NT government’s plans to boost economy by $40bn and population by 50k in a decade

The NT government has set itself an ambitious task of creating a $40bn economy by 2030 and increasing population from 250,000 to 300,000. Find out how.

The Territory Government has two key economic targets to drive growth and development over the next 10 years.

By 2030, the government wants to grow the economy to $40bn from where it currently sits at about $26bn and also aims to boost the population from about 250,000 to 300,000.

Despite the obvious challenges - and setbacks such as Covid-19 - the government is confident the target can be achieved.

Speaking at a Minerals Council of Australia meeting in September, Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade chief executive Shaun Drabsch was confident the target will be reached.

“Strong growth will be required to achieve this,” he said.

Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade CEO Shaun Drabsch.

“$40bn by 2030 is a calculation of 5 per cent annual growth on average across the decade.

“For the last financial year in the June quarter compared to the June quarter last year we grew by 4.7 per cent. We’re on track.”

The population target is more challenging but the government also believes this can be achieved.

Speaking to 100-plus guests at an infrastructure conference in Darwin last month, Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler reconfirmed two of the Territory’s key economic objectives.

“Our diverse economy will be worth $40bn by 2030 and our population will be tipping over 300,000,” Ms Lawler said.

“It doesn’t sound a lot but our growth regions will be driving resilient communities and our sustainable development precincts will be home to new industries.

“It truely is an exciting time to be doing business in the Northern Territory.”

Infrastructure and Planning Minister Eva Lawler speaks at a conference in Darwin about the Territory Government's major development projects. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

Associate Professor Andrew Taylor, demographer with the Northern Institute Charles Darwin University, said achieving the target would require a “significant turnaround”.

“Unfortunately this would take a significant turnaround from our current trajectory and would most likely require large intakes of overseas migrants through a negotiated arrangement with the Australian Government,” Prof Taylor said.

“This may be possible in the form of the re-settlement of refugees including humanitarian refugees and climate change refugees in our near regions.

“In addition to that and because the scale of growth required to achieve the target is large, we would need to see a reversal of the net negative migration flows to interstate for the remaining years to 2030.

“Through the vaccination process in response to the pandemic, the Medicare records for hundreds of thousands of Australians were updated in terms of the address of the card holder.

“This is a key source of data for population estimates and, unfortunately, this ‘big catch-up’ likely contributed to the high net-negative interstate migration figure for 2021 for the Territory of over minus 3000.

“For every year that the required growth is not achieved, that rate goes up for each year remaining until the target year of 2030.”

The NT News’ Future NT event on Friday, November 25 will explore how the government achieves a $40bn economy by 2030. Buy your tickets here.

Originally published as NT government’s plans to boost economy by $40bn and population by 50k in a decade