Vital new mantra

THE Territory has an incredible story, the most unique in the nation.

We are close to burgeoning Asian markets. We have room to grow. We are rich in resources, lifestyle and culture. But we need more hands. Now, more than ever, we must shout our story from the rooftops.

Go North. Build the Territory and the nation. Call the most spectacular places on Earth home.

This is more than northern parochialism, but a matter of national opportunity.

Consider that Northern Australia generates about half the nation’s exports with only 5 per cent of the population.

Just imagine what we could do up here with more. Consider our strategic location and the role we have to play in national security, trade and regional engagement.

For our Territory capital and towns, population growth is the fundamental building block of self-sustaining and self-generating economies.

Population growth means a diversified economy less reliant on ‘that next big thing’.

It means increased GST revenue from the Commonwealth.

It means stronger borders, more jobs, more investment and lower costs of living.

Build the population — create the demand — and the cost of flights will come down.

The cost of services will come down. Home and land values will rebound.

Build a bigger Territory and the better we can foster new enterprise and vital services in the remote regions.

To accept stagnant population growth as the status quo is to accept the boom and bust; business by handout; isolation by flight costs; empty shop fronts, units and pockets.

My Government will roll out a comprehensive population plan in the new year, which will form a blueprint for growth and underpin the 2018 Budget.

In the meantime, we can do better to sell our story and break down misconceptions.

A new campaign, Our Life Out Here, kicked off in yesterday’s NT News and will run well into 2018.

Southern billboards, newspapers and websites will tell the real life stories of people who have relocated to the Territory for work.

We have also begun a global search for the best-of-the-best brand specialists to develop an NT Masterbrand and inspire people and businesses to think differently about the Territory.

Such exercises have realworld success.

Malaysia went from a place sidestepped by tourists to one of the most visited in the world through a branding campaign built around the slogan ‘Malaysia: Truly Asia’.

France has some of the most sought-after wines in the world, even if its varieties are consistently beaten in blind taste tests. Industries are built around its reputation for quality, the product of branding.

Dubai has built its brand around luxury, leveraging architectural and cultural symbols like the Burj Al Arab, one of the world’s finest hotels.

It would later build the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, featuring a hotel designed by Giorgio Armani. The brand is even reinforced by the Dubai police, who can boast a $450,000 Lamborghini as part of their fleet.

This isn’t for the Territory, of course, but what is?

Should our fellow Australians and the world know more about us than just Kakadu and crocs?

What about our amazing lifestyle, schools, weather and diversity?

What about how we are bursting with opportunities, particularly for career-minded young people?

Darwin has grown from frontier backwater to modern, vibrant and multicultural 21st Century City — the economic and cultural capital of Northern Australia.

The Northern Territory plains and regional centres, rich with the culture and languages of the First Australians, are now also rich with agriculture, cattle, minerals and tourism ventures.

We love the Northern Territory, and we know others who give it a chance will love it too.

Let’s paint the beautiful picture we wake to every day so they may be as lucky.

Campaigns are by no means the beginning or end of population growth.

Getting people here and keeping them here means investing in the livability of our centres.

This is why we are transforming our capital’s CBD into more than a place of work, but an attraction, home, destination and economic driver in its own right.

We are shifting from the old thinking of Darwin and Palmerston as the service centre for the Top End, to thinking of it as the service centre for the region.

As a place not in competition for workers and headquarters with Sydney, but with Singapore.

Our approach is saying to businesses to our south and our north: if you want to do business in the region, come to the Territory.

If you want to be close to market and close to some of Australia’s richest gas supplies, come to the Territory.

If you want your workers to be happy, healthy and live in the greatest corner of the world, come to the Territory.

In the mid-19th century an American newspaper man captured the nascent optimism of his nation’s push toward the Pacific.

Go west, young man, and grow with your country.

He wasn’t wrong. Califor-

“If you want your workers to be happy, healthy and live in the greatest corner of the world, come to the Territory”