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AcknowledgementsTerritory Q is published by the

Department of the Chief Minister,Northern Territory Government.

Correspondence should be directed to the Department of the Chief Minister,

Major Projects, Asian Relations and Trade, GPO Box 4396,

Darwin, NT 0801,Australia

Telephone 08 8946 9555Email majorprojects.info@nt.gov.au

WritersDennis Schulz

Stephen GarnettSamantha McCue

PhotographicsDennis Schulz

Wade Huffman/Outer EdgeBig Gecko

CDE CapitalArchitects Studio

Fire Protection ProfessionalsSunbuild

OchreDuprada Dance Company

Boardwalk Café

Design/layoutAdzu, Darwin

Special thanks toERA

NT Cattlemen’s AssociationStuart Smith

Stuart MacLean

© Northern Territory Government 2008

While all reasonable efforts have been made to ensure that the information contained in this publication is

correct, the information covered is subject to change. The Northern Territory Government does not assume and

hereby disclaims any express or implied liability whatsoever to any party for any loss or damage caused by errors

or omissions, whether these errors or omissions result from negligence, accident or any other cause. Opinions

expressed in Territory Q do not necessarily refl ect those of the Northern Territory Government. Requests and inquiries

concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to Communications and Marketing, Department of the

Chief Minister, Northern Territory Government. All images appearing in Territory Q are protected by copyright.

Dawin: The budget hub to Asia 4

Upgrades and expansion at Ranger 7

The Top End's sweet life: Rockmelons 12

The Batchelor pad: Affordable tropical housing 16

Darwin's vertical village: Evolution 18

The renewable alternative: Solar energy 20

And now for something completely different:

Daly Waters Historic Pub 22

A tourism partnership in Tennant Creek 26

Alice Springs: How's business 28

The new apprentices 29

Crocosaurus city: Inner city theme park 30

Big Gecko: Taking Territory crocodiles to the world 34

CDE Capital: The Indigenous miner 38

Territory seafood: Buy local! 44

Welcome to Wurre:

Joint park management begins at Rainbow Valley 46

The boomtown expo: Balikpapan Expo 48

Taking fi re protection offshore 51

Exporting Territory dance 54

REGULAR FEATURES:Tall Poppy: Werner Sarny 10

Indigenous Bizness: Creating jobs on the homeland 40

Fast Facts: The Territory economy 55

Stephen Garnett on the knowledge economy:

The business of climate change 52

Paddock to Plate:

Taking the heat 56

Parting Shots! 58

insidethisISSUE

DOWNLOADyourQEnjoy the convenience of e-Territory Q. Download current and past editions, fully bookmarked and hyperlinked to the web!

Visit www.theterritory.com.au and click on ‘publications’.

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page54

Join Territory dancers on

tour in Singapore

Cover > Wade Huffman/Outer Edge

Welcome to the third quarter edition of Territory Q for 2008. It’s our own quarterly business and investment magazine.

Welcome to the eleventh edition of Territory Q, our very own quarterly magazine promoting business and investment opportunities across the Territory to national and international audiences. It also helps keep Territorians on top of what’s happening in their own backyard.

This issue has a strong tourism theme running through it. Our cover story highlights the opening of Darwin’s Crocosaurus Cove, a world-class wildlife exhibit in the heart of the CBD.

We travel to Tennant Creek where the town’s two premier tourism features, the Battery Hill Mining Centre and the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art Centre, have merged under one banner, with admission to one entitling the visitor to enter both.

Our lead story is the announcement that Jetstar, Qantas's budget carrier, is to create a major aviation hub in Darwin, using the tropical capital as the strategic link between southern Australian capital cities and destinations in south-east Asia.

The Territory Q message has never been clearer: the Northern Territory is a great place to live and make a living – and a centre of unlimited opportunity.

Paul HendersonChief Minister of the Northern Territory

The Northern Territory Government respects

Indigenous cultures and has attempted to

ensure no material has been included in

Territory Q that is offensive to Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islander peoples.

p5

It was an historic announcement. As the press gathered and the cameras

rolled Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson emerged from the Darwin Airport terminal alongside

Unni Menon, Jetstar Airways’ General Manager of Government and

Commercial partnerships (pictured). Fronting the media, the pair made an announcement that has the potential of changing Darwin’s status from an

isolated regional destination to a major aviation hub connecting southern

Australian capital cities with a variety of south-east Asian centres.

DARWIN–theBUDGET HUBtoASIA

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There are nothing but smiles these days at Energy Resources of Australia’s (ERA) Ranger uranium mine near Jabiru. After years of rock-bottom commodity prices, the price of uranium oxide is buoyant, currently trading at US$80 a pound, up from $9 just a few years ago. That means the world’s fourth largest uranium producer, located 260km east of Darwin, is producing less output for more profi t. Despite the lofty value of the Aussie dollar, the company’s fi rst half of the year after tax earnings hit $38.95 million, up from $5.67 million, even after dropping production 6 per cent to 2357 tonnes.

UPGRADES andEXPANSION

at RANGERJetstar, who are already operating two fl ights a day between Darwin and Singapore, would create the hub where they would locate aircraft and personnel. “It’s going to see Jetstar placing pilots here, cabin crew here, and engineering staff here as well,” noted the Chief Minister. “It will provide new opportunities for Territory business and signifi cantly raise the profi le of Darwin in the international marketplace.” The NT Government committed $5 million to help set up the hub and a further $3 million to promote new routes and destinations.

According to an independent study, commissioned by the Territory Government, over the next fi ve years the Darwin hub will inject $160 million into the Territory economy, create more than 570 direct jobs and bring in an additional 250,000 tourists. “Darwin will effectively become the pivot point around which we will have a whole range of international near-Asian services that will come into Darwin,” explains Mr Menon. “We’ll have tourists that get off here and a proportion that will keep going. There’ll be a lot of southern people who will come up to Darwin, break their holiday with Territory experiences, before taking off for international destinations to the north.”

Central to the plan is the increased use of fuel effi cient narrow-bodied, short-haul aircraft such as the new generation Airbus A320 with a capacity of 177 seats. Long-haul aircraft such as the Boeing 747 have a capacity of over 400. Narrow-bodied jets are the preferred model of the world’s budget carriers.

Darwin is ideally situated geographically to act as a transfer point for narrow-bodied jets leaving Asian capitals for southern Australian destinations, and vice versa. “Darwin is approximately four hours from Sydney and from Singapore, so it’s in the perfect location because narrow-bodied jets only have about a fi ve-hour range,” states

Darwin Airport CEO, Ian Kew. “You can’t fl y from Ho Chi Minh City to Sydney direct on narrow-bodied jets.” Today, hundreds of long-haul fl ights leave every year from Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane, fl ying directly over Darwin to all points in Asia. The Darwin hub will change that situation.

The hub is already in operation. On 1 September the fi rst Sydney to Darwin and Darwin direct fl ight to Ho Chi Minh City took place, and daily fl ights from Darwin to Bali have been announced. Jetstar says a variety of other new Asian destinations are soon to be announced. By the end of 2009, three new Jetstar aircraft will be using Darwin as their base, with that number increasing to seven planes by June 2012.

The new Jetstar services will be welcomed by Darwin fl yers tired of having to travel in the middle of the night. “Our intent is wherever possible, we want to be able to offer a scheduling and a timing window that actually makes the travel experience more palatable,” says Mr Menon. “Our Sydney/Darwin service shows that wherever possible we’re migrating to daylight services.”

But Jetstar already operates 46 fl ights into and out of Darwin each week. The airline’s dynamic northern growth has stretched the Darwin International Airport to capacity. Traffi c through Darwin since the downturn in 2001 is growing at a rate of about 10 per cent a year and the hub will see that fi gure soar. Estimates show the hub will see airport activity rise from 1.6 million passengers a year to nearly 3 million within three years.

