NT needs workers to rev up, says NAB chief Ross McEwan

The Northern Territory is back open for business, says NAB chief Ross McEwan.

Ross McEwan hits the dirt in the NT. Picture: Supplied.

The Northern Territory is back open for business.

That is the message NAB chief executive Ross McEwan has brought home from a three-day tour of the Territory last week, visiting staff and business customers.

Australia’s largest business bank has found that among its customers, the Territory has led the way in rolling off JobKeeper.

“By the end of February, 1.74 per cent of the businesses had one or many people on JobKeeper,” says McEwan. “Considering across Australia the average is 3.62 per cent, certainly the NT has the least number of people requiring support than any other businesses.”

Domestic tourism led the recovery as state border borders lifted but international borders stayed shut. Just outside Alice Springs, Michael Vroom, co-owner of Outback Motorcycle Adventures told Ross McEwan that his business was 96 per cent booked out for the rest of the year and 90 per cent booked for the following year.

The bank boss had visited the Territory last year, shortly after joining NAB, and committed to going back to find out what had changed over 12 months.

In a year-on-year comparison for dollars spent at NAB merchant customers in the Territory, the December quarter was up 22 per cent and the March quarter up 12 per cent. By number of transactions the December quarter was up 12 per cent and the March quarter up 8 per cent.

Spending in the restaurant and retail sectors was up over 40 per cent for the 2021 financial year so far over last year, and in the travel industry was up by 84 per cent.

“We are feeling the businesses that are starting to expand again with confidence. Our customers are starting to look at funding to do new projects.” In Darwin, Ross McEwan is adding seven new staff, a 70 per cent increase, to support business growth.

NAB CEO Ross McEwan. Picture: Aaron Francis

“The biggest issue they have up here is just finding people to work in businesses as the recovery has been so strong, particularly in tourism and agriculture,” McEwan says. “The message they have been giving me is ‘we just need workers up here’.”

Border closures had an immediate and brutal impact on the Northern Territory, hollowing out staffing in hospitality which is proving hard to reinstate.

“They don’t have the students, those on temporary visas that often came and worked up here. Those people left the Territory some time ago. You have a booming tourism industry but it may be limited by the number staff that can service it,” says McEwan. “You also find those in the agricultural sector that have got crops really struggling to get labour to pick fruit, be it watermelon or mangoes.”

He credits the Territory government’s handling of COVID-19 and targeted spending for the strong recovery. “Money is going into areas like the military up here and there are a lot of people who have moved up to the NT because it has been a safe place to operate from.”

Another growth business is data centres, where local business leaders are seeing advantages in infrastructure investment around Darwin.

“Australian businesses that may have had the data stored offshore are looking to bringing it back onshore and the NT government is looking to capitalise on that,” Mr McEwan says.

“It is the pace with which they can get data centres in place but also the pace with which the data comes into the country. They have the lines internationally now coming through the top of Northern Territory.”

House prices are also on the rise, according to McEwan. “I was talking to a number of people in the industry. It started at the lower end of properties and is now filtering through into the mid-price range. They are saying with bank rates at four years of around 2 per cent, it is much cheaper to buy a house than it is to rent a house, as it is in other parts of Australia.”

“Sixteen per cent of NAB’s business mortgages are first-home buyers, the highest it has been years,” McEwan adds. “That’s a big number.”