support network.

If we can’t convince extended families to move to the NT, we need to make it easier (and cheaper) for Territorians to visit their interstate friends and family. To keep families here, the NT needs to pick its act up when it comes to health services and its schooling systems. Until the Territory is a better place to raise a family, it will struggle to keep families in the NT.

It will struggle to attract families to the NT and it will struggle to get families to brag about the NT to their interstate friends.

This is a long-term goal, and in the short term, the NT Government needs to focus on encouraging people to stay in the Territory. The longer people stay, the less likely they are to leave.

We can do this by encouraging business development, lowering rates, cutting rates, and making the cost of living easier. Nobody wants to live somewhere with $700 electricity bills, and unaffordable rental prices. Instead of a tourism campaign, maybe the Territory should think about a migration campaign — selling the NT as the best place to live in Australia, not the best place to visit. When they get here, the majority of (sane-thinking) people agree the NT is the best place in the nation. They just need to try it out.