To accommodate that extra traffi c, the airport terminal and the aircraft parking space need to expand substantially. That is the reason behind Northern Territory

Airports' $60 million terminal expansion program, a project that requires Australian Government approval. “If we put another $60 million worth of investment in this business, we need to get a return on the investment,” contends Mr Kew. “If we don’t invest, they haven’t got airport facilities that will enable Jetstar and other airlines to grow. With Jetstar, the services announced now put us at the limit. We can’t physically handle any more passengers at that time of the day. We haven’t got enough check-in space, or enough international processing space. So, if they want to increase this hub, and we must grow this terminal and our airline customers will have to pay a reasonable charge for it.”

Already in negotiations, Jetstar believes the parties must strike a balance that will see the airport expansion progress while creating a scenario where ticket prices will not go up. “We need to make sure that the terminal expansion plans that have been indicated are complementary to our needs and aspirations,” says Mr Menon. “We’ll work closely with the airport to ensure the long-term sustainability of our Darwin hub operations that we have a competitively priced charging regime in place.”

With the hub set to increase traffi c by an estimated 250,000 into Darwin from the north and south, the Territory tourism industry is facing an unprecedented period of opportunity. “We do a lot of work getting 200,000 international travellers to the Territory through Darwin International Airport and through this hubbing activity we’ll have fi ve or six times that number,” says Mr Kew. “We just need to give them a reason to break their journey and spend some time in Darwin.”

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Top left and right > Artist's conceptions of the exterior and interior of the Darwin International Airport upgrade.Bottom right > A Jetstar narrow-bodied A320 aircraft.

ort CEO, Ian Kew. “You can’t Chi Minh City to Sydney direct odied jets.” Today, hundreds fl ights leave every year from

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ERA has decided to commence the process of gaining approval of the Australian Government and consulting with the Aboriginal traditional owners about the possible open cut expansion and the heap leach facility. The pit expansion targets an extra 8000 tonnes of uranium oxide. The expansion will not extend the mine’s actual operation because the Ranger lease currently expires in January 2021. The expansion does, however, allow the company to access higher grade ore that’s still in the pit. “There has been communication between us [and the traditional owners]. Anything to do with the expansion or the operation, we’re mindful and respectful of the fact that we should be informing the traditional owners fi rst of all,” states Mr Rajapakse.

With the current lease expiration standing like a mountain on the horizon, the company is continually working towards ‘closure’ – the day the lease is integrated back into Kakadu National Park. What happens after the mine closes? What social and economic factors will affect the capacity of the local people? What infrastructure will be left? The answers are all in the company’s closure plan. “Right from the beginning of the operation we’re thinking about what the land can be used for next,” says Philipa Varris, ERA’s Environment and Sustainable Development Manager. “We’re a business with sustainable business practices. It’s not just about us getting what we need now, and then ‘sayonara’. We’ve got to be sure whatever we’re doing on the land doesn’t compromise the next generation and their grandkids' ability to do what they need on the land.”

The company says the once strained relations between the traditional owners and ERA continue to improve. Cross-cultural awareness sessions are held once a month, with the traditional owners often personally welcoming new arrivals to their country. A cultural heritage management program has been initiated, mapping all archaeologically sensitive areas on the lease. “We’ll work together to actually map the whole of this area,” explains Mr Rajapakse, “which means we know exactly where those sites are and, as we move forward with the expansion or with drilling activities, permits must be produced and approved and we can go to a database we’ve created to make sure we are not disturbing sensitive areas.”

Another indication of the improved relations between ERA and local Aborigines is the growing rate of Indigenous workers at Ranger. Out of a total workforce of about 500, a fi gure of 19 per cent, or 95 people, are Indigenous. Working at the mine is becoming more and more attractive to them. “It’s contagious,” says Aboriginal Liaison Offi cer Matthew Large. “A couple of guys are working. They’re bringing home good money and they’re a lot happier. Others see them and think they could do that too, and all of a sudden they’re jumping on the bandwagon. It’s contagious!”

With the price of uranium continuing to increase, the Ranger operation gets more valuable every day. Mr Rajapakse says, “We’re actively exploring because there is the potential to continue this operation well into the future.”

“We’re a business with sustainable business

practices. It’s not just about us getting what we

need now, and then ‘sayonara’. We’ve got to be

sure whatever we’re doing on the land doesn’t

compromise the next generation and their grandkids'

ability to do what they need on the land.”

p8

It is therefore hardly surprising that ERA has spent over $50 million on upgrading its processing facilities in order to process lower grade ore, and, in the longer term, possibly introduce a new heap leach processing technology as well as expanding the existing pit. Two new processing facilities are currently being built. A laterite plant will process stockpiled lateritic ore, which contains a high proportion of clay minerals and is not compatible with the current processing plant and a radiometric sorter.

Lateritic ore has been stockpiled since the mine began operation in 1980.

“What we’ve been able to do now is come up with

the process

and the technology to be able to process it,” explains General Manager of Ranger Operations Suresh Rajapakse. “We’ll commission it later this year and it’ll contribute another 400 tonnes per annum.”

The radiometric sorter uses a new technique to sort ore according to contained uranium, with consequent increase in grade of uranium for the processing plant. It takes material mined years ago that was previously uneconomical to process - until now. If the ratio of non-ore bearing material is 80:20, (that’s 20 accepted and 80 rejected) they can now process only the 20 per cent ore-bearing material. The new process will add 1100 tonnes by 2013, proving to be a good earner. “Now we’ve got the opportunity to separate that into some valuable uranium material that can be processed and material not containing uranium put back into the ground,” says Mr Rajapakse.

Buoyed by their recent in-principle agreement for a contract to supply uranium oxide to an electric utility in China beginning this year, ERA and its majority shareholder, Rio Tinto, see a bright future for Ranger. The company holds the title on two leases – the Ranger project area and 22km north is Jabiluka, another valuable resource currently in long-term care and maintenance. The Ranger lease is still highly prospective where a $14 million exploration program is currently focused.

In September 2007, a pre-feasibility study was announced into options to extend Ranger’s mine life and to increase production from the current processing plant. As part of the pre-feasibility study, ERA conducted a study into the heap leaching of low-grade ore. They will be looking at a 10 million tonne per annum operation, utilising sulphuric acid to leach out the uranium, creating a product that can go through solvent extraction. “From an environmental perspective it has a lot of advantages over the current processing operation,” says Mr Rajapakse. “Now we actually create a tailings product that must be stored in [mined-out] Pit One, whereas in heap leach you don’t actually create tailings that need to be stored.”

Below > The new Ranger laterite plant will separate low-grade uranium.Top right > The radiometric sorter nears completion.Bottom right > General Manager of Ranger Operations, Suresh Rajapakse.

For the past 46 years, Werner Sarny, now 70, has invested in and promoted tourism in the Katherine region, taking it from a lazy bush backwater to a sophisticated tourism centre attracting thousands of visitors from around the world every year. The owner-operator of Travel North pioneered the Katherine Gorge boat trips as well as backpacker and motel accommodation, station homestays, petrol stations and, most recently, Ghan train tours. “There wasn’t even a road to the gorge when Werner started his boat tours,” recalls Tourism Top End President, Sylvia Wolf, who has worked with Mr Sarny since 1969. “He’s made a tremendous contribution to the industry in Katherine and, indeed, the entire Top End.”

Mr Sarny migrated to Melbourne from Austria as a 20-year-old ‘ten pound tourist.’ A shoemaker by trade, he decided he would drive around the country, before stopping in Katherine. When the meatworks closed at the season’s end, he was offered a foreman’s position when the next season kicked off after the wet. He returned and, in his spare time, began to take tours out on the stunning Katherine Gorge with early tourism entrepreneur, Eric March. It was a time when only the lead boat had a motor, towing a pair of ‘Army Ducks’, fl at-bottomed boats with a capacity of 14 people in each. Today’s tour boats carry up to 190 on a two-hour tour.

