Chief Minister Michael Gunner rejects federal government’s population forecast for the NT

CHIEF Minister Michael Gunner has rejected assumptions outlined in the federal budget that show the NT’s population could reach record lows and drop by 7000 in three years.

• NT population forecast to drop by 7000 in three years
• How the Northern Territory’s population has fallen in the past two years

CHIEF Minister Michael Gunner has rejected assumptions outlined in the federal budget that show the NT’s population could reach record lows and drop by 7000 in three years.

The federal budget papers forecast the Territory’s population would fall from 241,000 in 2020 to 234,000 in 2023 — losing about one per cent of the population each year.

This would mark a significant decline for the NT, considering the Territory hasn’t recorded a population decline of more than 0.4 per cent in 30 years.

The federal budget estimations were based on the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics — but Mr Gunner indicated on Wednesday that population projections in next month’s NT budget would be noticeably different.

“We respectfully disagree with these assumptions,” he said.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner has rejected assumptions outlined in the federal budget that show the NT’s population could reach record lows and drop by 7000 in three years. Picture: Che Chorley

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It comes after NT government statistics recently revealed that 4500 people had permanently relocated to the Territory since borders reopened on July 17.

The Chief Minister said the government had seen a wave of former Territorians coming home, and “coronavirus refugees” fleeing to the Territory from interstate.

“We’ll consider new (population) incentives down the track if we need to, but right now the rest of Australia knows that the Territory is the place to be,” he said.

“We are the safest place in Australia, and the rest of Australia knows it. It’s publicity you can’t buy.”

Now that the federal budget has been handed down, Mr Gunner said his government would be getting to work to crunch their own numbers before handing down the NT budget in five weeks.

“We’ve certainly got questions about some of the (federal budget) assumptions that we want to work on, about whether we then adopt those assumptions for our budget,” he said.

“At the moment, our planning has been based around keeping our border controls in place until 2021 … but there is the flexibility to possibly extend that if we don’t have a vaccine.”

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The Chief Minister said it was a “realistic” probability to assume a COVID-19 vaccine would become a reality by late 2021, based on the medical advice he had received.

Mr Gunner gave little criticisms about the recent federal budget.

“You can be that kid at Christmas who says, ‘I want one more present’,” he said. “I don’t want to be that kid.”