Opinion: 'Concentrate on planning'

A few years ago, up to ten years ago, $10 million from Federal money was allocated to fund an alternative heavy vehicle route.

The following were three options given:

1. Victoria Highway through high residential area.

2. Bicentennial road across low level down Zimin Drive.

3. Near Tindal base along railway line and exit alongside Stuart Estate.

The community of Katherine could not decide on which option was the preferred, as each option affected residents, so the $10 million defunded.

Katherine is a very unique municipality in that private developers have been allowed to subdivide without appropriate town planning in the past.

There has been some improvements but the appropriate consultation process with stakeholders for future planning of Katherine municipality has been poor.

The population has stayed around the same (10,000) over the last 25 years I have lived here.

The population of Katherine is very itinerant, with the Tindal RAAF base being a commonwealth entity, it changes over personnel twice a year.

We have a large remote community and homelands east and west of Katherine, many visit Katherine for social and medical needs, and stay with family in already overcrowded housing.

It would be good to know the figure of visiting remote community people to town on a weekly basis.

According to the latest data from RDA on social and economic update change in value added by industry sector from 2021/22 to 2022/23 Transport, Postal and Warehousing, Health Care and Social Assistance, Administrative and Support Services, Construction, Accommodation and Food services has added value to NT Economy.

The data has also shown a negative of -1,680 value base in Mining.

The report also highlighted 2200 high value jobs are vacant and these people come from interstate or overseas to fill, therefore driving up domestic travel costs to the Northern Territory.

We need to concentrate on having local skilled professionals and thorough planning of future infrastructure needs to grow the Northern Territory and address our social and health issues, including the need for strong domestic violence prevention frameworks, seven days a week, and crime prevention programs strengthening our relationships within our community to be respectful and morally acceptable.

It is very interesting times.

It is crucial that the powers that be make well informed decisions in policies and frameworks, which we already have the data on through years of experiment, trials and policy development.

Let us look at the real issues together.

By Councillor Amanda Kingdon, very concerned resident and ratepayer (the views are my own)