The next season he returned to Katherine, this time accompanied by his new wife, Patricia. But tourism started to play an important role in his life when friends who owned a guesthouse asked Mr Sarny if he’d like to lease the Northbank business while he was overseas. Mr Sarny leased the guesthouse on a site where he still parks his tour buses today. He saw the opportunities this vast area had to offer, untapped by tourism. “Katherine is a centre for a giant area,” he states. “It’s a region as big as Germany where 85 million people live. We have 17,000 in an area the same size.”

Tourism became his sole occupation when he bought Eric March’s gorge concession, the Katherine Region Tourist Agency (or ‘KRTA’ for short) which included tours to the Cutta Cutta Caves and Geikie Gorge in WA. “We changed the name from KRTA to Travel North because people kept calling us ‘KGB,’” says Mr Sarny, with his distinctive Austrian accent.

Events moved at a pace. That same year Mr Sarny joined forces with local banker Brian Lambert in a partnership that was to last until 1988. “We bought Pine Creek Best Western Motel, Springvale Homestead, we bought Territory Manor in Mataranka, then Mataranka Homestead, and we also bought Palm Court Backpacker, all between 1970 and ’80. It was amazing growth but also amazing debts,” says Mr Sarny with a grin.

During that high-growth period Travel North upgraded its tourist boats for the gorge tours, attracting thousands of self-drive tourists, bus tour visitors and international travellers. Then, in 1989, the area’s traditional owners, the Jawoyn Aborigines, had the gorge returned to their ownership under the Land Rights Act. In the newly named Nitmiluk National Park the Jawoyn wanted to take a more active role in tourism. “We came to an agreement

to mention Katherine’s busy BP Roadhouse. He has seen tourism undergo fundamental change. “Twenty years ago, if people had four weeks holiday they took it all at once. Now people have three or four holidays, fl ying to Singapore or Christchurch and having one-week holidays. People going on holidays with Greyhound is not the done thing any more,” he contends.

One addition to local tourism that has been warmly welcomed is the arrival of the Ghan passenger service on the Adelaide to Darwin Railway. With a stopover of four hours in Katherine, Travel North operates a choice of six tours for train passengers, moving 250 people four times a week.

Mr Sarny, however, believes self-drive patrons are still the mainstay of Katherine region tourism. While others fear that rising fuel prices are a threat to the self drive market, Mr Sarny disagrees. “Fuel still is not prohibitively expensive,” he states. “The caravan industry is still doing very well. Every year there’s increases.”

He believes the ‘grey nomads’ are Katherine’s most important market demographic, but while their fuel costs are higher, they remain low when compared to the costs of accommodation and touring. “Many of those people are

“It’s a region as big as Germany where 85 million

people live. We have 17,000 in an area the same size.”

that they actually bought into my business,” says Mr Sarny. “In 1990 we signed a 15-year partnership and after 15 years they could buy me out. On 31 December 2005 they did buy me out…for quite a reasonable amount.” He had run the boat tours for 30 years.

These days Mr Sarny, father of three girls, having overcome severe health problems, is slowing down. He’s divested himself of a number of his business ventures but still owns and operates Travel North tours, the Pine Tree Motel, Springvale Homestead, Palm Court Kookaburra Backpackers, not

driving rigs costing $60,000 for the car and $40,000 for the caravan. Petrol is a small percentage of that – especially if they are travelling for three months or more,” says Mr Sarny.

But winding down does not mean putting his feet up. Werner Sarny may no longer be a commissioner of the NT Tourist Commission or chairman of the Katherine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, or chairman of the Katherine Tourist Association, but he’s still got lots left in the tank that earned him an Order of Australia for his contribution to tourism.

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regular feature: TALL POPPYFate has played a major

role in the life of Werner Sarny. The man who was

to be the one to place Katherine on the national tourism map came to the

Top End town by accident. Travelling through

Katherine as a young man in 1962, his car broke

down as he was heading west on the Victoria

Highway when it was a dirt track. Forced to return to

Katherine to get repairs, he had to wait for the delivery of spare parts so he took a job at the local meatworks. He has lived there ever since.

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: the travel king of katherine

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It’s harvest time at the Sweet Life’s sprawling Lambells Lagoon farm. Rockmelons and honeydews are coming into the packing shed by the truckload. Watermelons are nearly ready for harvest, but not just yet. Crews of pickers move through the fi elds, while packers grade and pack fruit inside the shed. Six months ago these fi elds and the shed were empty. Today they are the centre of a rejuvenated Top End horticulture industry.

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The Sweet Life is a melon-growing company that is a partnership between family business Amaland Agco of Griffi th, New South Wales (that’s the Amaro brothers, Gary, Duane and Randy) and the Fresh Fruit Company in Sydney (that’s the Logozzo brothers, Joe, Robert and Julian). With the initiation of the Sweet Life line, Amaland is one of the largest rockmelon growers in Australia. They produce a highly respected brand that is shipped by the truckload to markets in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, locally to Coles and exported overseas to Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

The Lambells Lagoon farm comprises 170ha of rockmelons, 48ha of honeydews and a smaller area of watermelons. Competing with growers in Queensland and the Ord, the Sweet Life has produced a major harvest in its fi rst attempt in an environment that is considerably different from their native Griffi th area. “When we got here, we didn’t know what would happen,” recalls farm manager Duane Amaro. “But rockmelons have been done up here before. We knew if we could we get the good sugar and the size, compared to everyone else, we could be better.”

The Sweet Life Group has a vision for the melon industry nationally, where the Top End farm plays a signifi cant role. “Our vision is to increase the consumption of rockmelons,” says Mr Amaro. “The intention is to supply quality, quantity and sugars for the customers all year round. If that

happens consistently, people buy more. We want to provide a product that’s sweet and the size the consumer wants.”

It is an industry his family has pioneered. Mr Amaro’s father, Marvin, is a farming legend in the Riverina who died in 2004. Mr Amaro, his wife and eight children arrived in Australia in 1964 from California. An innovator who was seen to have revolutionised many aspects of farming, Marvin Amaro and his family took tomato production from 100 tonnes a day in the 1960s to 1700 tonnes . With rockmelons, Marvin Amaro introduced a picking machine that carries pickers, either seated or lying down, over the crop. The machine carries 18 pickers under shade, allowing them to pick fruit and pass them onto a conveyor. It is a model also in operation today in Lambells Lagoon farm.

Even though a strong harvest has been produced, Duane Amaro and his partners saw this initial year as a learning experience. They had to overcome boring insects, fl ocks of marauding cockatoos, transport hold-ups and labour issues, but they still believe their product is superior at this time of the year, compared to other northern growing regions. The Sweetlifers believe that the warm Top End weather will allow them to grow varieties that are sweeter than their competitors, and will help to increase melon consumption across Australia.

p14

Top left > Farm manager Duane Amaro among the rockies.Bottom left > Packers separate and pack the

rockmelons before they are sent south.Top right > Honeydew melons roll off the conveyor.Bottom right > Rockmelons fresh from the fi eld are

transported to the packing shed.

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p16 p17

His housing reintroduced Burnett’s tropical design principles back into the marketplace after they had been abandoned following Cyclone Tracy in favor of sturdy, ground level concrete block structures. He commissioned Darwin’s leading architectural practices to help develop whole subdivisions of tropically designed houses at RAAF base Darwin, HMAS Coonawarra, Larrakeyah Army Barracks and Palmerston.

Mr Fletcher remains a passionate advocate of refl ective regional architecture. “Why are we building houses designed for the Gold Coast in Darwin? They have nothing to do with the lifestyle here,” he contends. “If you build in the style that is appropriate for the climate, houses are going to differ everywhere you go and that is a good thing. They simply refl ect the local climate and the materials used, and to some extent, local lifestyle.”

The $160,000 budget was Mr Fletcher’s greatest challenge, forcing the clients and designer into innovative solutions. They found heavy shelving at Bunnings that works well as robes. The clients were fl exible, avoiding kitchen cupboards that can cost over $20,000. They found steel-framed prefabricated workbenches with big cabinets for tool storage and heavy-duty drawer units at Repco, providing a robust, cheaper solution. “They built the whole kitchen for under $2000,” declares Mr Fletcher. “They bolted it all together and the builder screwed it in place. Rather than tiling for the splash-back behind they found some recycled timber. Now, everybody goes there and says, ‘Wow, what did the kitchen cost?’”

