Thread: Why and how did the NT government lease the Port of Darwin to a Chinese firm ?

Its a bloody disgrace, the government is going to sell us off til there's nothing left to sell.

Old news - happened ages ago and no one but the yanks objected . Not sure what's worse -leasing infrastructure to another country OR another seperate country objecting to us leasing to another country.

They wonder why the NT is broke and people leaving in droves, lease our port then do a deal for someone to build an onshore gas processing plant where we don't get 1 ltr of gas and no royalties. - Yep the luck country.

Cheers Ean

Originally Posted by loanrangie

Its a bloody disgrace, the government is going to sell us off til there's nothing left to sell.

It wasn't a sale - it was a lease.

If they were the highest bidder and meet all the lease requirements - why not?

We still need to approve anything the leasee wants to do so still control what goes on.

Originally Posted by Ean Austral

Old news - happened ages ago and no one but the yanks objected . Not sure what's worse -leasing infrastructure to another country OR another seperate country objecting to us leasing to another country.

They wonder why the NT is broke and people leaving in droves, lease our port then do a deal for someone to build an onshore gas processing plant where we don't get 1 ltr of gas and no royalties. - Yep the luck country.

Cheers Ean

This article goes into the details of what happened. As our PM said when asked during a visit to Darwin " they didn't tell us " Pays to read the article.

Originally Posted by garrycol

It wasn't a sale - it was a lease.

If they were the highest bidder and meet all the lease requirements - why not?

We still need to approve anything the leasee wants to do so still control what goes on.

Why not. This, I guess.

"If [Landbridge's] offer was the best offer, but it introduced a major element of strategic risk for the whole country, they should have had the common sense to realise they take the second best offer or the third best offer and not have any strategic risk," he said.

"You don't farm out the risk to everyone in Australia over 99 years to save you some money in the early 20-teens."It was a seriously dumb idea by a government that really hadn't thought through the consequences, and even if it had, was prepared to ignore the long-term costs, both financial and strategic, they were inflicting on the rest of the country."It was the classic example of parochial short-term thinking winning out over what is in the national interest of all Australians across the country for the long term foreseeable future."

And this.

"But by leasing the commercial port in Darwin, even though it is well down the

harbour

, to someone who runs the risk of being a potential adversary over the next 99 years, it's the equivalent of leasing the Port to the Japanese in 1938.

Originally Posted by Ean Austral

Old news - happened ages ago and no one but the yanks objected . Not sure what's worse -leasing infrastructure to another country OR another seperate country objecting to us leasing to another country.

They wonder why the NT is broke and people leaving in droves, lease our port then do a deal for someone to build an onshore gas processing plant where we don't get 1 ltr of gas and no royalties. - Yep the luck country.

Cheers Ean

The coffers are empty.

Back in mid-December, when the current Labor Government was trying to explain how the NT was in the middle of a full-blown financial crisis that sees it borrowing $4 million a day to keep operating, Jodie Ryan was asked in a briefing what happened to the $506 million the NT received for the port. She said it was put into general revenue and spent. It's long gone, with less than 96 years left.

Hi Bob - I am not really sure what the strategic risk is as we still own the facility, control its development via veto of unacceptable actions and proposals and if all failed we just resume the facility.

The second point that you referenced about the Chinese lease being like it being leased by the Japanese in 1938 is just emotive glap trap - I can see how the it can raise emotions but is not relevant at all. If the port had been leased to the Japanese in 1938, it would not have been in 1939 and any Japanese in country running it in 1939 would have soon found themselves in internment camps.

As Ean said this is all old news - an emotive beat up and is not a real issue in the real world.

cheers

garry

Originally Posted by bob10

This article goes into the details of what happened. As our PM said when asked during a visit to Darwin " they didn't tell us " Pays to read the article.

at the time it was going thru consultation phase they were originally going to include fishermans wharf and the fishing boat harbour commonly known as the duck pond. At the time I was directly or indirectly managing about 35 boats so I attended at least a dozen meetings and some were open public meetings and some were closed with both landbridge reps and what surprised me was usually only 1 person from local government. During those times both sides of government had senior ministers visit Darwinbut they never seemed to care , they were more concerned about the impex gas plant being build in the harbour which is I think Japanese owned and the first 15 yrs of gas is already marked for overseas not a drop for local sales.

At 1 of the meetings I got chatting to a couple of blokes from the US state department who were amazed at the lack of concern from Australians.

I did read the article.

Cheers Ean