Debates Day 5 - Wednesday 17 October 2007
Parliamentary Record 17
Debates for 10th Assembly 2005 - 2008; 10th Assembly 2005 - 2008; Parliamentary Record; ParliamentNT
2007-10-17
Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
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Debates
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
Darwin
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Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
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DEBATES Wednesday 17 October 2007 4859 Another component is a new, separate penalty for someone who is obstructing or assaults someone who is directed to order cleanups. That is fair as well. It can be a pressure time. If there is a cyclone on the way and someone is properly authorised to direct the cleanup, that has to be respected, so an assault or obstructing a person acting under section 44 will attract a new penalty of up to $22 000 or two years in gaol. These are simple but important changes to the Disasters Act. Madam Speaker, I thank everyone for their contribution and support. Motion agreed to; bill read a second time. Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time. Motion agreed to; bill read a third time. TABLED PAPER Northern Territory Electoral Commission Report Stuart By-Election Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I table the report of the Legislative Assembly by-election for the Division of Stuart produced by the Northern Territory Electoral Commission in accordance with the Electoral Act. MINISTERIAL STATEMENT AustralAsia Trade Route Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I inform the Assembly on the progress we are making in growing the AustralAsia Trade Route. Developing the AustralAsia Trade Route and positioning the Territory as Australias gateway to Asia is critical to the long-term prosperity of the Territory. It will stimulate economic growth and help to broaden and deepen the Territorys economic base. It will encourage new international trade flows and new sustainable industry development, and create more jobs and business opportunities for Territorians now and into the future. The trade route, as members know, involves the development of an alternative trade route connecting southern Australia with Asia through Darwin. It takes advantage of the modern infrastructure and transport links now available in the Territory, including our rail and port developments. It is about capturing niche opportunities to move freight between Australia and Asia that, in the past, would not have come via Darwin. It is about stimulating investment in new warehousing and distribution facilities in the Territory to process and handle the freight. It is also about maximising our use of the new freight network to service both our domestic and international trade and business. The AustralAsia Trade Route has been pivotal to capturing these opportunities. I am advised that the railway has captured some 90% of the line-haul freight carried between Adelaide and Darwin. Despite some early setbacks, the railway is now a critical part of the Territorys domestic freight network and companies such as Northline are back moving the majority of their freight via rail. The land bridge of bulk minerals from Central and southern Australia to Asia is happening. I will provide more detail on this later. The new shipping services are enabling our mining supply and service companies to develop new export markets, particularly with Indonesia. The emerging trade route has supported the movement of project cargos for our defence, mining and offshore oil and gas industries and, while the development of land bridge container trade has been limited, due in part to the capacity constraints of the railway in gearing-up for the high volume bulk mineral trades, this remains a future opportunity that we will continue to pursue. We have seen recently a perfect example of our emerging trade route in action with a $5m, 67 000 tonne shipment of iron ore coming to Darwin by rail from the Territory Resources project at Frances Creek through East Arm port and on to China. It was a reminder of how important our strategic investments in key infrastructure are and will continue to be to the Territory economy. The $1.3bn transcontinental railway, the $200m East Arm Wharf upgrade and the $50m Darwin Business Park is infrastructure that sets the Territory up for the future. Our new $24m bulk mineral loading facilities are making East Arm the port of choice for bulk mineral exports from Central Australia. These strategic investments have enabled forward-thinking companies like Territory Resources to establish viable operations and secure long-term, lucrative contracts. I will talk more about some of the traffic we are seeing through the port shortly. Madam Speaker, we have made considerable progress, but there is much more to do if the trade route is to fulfil its undoubted potential. We have a plan to grow the trade route and we have been implementing that plan. Members will recall that in February 2005, I tabled the governments Growing Our Trade Route Strategy in the Legislative Assembly. The key elements of that strategy revolve around developing new international shipping linkages, levering new industry growth from the port and rail developments, particularly in the Darwin Business Park with new consolidation and distribution centres, growing new export