Since the awards, Mr Fletcher has been deluged by people wanting the same thing. He believes that if they manufactured several of these at a time and were sold as kits, the savings would even be greater. He is investigating that option. “You can’t patent this idea and sell it because there are little bits of it everywhere,” he says. “It’s just that I put it all together in this one little package. The idea of manufacturing a kit that could partially be factory-built and stood up on site by local people really appeals to me.”

This year the RAIA’s Burnett Award went to a design that would have made the old innovator proud: the ‘Batchelor Pad’, a home featuring an architect’s budget of just $160,000, a fi nancial constraint that “drove the architect to extreme levels of innovation and ingenuity,” according to the RAIA citation. “The resultant architecture is an affordable and attractive lightweight pavilion in an abundant northern Australian garden – a special design which pushes the boundaries of affordable housing to new levels with skill and innovation. The jury was unanimous in their acclamation of this worthy design.”

The winning architect was Peter Fletcher (pictured), of Darwin’s Architects Studio/Mode Design, who is pragmatic about the win. “This was one of the smallest jobs I’ve ever done (apart from a toilet block) but it’s probably the most satisfying,” says Mr Fletcher. “I was really pleased with the outcome and the price, and to be then recognised by the profession was an added bonus.”

The home, located in the town of Batchelor 100km south of Darwin, is basically unlined except for the roof, which is heavily insulated and projects out everywhere around the house to shade it and keep the water out. The walls are ‘single skin’, featuring one layer of lining on the outside. Their precursors are the early Queenslander houses that had a veranda to protect those walls.

Replacing expensive manufactured glass windows, polycarbonate plastic, both clear and tinted according to location, is screwed onto the window frames. All windows can be pushed out with a stick for optimum fl ow-though cooling. It’s an open pavilion design, not unlike a Balinese hotel foyer, with some private areas that are screened. “While this house doesn’t look anything like a Burnett House, the principles that he used have been incorporated in it,” explains Mr Fletcher. “It has a new expression because we have new materials and we have steel which he didn’t have access to.”

Peter Fletcher played with the notion of affordable tropical housing for years. He headed up Defence Housing in the early 1990s when hundreds of military personnel and their families were relocated to Darwin.

p17

The Burnett Award for Residential Architecture

is the prestigious annual presentation by the

Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA), commemorating the

work of Beni Burnett, the legendary Commonwealth architect whose tropically designed houses changed the way Darwinians lived

back in the 1930s. Burnett houses were based

on designs the architect developed after living

in Malaysia. They were characteristically elevated

and open planned with louvred windows all round, using the natural fl ow of air

to cool the dwelling.

pad –theBATCHELORAFFORDABLEtropicaltropicalHOUSING

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People have been buying the apartments well before they were even built. In order to give prospective buyers an idea of what the apartments would look like and what the views would be like, Sunbuild spent $500,000 on an full-size display unit on McMinn Street, complete with a 36m long photo of the view. Interested parties had to settle for a display photo from the 23rd fl oor, which was the highest the builders could get with a mobile crane at that time.

Evolution is not referred to as a ‘vertical village’ for nothing. The design, by architect Darrell Brown of Burling Brown Architects, features commercial suites for ground fl oor shopfronts, three levels of residential car parking, a 1200 sqm recreational podium deck with two 25m lap lanes at the end of a lagoon pool. It has a gymnasium, games room, outdoor barbecue tables and chairs, plus a communal hobby workshop on level two.

The two top-level penthouse apartments are yet to be sold, which is not particularly worrying to Sunbuild. The price for the penthouses is $5 million, and they come complete with their own swimming pools, whereas the three bedroom apartments are available from $840,000 to $1.52 million. “We’ve had interest shown in the penthouses but I think they’re the sort of property that people will want to touch and feel before they commit,” observes Mr Booth. “But $5 million is not a big stretch when you consider what is being offered. The Darwin market’s maturing.”

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It does not matter what side of the high-rise debate

you are on, one thing all Territorians agree upon is

the simple fact that the new Evolution on Gardiner

building completely dominates the Darwin skyline, and is likely to remain the city’s tallest

building. Developed and built by local construction

company, Sunbuild, the project is driven by two

couples, Neil and Desley Sunners and Jim and

Pam Eadie. While each has a major role in the

development of the project, it is Neil Sunners who has managed its construction.

Mr Sunners can be found on various levels of Evolution every working day, personally guiding the construction of the 33 storey apartment building. It is not a role he particularly wanted. It was thrust upon him due to the skills shortage currently creating headaches for employers around the Territory. “I’m a little bit more hands-on than I wanted to be but I have skills in that area,” explains Mr Sunners, who started work on high-rises as an apprentice back in 1970. “We‘re in a situation where we have a very poor quality standard of supervision in the industry at the moment, with most of Australia’s best supervisors working in China or Dubai. I’ve tried four different guys in this project in the structure’s foreman role and they just haven’t managed it. High-rises are a specialised fi eld.”

High-rise construction is not new to Sunbuild. Mr Sunners had previously built smaller projects in the CBD like Lameroo and Balmoral. Sunbuild is also currently building the new airport hotel. But he wanted Evolution to be different and set a standard for quality never before experienced in Darwin.

Originally, he wanted to fi nd a CBD block for a 29 storey, 40 unit building, but he ran into trouble fi nding a reasonably sized block that people wanted to sell. To make the venture viable he had to fi nd the right ratio of the number of units to space. He then started looking to buy an area comprised of four house blocks, preferably on a corner block for more space.

That ideal space appeared on the corner of Gardiner and McMinn streets. “I spent a bit more money than I expected on the block of land, so I thought, I’d just go up higher,” recalls Mr Sunners. “I always had the concept of producing the top of the range fi nishes, nothing that Darwin’s ever seen before. I was sure that people would buy it if they could see the quality.”

Thirty-three storeys was the height limit placed on the developer by the Australian Department of Defence, in accordance with the Darwin Town Plan. But then delays in getting the fi nal height approvals, coupled with building foundation problems, pushed the construction schedule back nearly a year. But the Sunbuild team persevered and fi nally won the required approval, safe in the knowledge that, barring a change of heart by Defence, theirs will always be Darwin’s tallest building.

It is also soon to be the city’s most exclusive address, featuring helicopter-like city views coupled with stylish interior designs and quality fi ttings. With over 80 per cent of the 104 residential apartments sold, the new owners will start moving in before the year’s end. They will reside in three and four bedroom apartments, all with ensuites, fl oor to ceiling windows and over-size balconies.

“Over 90 per cent of the buyers are locals who want to live here. Sunbuild set out to provide a product that locals could call home,” says real estate manager David Booth, who will also be Evolution’s fi rst live-in house manager.

p18

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Both programs recognise that each station is different. Smaller, family operated stations with lower power generation needs can be powered economically from a conventional solar hybrid set-up, using a diesel generator as a back-up. At Deepwell station 100km south of Alice Springs, the Hayes family had a solar hybrid system installed fi ve years ago, when diesel cost 80 cents a litre. The solar panels are hooked up to diesel generators, operating off a battery bank. When the power saved in the batteries reaches a low point, the diesel kicks in.

The Deepwell set-up was installed by Mike Farrell of Eco Energy in Alice Springs, at a cost of $170,000, 50 per cent of which was rebated under the Renewable Remote Power Generation Program, funded by the Australian Government and administered by the Northern Territory Government’s Department of Regional Development, Primary Industry, Fisheries and Resources. The Deepwell set-up consists of 30 x 175W solar panels and 30 batteries. It cost the Hayes family $89,000 and has already paid for itself.

Five years ago the family was using 300 generator hours a month, burning 1500 litres of diesel. Today the solar set-up has more than halved that consumption, using only 720 litres a month. “I worked it out. At a $1.90 a litre, we’re saving $1500 a month,” says pastoralist Tracey Hayes.

