Katherine is going “relatively well” compared to other NT towns.
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Katherine Town Council chief executive Rob Jennings didn’t specify which “other towns” he was comparing us to but it’s a fair call.
The NT is doing poorly as a whole.
The Gunner Government’s typical Labor-isque response is to spend our way out of trouble and worry about paying it back when times are good.
Unfortunately the NT doesn’t have deep enough pockets to make much of a dent in a post Inpex-Ichthys era.
Every town would need a $50m museum for a building program to stop the slide.
Obviously Mr Jennings wasn’t comparing Katherine to Palmerston or Coolalinga, they are truly bucking the trend.
Palmerston is the third fastest growing area in Australia, in Australia mind. So the NT is no dead duck.
Mr Jennings pointed to Katherine’s uniqueness, its multi-faceted economic streams, hallelujah to that.
There are some suspicions about Gina Rinehart’s buy-up of NT land but there is no doubting if anyone can crack the Chinese beef market, she can and we will all prosper.
The public purse continues to fund many salaries in this town, and that is the parachute.
What gives Katherine its rocket power is Tindal, Mr Jennings alluded to that.
What “other NT towns” was Mr Jennings looking at that doesn’t have a Tindal on its door-step.
The RAAF base was already buzzing before two big joint exercises cranked up in the past fortnight.
Sure, we’ve missed out on most of the big contracts out at Tindal, we are only getting the crumbs off that table.
But what crumbs.
There is no doubting the sincerity of the base boss, Wing Commander Andrew Tatnell about wanting to spend us much locally as he can.
Six thousands meals in a week, some of those crumbs blow from the table north to Katherine surely.
Lend Lease and other base contractors have basically booked out the town, that has a flow on too.
Yes Mr Jennings, we are doing relatively well, mainly thanks to Tindal.
But doing well and doing better are different ideas.
Stand still and be stampeded. Katherine needs to be better, that must be our goal.