NT election: Little campaign courage, little cause for optimism

Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner. Picture Glenn Campbell

It’s Hobson’s choice at this election. The Northern Territory may be relatively coronavirus-free, but it has nowhere to hide from the mistakes of past administrations.

Labor, the Country Liberals and political “upcyclers” Territory Alliance are all preaching the eternal sunshine of no “cuts” or new taxes, blessed by a rosy mirage of bounties from anticipated resources, agriculture and energy projects.

None seems prepared to confront a looming fiscal crisis they all shared in making, let alone up-end perennial inequities like the minimal productive engagement of Aboriginal land and labour or atrociously low rates of remote school attendance.

Sequential fizzy business cycles have left the economy in the doldrums, a plethora of corporate and social welfare schemes and a bloated, top-heavy public service that many observers agree is more in charge than the usually weak or inexperienced politicians.

Everyone from the chamber of commerce to the pastoral lobby and the amateur fishers’ club gets government cash. Much of the private sector depends on public contracts and stimulus. Rumours abound about favours for friends, allies and cushy six-figure jobs.

This web of dependencies undermines discourse and cripples policy. Politicians bow to the entitled while bosses look past bad decisions for fear of upsetting ministers who could turn their organisations away from the trough. Citizens can get free money to buy homes, grants for renovations, vouchers to go out or go shopping or go on holiday. The government pays airlines to fly here, immigrants to settle here. It subsidises power bills, backstops developers, bails out the insolvent.

Mid-pandemic may not be the time for austerity, but an electoral term lasts four years and without pledging restraint, whoever wins will lack a mandate for it. Years of these shenanigans have left Darwin looking ritzy but not stopped it struggling to grow. Squalor persists out bush, where land and people go to waste.

Hope lies in an emerging cross-party consensus and alignment with Canberra on developing onshore gas, renewables and manufacturing industries. If these succeed alongside other businesses, the upswing will offer politicians another shot at reform. They will need to be a lot braver than any has signalled in this campaign if the next government is to make the Territory thrive and remedy past mistakes.