“Our [diesel] generator used to run between 10 and 12 hours a day and then we had no power, so we had to feed the baby by candlelight. Now, with the solar system, we’re averaging half that [generator time] and we’ve got power 24 hours a day. It’s great.”

However, the Hayes' hybrid system would not put a dent in the power required at Brunette Downs on the Barkly Tableland. More a remote township than a cattle station, Brunette is home to 50 people,each with their own electrical requirements. A solar set-up required for a station that size is not economical because their power use requires too large a battery bank and solar array set-up, demanding too much capital infrastructure investment at the beginning.

That is why the Cattlemen’s Association has embarked on the options study, enlisting the help of 24 large stations across the Territory. Darwin based company Novolta, an alternative energy specialist, is the noted authority on remote area power generation, servicing Aboriginal communities, national parks, the mining industry and cattle stations. “They are going to come up with a guide that other large power users in Australia can pick up and apply to their situation,” predicts Cattlemen’s Association Project Offi cer, Ian McLean. “All those 24 involved will be able to

work with the company helping it to design a tailored system based on their specifi c needs.”

Brunette Downs is one of the 24, as is the Cadzow family on Mt Riddock station, 200km north of Alice Springs. The Cadzows have already made savings by installing solar panels to generate power for nine of the station’s 18 bores. While the capital cost in installing the panels ranged from $6000 to $35,000 a bore, using them has already saved the family almost $20,000 in diesel costs over the past three years. Novolta will come up with a plan that incorporates these renewable uses. “Because of the commonality between the stations, I think we’ll come up with three or four methodologies based on size and geographic location,” explains Novolta’s Managing Director Wolfgang Meike. “They want a design that’s economic to them.”

On Deepwell, even though the station has been facing six years of draught, the Hayes family wants to upgrade their solar set-up. “We can add to it. We can put in more solar panels or put a wind turbine into it that can add to the power profi le when the wind’s blowing,” says pastoralist Billy Hayes. “I’m surprised that more stations haven’t jumped on board. You put big money into a new set of yards, but this will pay for itself a lot faster.”

p21

With diesel now soaring over the $2 a litre mark in many remote areas of the Territory, it is no wonder that the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association is backing the use of renewable energy on cattle properties. The group has joined with the Australian and the NT governments in projects aimed at promoting the uptake of renewable options like solar and wind turbine generated energy. They have initiated two projects: one is an option study aimed at larger stations with large populations, and the other is a development project on smaller stations where renewable energy is applicable and economical.

THErenewable

p20

Far Left > Cattlemen's Association's Ian McLean shares a laugh with Tracey Hayes in the shadow of the Deepwell Station solar set-up.Top left > Tracey Hayes checks the oil in the power generator.Top right > Solar panels at deepwell.

p22 p23

SOMETHING completely different…

p23

The elderly couple parked their Gazal Infi nity caravan

outside the Daly Waters Historic Pub and walked

hand-in-hand towards the open door.

Stepping through the door, Bob Markham stopped

dead in his tracks, struck by the sight before him.

There was the 1930s pub with rusty farm tools

hanging on the walls, the rafters decorated by

thousands of paper bank notes from around the

world. There are dozens of women’s bras of varying

sizes hanging from the ceiling, and bumper

stickers holding the bar up. Below the sign that

reads ‘Reecepshun’ stands a pretty barmaid pouring a cold beer from the tap.

Suddenly a great smile spreads across Bob’s face. “This’ll do me,” he says.

…andnowfor

p22

This image > Robyn W

ebster and

Lindsay Carmichael, licensees of

the Daly W

aters Historic Pub.

p24 p25

Arthur Rubenstein the pianist, and Lord Rothchild the fi nancier. The war multiplied the activity in this isolated spot in the bush before improved aircraft eliminated the need for refuelling.

The pub later had a string of owners before the current licensees arrived on the scene. They have made the Daly Waters Historic Pub a national landmark. “We’ve worked very hard on the coach business as well as the grey nomads,” says Mr Carmichael. “That’s paid off too. We have one company stay overnight 15 times a year. We have another company, Scenic Tours, come in here about 25 times a year for lunch, and Adventure Tours bring 13 buses a week in here. There’s a new one that brings in backpackers on buses.”

The place is hopping tonight. It’s showtime. The ‘Chookman’ is playing an old Johnny Cash classic to a packed house of grey nomads and families fresh from the highway. The cooks are serving barra and beef to the backpackers who are lining up at the salad bar, and a pretty little barmaid from Amsterdam is pouring tall glasses of beer for the punters at the front bar, under the hanging bras.

Bill and Henrietta Pearce would hardly recognise the place.

Indeed it is. But although the historic pub looks like a spontaneous bit of fun, there’s really a well-planned marketing strategy in place that is carefully considered by the owners. There was a time when this pub had a reputation as a rough local cowboy bar. “We stopped all that and took it from that to what it is now,” relates licensee Lindsay Carmichael. “You get a few ringers in here acting stupid, then families and couples head for the exits. Now people can have a chat and a few beers, and to me that’s what most people want.”

They also like the entertainment. Joining licensees Robyn Webster and partner Mr Carmichael every April, when the season fi res up, is the ‘Chookman’, Frank Turton,

the bush balladeer. He shares the pub’s stage with one of his pet chickens

that he unsuccessfully tries to pass off as a baby wedgetail eagle. Mr Turton gears his set to the nomads and caravan humour. “People run out of things to say after travelling huge distances together,” observes Mr Turton.

“You can’t even spark a domestic. And people are

looking for something at the end of the day. If you stop at a roadhouse

you see the same bloody chicken leg you saw 500k’s back. It’s the

sameness. Daly Waters serves up a difference.”

They also serve up some of the Territory’s top tucker - tasty, simple but good value. Their steaks are as good as you’ll fi nd in the best Darwin restaurant and their salads are fresh and inviting. Their barramundi is purchased direct from the fi shermen in Borroloola on the Gulf of Carpentaria.

From the start of the season in mid-April to August staff served 8000 beef and barramundi meals, averaging about 600 a week. That’s about 5 tonne of barra a year. “If you present the meal properly and do a good product, well-cooked, well-served, with good fresh salads and homemade bread, people don’t care about the price,” explains Mr Carmichael. “But if you look at a menu in Adelaide or Darwin, you’d be looking to pay $35 for something similar. At $25 ours isn’t cheap, but it is reasonable.”

Mr Carmichael and Ms Webster bought the pub eight years ago in partnership with another party, whom they bought out four years ago. Since then they’ve been fascinated by the establishment’s past. It was originally built in 1930 as a store by Bill Pearce, when the old Stuart Highway ran past and a droving track attracted ringers from the west. English girl Henrietta Pearce married Bill and came to the Territory. She recalled later how they struggled. Sometimes it was three weeks before a car passed by.

The Pearces applied for a ‘jug licence’ and a bush bank. Drovers put money in the bank so when they returned later in the season, they’d have money to spend in the pub.

Then, in 1934, Henrietta Pearce wrote that “good fortune descended on us out of the blue.” Qantas Airways announced it would operate a service from Brisbane to Singapore, connecting with Imperial Airways to London. They would establish an international runway at Daly Waters for refuelling, a concession picked up by the Pearces. Tickets cost 276 pounds, with the fl ight taking eight days. Henrietta cooked for the passengers, serving in their bough shed dining room while the planes refuelled. “It was very similar to what we do today,” says Ms Webster. “The coaches come in and we feed them, sell them drinks, put them back on the coach and send them on their way. That’s what Henrietta Pearce did - only with planes.”

Some of the great names of the day passed through Daly Waters aerodrome. Pioneer aviators Ross and Keith Smith fl ew in, as well as Lady Louis Mountbatten,

Typical. It’s an establishment that’s more than welcoming - it’s downright enticing. That is perhaps why the Daly Waters Pub, located 560km south of Darwin, is the must-stop for all grey nomad caravanners making their way around the highways of Australia. Herb and Viv Corbett from Perth sold their house, bought a giant Winnebago mobile home and took to the open road with their cocker spaniel Montie. They are among about 50 caravans overnighting at the adjacent camp ground. Why Daly Waters? “It’s the talk of the caravan parks,” says Viv. “Everyone says that this is a great place to stop for the night and last night the place was chockers. It’s all word o’ mouth, I reckon.” g y

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This image > The Chookman, Frank Turton, and 'baby wedgetail eagle' in concert.Top centre > Frank Turton's tourist shack.Centre > Inside the pub.Bottom left centre > The chef serves up a tasty Daly Waters steak.Bottom right centre > Caravans and buses line up outside the pub.

p255p222

p27

Soon, visitors to Tennant Creek will be able to pay for admission at one of the two venues, with that fee allowing them entry into both. It will allow visitors to experience the feeling of being underground in one of the mines that made Tennant Creek one of the country’s most important mining centres, and it will allow them to discover the art and culture of the local Warumungu people.

Elliot McAdam, the former NT Government minister and former member for the Tennant Creek seat of Barkly, is the newly appointed CEO of the foundation. He was instrumental in getting the two attractions to combine forces. “The long term goal is to develop a product which is of world standing, and both of those attractions are,” he states. “The important thing is to put into place effi cient management systems and a strong marketing program. There are 220,000 people who drive through Tennant Creek every year, and this will give them a good reason to stop and stay the night.”

The Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Cultural Centre has struggled fi nancially, and has been funded by the NT Government and the local Julalikari Association, with most of its staff on CDEP wages. The centre was eager to get involved with Battery Hill. “We were the fi rst to accept the concept,” recalls Pat Brahim, general manager of the Julalikari Aboriginal Corporation. “We were both competing for resources from government so bringing the two together would benefi t both entities.”

Both Battery Hill and Nyinkka Nyunyu receive funding from the NT Government and will continue to receive funding over the next three years through the Tennant Creek Foundation. It is hoped that over that time they will both be on a viable fi nancial footing. “The whole thing is to get them up and running as profi table businesses,” explains Mr McAdam.

Battery Hill had nearly reached a level of self-suffi ciency when it was found to require a major refurbishment to ensure the safety of those who pass through. That has now taken place and tunnel tours have recommenced. “Following the refurbishment, we now have a tunnel that is representative of some of the latest mining techniques,” states foundation manager Derek McPadden. “We’re preserving a vital part of Tennant Creek’s history. For years it was the only operating stamp battery in northern Australia. We’re in the process of having that refurbished, and we’ll be sending the original wooden bullwheels down to Sovereign Hill, and when they come back this battery will again be operational.”

The Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Cultural Centre is the marketing hub for all Indigenous art from the region. The female painters from the town’s Pink Palace art centre exhibit and sell their work at Nyinkka Nyunyu. They include works by award-winning painter Peggy Jones whose character motifs decorate the art centre grounds. The art centre also provides space for Warumungu craftsmen to fashion traditional weapons and tools to sell to visitors.

The uniting of these two tourism ventures under the banner of the Tennant Creek Foundation will be closely watched by tourism professionals around the Territory. If it is successful in achieving its fi nancial goals, it could set a precedent. “This model should be looked at in other regional centres where you have separate tourist operations that are funded by government,” says Mr McAdam. “The challenge here, through the Tennant Creek Foundation, is to try and make dollars in that three-year period. It’s outcome focused.”

They could be called the odd couple of Central Australian tourism – an exhibit that recreates a 1970s

underground mining operation, and an Aboriginal art and cultural centre that showcases the history

and lifestyle of the area’s Indigenous people. They are the two sides of the Tennant Creek experience – the

Battery Hill Mining Centre and the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Cultural Centre – and they have now gone into partnership under the banner of the Tennant Creek

Foundation. “It’s going to give Tennant Creek’s tourism promotion a very strong focus,” says

Roddy Calvert, manager of the Tennant Creek Visitor Centre. “Marketing them as one should end up seeing a better Tennant Creek package. They are very diverse

tours, but they are what Tennant Creek’s all about.”

AtourismPARTNERSHIPinTENNANT creek

p26

Top and Far left > A guide explains the operation of a drill in the tunnel that simulates an underground mine.

Top right > The Tennant Creek Visitor Information Centre also serves as the entrance to the Battery Hill tour.

Left > The Nyinka Nyunyu Art and Cultural Centre's gift shop.Above > Pink Palace artist Susan Nakkamarra Nelson works on

a painting that will be sold at the Nyinka Nyunyu Art Centre.

p29

Emma is also dual enrolled with the Australian Technical College. “We deliver value adding by organising industry specifi c training or a certifi cate in workplace practices, which is getting the kids prepared for the world of work,” says Peter Donovan, Industry Liaison Manager for the federally funded Australian Technical College. “We also have people from the banks, the police, the superannuation people and the unions come and talk to the kids over the two years.”

School-based apprenticeships are a program initiated as a direct result of the skills shortage because, while the Australian Technical College is funded by Canberra, it is owned and controlled by a board represented by the Motor Traders Association, Group Training, the Territory Chamber of Commerce, the Territory Construction Association, and the Australian Hotels Association. The industry board drives the direction they take. “We’re not going to replace full-time apprentices,” says Mr Donovan, “it’s just to supplement full-time apprentices. It’s another pathway for the kids to get in the trades.”

School-based apprenticeships are the latest strategy between industry and government to overcome the skill shortage in the trades sector. Kerry’s is a good example. They are advertising for six mechanics positions at the moment and have had no suitable applicants. But they have taken the long-term view and embraced the apprenticeship program, taking on two fi rst-year apprentices through the school-based system, and eight apprentices in total. “We need staff,” states workshop manager Corey Heuvel, who started at Kerry's 19 years ago as a trainee. “Everybody needs staff and if you can start them off at a younger age as apprentices, they get to know the disciplines from day one, and they get real experience on the early model cars as well.”

Under the school-based model, the apprenticeship trade training takes the place of elective subjects. Education in the basics – maths, science and English – is the same, and all eight weeks of trade school and on-the-job training go towards high school certifi cate. Ms Westlund goes to Taminmin for two days, works at Kerry's for two days, and goes to an RTO one day a week. The RTO, or Registered Training Organisation, is where apprentices study the technical side of their trade.

THEnewapprenticesIn a busy automobile

workshop dominated by males of all ages,

Emma Westlund stands out. The-17-year old is

quietly taking apart a gearbox at her workbench,

carefully examining each part. A year 12 student at Taminmin High School in outer Darwin, she is also

a paid apprentice here at Kerry Holden, and will

complete half of her fi rst-year apprenticeship when

she graduates this year. She plans on fi nishing the

entire four-year course. “I’m just interested in cars

and I wanted to know how Holdens work and

what keeps them going,” explains Ms Westlund.

“But I want to get onto bigger and better things.

I always wanted to be a racer!”

p29

When the Alice Springs Economic Development

Committee (EDC) met to come up with ideas

designed to take the centre’s economy into the future, they found

themselves at a loss. They had no real handle on

the local economy, only anecdotal evidence. They

had a blurred picture of the Alice Springs economy because they had no solid

baseline data on who made up the community

business sector. Their decision? ‘First we get accurate fundamental

data, then we go to work building the

economy.’

The result, six months later, was the Alice Springs Economic Profi le, which tells, for the fi rst time, the story of the Alice Springs economy. The Alice Springs Economic Development Committee and the then Department of Business, Economic and Regional Development (DBERD) partnered to produce this profi le to provide the starting point for discussions between the community and the government about the future development of Alice Springs.

It was a document that provided surprises for all concerned. The researchers were not expecting the upbeat dialogues that characterised the project. What they got back was a snapshot in a period of relative prosperity. “The results came back very positive,” reports Project Coordinator Sue Harley. “Business confi dence was just so high. We were blown away by the number of businesses that took part in the survey. We targeted 600 and got 380 back, which is a really good result.” The lasting image it creates, says the report, is that of an underlying confi dence in the Alice Springs economy and the fi rm expectation that this is to continue.

With businesses opening and closing every day, how did they know whom to survey? The researchers printed out a spreadsheet on all registered business in the Alice Springs area, and checked against tax offi ce data to see all businesses that were still in operation. They were careful to include all industry sectors in the CBD, the industrial area, and home-based businesses.

The research team decided the only way to get accurate results was to pound the pavement in a doorknock operation. It had to be face-to-face. In order to project an air of professionalism, new uniforms were created, and media announcements preceded their visits. Generic business questions were canvassed: what was your turnover last year? Do you have confi dence for future? Who is your market? Who do you buy from? Most people, it was found, source their supplies locally. “We found skilled labour was very short, and that just echoed through the survey,” recalls Ms Harley. “It’s a huge issue. Even retail and coffee shops were short of staff.”

The Alice Springs Economic Profi le states, “Alice Springs is a broad-based economy, supported by a signifi cant diversity in its industry sectors. The top seven industries contributed approximately 52 per cent of the regional output to Alice Springs. There are more than 1800 businesses in the town… with over 58 per cent of businesses affected by seasonality. Confi dence for the 2008 trading year and sales and profi ts are expected to rise.”

How will the profi le be used? “It’s up to interested parties to use it as they will,” says EDC Chairman and owner of Ross Engineering, Neil Ross. “Are you a company considering moving to Alice Springs? Are you recruiting staff? Many of the issues business people face are canvassed in the profi le. It’s a starting point that’ll help you make important decisions.”

BUSINESS?aliceSPRINGS – how’s

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Crocosaurus Cove is Darwin’s fi rst inner city

theme park. Situated in the centre of the city’s Mitchell

Street tourism district, the fi xture gives visitors

an opportunity to see huge Top End saltwater

crocodiles as they’ve never been displayed before. “Darwin tourism badly

needed product that would attract people to the city,”

explained Doug Gamble, builder and co-owner of

the new development. “Too often it was seen as

a stopping-off place for people going somewhere else. Plus, there’s a lot of

people who don’t have the time to go out and see Kakadu and places

like that - People off cruise liners, and the like.”

city

p31

cover story:

p30

This image > A brave lass dives into the 'cage of death'.

Mr Burns has closed the Croc Farm to tourism, preferring to concentrate the tourism activity at the Cove and treat the farm as a commercial operation. The Noonamah-based farm is now the home of over 50,000 animals, with many of the smaller, younger animals rotated through Crocosaurus Cove. The farm was also the source of the giant 5m-plus animals that now reside at the Cove, and moving them 50km into the city took skill and strategic planning.

Mr Burns contracted Big Gecko (see following story), Nik Robinson and Crocosaurus crocodile manager Nigel Palmer to move the animals. Their brief was to transport the animals individually by road, striving to keep their levels of stress to a minimum. The crocodiles were captured, anaesthetised and secured to trailers for the trip. Once at the Cove they were lifted by crane over the three storey walls and into their enclosures. The huge crocs were then released into their new home. “The animals are loving it here,” reports Mr Burns. “They are probably more relaxed than I’ve ever seen them. They’re eating and they’ve got good water and they just settled in so well.”

On view, among others, is Houdini (named for his penchant for escape) and his partner Bess who have been together for 15 years, producing many nests; there’s 5.5m Chopper, weighing in at 800kg; and the star of the show, Burt. Captured in 1981 at Reynolds River following a series of cattle attacks, Burt was later to feature in the fi lm Crocodile Dundee opposite Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski.

One of the reasons for the animals’ wellbeing is the purity of their water. Over a million litres of water fl ow through the system, with each aquarium completely changing its entire volume every hour and ten minutes - far more than any public swimming pool. It is a closed water volume, using very little water on a weekly basis because of three large UV fi ltration systems and 12 very large fi lters specifi cally designed for the system. “We want the water crystal clear so people can see the animals, as well as looking out for the welfare and health of the animals. I don’t believe anyone anywhere in the world has seen these animals so close up,” says Mr Gamble.

Some see them really close up. Crocosaurus Cove is the world’s only facility where intrepid visitors have the opportunity to swim with giant saltwater crocodiles. They are lowered into an enclosure in the Cage of Death, a long acrylic tube with 40mm thick panes free from bars, as in a shark cage. Another attraction allows the swimmer to dive in an adjoining tank and check out the big croc through a clear perspex wall.

For others, viewing these massive reptiles from the safety of dry land is adventure enough. “Overall, it’s taking people at least three to four hours to go through, which is great,” observes Mr Gamble. “It’s an attraction that will give people a reason to stay an extra day in Darwin, and there’ll be an ongoing positive effect on the local restaurants and hotels.”

“It’s an attraction that

will give people a

reason to stay an

extra day in

Darwin,

and there’ll be

an ongoing positive

effect on the local

restaurants and hotels.”

p33

And for others who do have the time, a visit to Crocosaurus Cove whets their appetites to go further afi eld and visit other crocodile viewing venues like Crocodylus Park, the Territory Wildlife Park, the Jumping Crocodile operations and Kakadu National Park, all of which are advertised at the Cove. It is a project that took three years to realise from its conception to the opening, taking 34 approvals from different parties to achieve, and nearly $30 million to build.

But the new development offers much more than large crocodiles. It features an aquarium that’s home to a host of Territory fi sh and other underwater species, a reptile display featuring a wide array of Territory varieties, a turtle sanctuary, eye-catching interpretation including fi lms showing crocs in the wild and lifelike models of other crocodile species from around the world. “A lot of people walk away from here knowing a lot more about crocodiles than they did when they came in,” says Mick Burns, co-owner and operator of the fi xture.

The project was a joint venture between Mr Gamble and Mr Burns, two Darwin entrepreneurs known for their tourism and hospitality developments. In the 1990s, Mr Gamble had the vision to buy properties along Mitchell Street in the CBD, building the fi rst backpacker accommodation that eventually transformed the street into today’s thriving tourism hospitality district. His family still owns 1200 tourist beds on both sides of the street.

His partner in the Cove project was Mr Burns (nicknamed ‘Captain Crocodile’ by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd), a well-known local publican and owner of the Darwin Crocodile Farm and Porosus crocodile products, exporter of fi ne crocodile skins to European fashion manufacturers. Their arrangement was straightforward. “I own the land and my part of the deal was to design the project, get all the approvals for it, and build it,” explained Mr Gamble. “And then, I hand it over to Mick. And his deal is to supply the animals and to run it. And, believe me, he’s put his heart and soul into it.”

p32

Top left > Visitors view the animals from above...Top right > ... or below the surface.Above > Mick Burns and Doug Gamble in the as-yet-unstocked Crocosaurus gift shop.Right > A daring swimmer drops below the surface in the 'cage of death'.Below > Chopper checks out his new home.Bottom far right > Baby crocs huddle together.

They are scientists turned fi lmmakers turned wildlife wranglers. They are Adam

and Erin Britton, the principals of a uniquely Territorian consultancy business aptly named Big Gecko. They work with

crocodiles in a host of different ways, and believe once you go beyond seeing them

as man-eating beasts, you realise that crocodiles are just big geckos.

p35

bigGECKO –TAKINGterritoryCROCODILES totheWORLD

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p36 p37

The talents of the Brittons, however, extends beyond fi lmmaking. Handling crocodiles takes skill and experience, so it was Big Gecko that the owners of Crocosaurus Cove turned to when they needed eight giant 4m-plus animals moved from the Darwin Croc Farm to their new facility in the Darwin CBD. It was a potentially dangerous exercise that, in the wrong hands, could produce nightmarish results. But Big Gecko, in partnership with renowned croc handler Nik Robinson, pulled it off in a seemingly effortless manner (see story page 30). “We spent a lot of time and effort making sure it was going to run smoothly and when it happened it did run smoothly. There were no injuries to any animal or any injuries to any people,” recalled Adam Britton.

But the heart of Big Gecko lies in scientifi c research, an endeavour they will soon return to. They are off, at their own expense, to Bullo River station (see TQ fourth quarter 2006) in the wild Victoria River district of the Territory. There they will capture and study a rare freshwater crocodile species called pygmy crocodiles that inhabit a dry, isolated section of the station. It is a small population at risk from cane toads moving into that area. “Our fi rst aim is to establish if they are a separate species,’ explains Dr Britton. “If they are, it gives them a whole new signifi cant conservation status. Then you can actually get more momentum to conserve that population.”

p37

While their driving interest remains in research, the focus of Big Gecko since its inception two years ago has been both documentary and feature fi lmmaking. They estimate that they have worked on 25 fi lms in that time with such international documentary producers as National Geographic, the BBC, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and many others. Those production houses are drawn to Big Gecko because they offer a comprehensive package of services. “We have a reputation for getting really interesting shots of crocodiles, but also having the knowledge to back it up,” explains Adam Britton, 37. “I also worked hard to become good at appearing on radio and TV in front of the cameras, communicating science to the audience in terms they could understand.”

Filmmakers are also attracted to Big Gecko’s underwater fi lming billabong. It is an underwater viewing area that looks natural and is entirely built around the concept of fi lming. It is not for tourism or crocodile breeding - just for fi lming. The 2m deep pond has a steel barrier at one end that forms a secure diving area where a photographer can fi lm. It also has a fi lming platform.

On the other side is the home of a pair of male and female saltwater crocodiles, retirees who spent 20 years in captivity at the Darwin Crocodile Farm. “It’s a completely natural replicated enclosure complete with fi sh and other species found in freshwater systems,” says Erin Britton, 28. “We’ve gotten great shots of crocs, jaws open, snatching their

food underwater. As far as we know underwater fi lming here is a world fi rst.”

The fi lming pond was purpose-built for the BBC’s recent production of theLife in Cold Blood series with TV documentary legend David Attenborough. It was that very presenter who inspired Adam Britton’s interest in working with animals as a youth after seeing Life on Earth. When the BBC made the offer to work as the scientifi c consultant with Mr Attenborough, Adam Britton could not contain his joy. “You couldn’t hold me back. I almost asked them how much do we have to pay you to do it?” he recalls. “We had the ability to offer them everything from the scientifi c expertise, to the actual fi lming side of things. We arranged to bring David Attenborough to Darwin expressly to do the saltwater crocodile sequence with us.”

Dr Britton was born in Wakefi eld in central England, realising at a very early age that he wanted to spend his life working as a scientist with crocodiles. After getting his PhD at the University of Bristol, he set off searching the world for a place he could accomplish that goal. He settled on working with the Territory’s Dr Grahame Webb at Wildlife Management International in Darwin. He worked there for eight years as a senior researcher, learning more about crocodile handling, farming and doing scientifi c population surveys. He also met Erin, an environmental scientist with a passion for crocodile research that matched his own.

Before leaving the UK Dr Britton had set up a website called crocodilian.com that began to attract international fi lmmakers, many of whom travelled to the Top End to take advantage of Dr Britton’s expertise. They continued to make the trip after Adam and Erin struck out on their own. “Our aim is to educate people about crocodiles,” he says. “Confl icts between humans and crocodiles usually come about in many ways but the main factor is because of a lack of understanding of the animals. If we can communicate to people what crocodiles are about, how they behave, how they think, why they’re out there, then that’s the beginning of getting people to accept them. And that’s the basis of conservation.”

But Big Gecko has not restricted itself to documentary fi lmmaking. They were involved with Baz Luhrmann’s production of Australia, set to premiere in November, and the recently released Black Water. For Black Water they worked with the directors on the script, making sure that all the behaviour of the crocs was natural so they could avoid using computer generated images or robotics. They managed to shoot all the sequences using real crocs in just four days. “We wanted to prove that it could look better than something like Rogue [that used computer graphics]. So, we worked very hard for four days and we ended up with a remarkable amount. And even people who didn’t like the fi lm thought the crocodiles were fantastic.”

“We arranged to bring David Attenborough to Darwin

expressly to do the saltwater crocodile sequence with us.”

p36

This image > A pygmy crocodile in the wild.Below > Erin and Adam Britton with their hero David Attenborough.Second from bottom > A saltwater croc makes a meal of a mudcrab.Bottom > A director from Beyond Films watches as a pair of crocs are fi lmed underwater.

p39

Sid built new roads through Arnhem Land using local Aboriginal crews. “They’re the founders of everything for us. CDE Capital piggy-backed off of S&J Earthmoving, my parents’ company,” observes their eldest son, Robbie Rusca.

Robbie joined S&J but felt trapped in the continual merry-go-round of endless tendering for short-term contracts. Then opportunity knocked. CDE Capital kicked off as a joint venture with Roach Mining in 2000 at the Granites gold mine in the Tanami. The new contract mining company won a three-year, $55 million contract. “That’s when we found that mining was good and paid well,” recalls Mr Rusca. “So we decided to diversify and give our people a longer opportunity to train and have job security.”

That was followed by a contract with the Giants Reef operations near Tennant Creek to dig two open cuts at Malbek and Chariot. But the geologists missed the veins and,

while Giants Reef went under, CDE was paid and survived. That was followed by Coyote in 2005 in the Tanami, and other work that employed many local Indigenous people. “We’ve gone from turning over $3 or $4 million a year to $40 to $50 million and this year maybe even $100 million. The growth has been phenomenal,” says Mr Rusca.

The core workers give new recruits someone to relate to. “We go into communities and the new workers start in our civil industry,” says Mr Rusca. “And from there we’ll move them into our mining section and from there, Indigenous Business Enterprise and all of a sudden they’re buying a brand new car and then they’re clever enough to put their hand up to buy a new house. We have people now putting through housing loans. That’s what CDE Capital’s about – creating wealth and opportunity.”

Mr Rusca believes that a local Aboriginal workforce is one that will not be leaving. The Territory is their homeland. “It’s an untapped resource of people willing to work - they just need opportunity,” he says. “We know what impacts on Aboriginal families. We address those issues and make sure they’re looked after around the clock. All of a sudden retention rates are good and people come to work every day. We got the runs on the board. It works for us.”

One reason CDE Capital wins contracts is its recognised ability to train and gainfully employ Aboriginal people in remote areas. The key to that success is a formula utilising a core of trained Indigenous workers who recruit and train local people, many of whom have never worked before.

“That’s what CDE Capital’s

about – creating wealth

and opportunity.”

A Territory based company is winning valuable contracts in the booming civil and mining sectors across

northern Australia. They are CDE Capital (for Central Desert Enterprises), a family company specialising in heavy mechanised earthworks operating in remote

locations. It is an Indigenous company that hires and trains Indigenous people. “They make for an awesome

workforce and at peak we have probably 250 to 300 Aboriginal people working for us, including

subbies,” says CDE Capital director Robbie Rusca. “That’s between 80 per cent and 85 per cent Indigenous

employment from the management to the bottom broom sweepers. We’re the biggest employers of

Aboriginal people in the Territory, without a doubt.”

CDE Capital is currently contracted to Newmont, working in their Granites gold operation; they are just fi nishing up at the Coyote gold mine, just inside the WA border with the Territory; operating at CopperCo in Mt Isa as well as the NT’s McArthur River Mine; and they are soon to embark on their fi rst Pilbara iron ore venture, Atlas Iron. It’s a company that’s achieved where few companies have been able to succeed – in training and employing a local Aboriginal workforce.

CDE Capital has Indigenous roots. The company’s predecessor was S&J Earthmoving, a family contracting business started by Sid and Jenny Rusca back in the 1980s. Sid was a heavy machinery operator and Jenny the bookkeeping expert who insinuated that her husband was making too much money for other people. “Why not go out your own?” she asked. So they took their savings and bought a single grader to do roadworks, followed by another and another.

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There is palpable energy rising from the lands of the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu people. At Ski Beach, outside the east Arnhem Land town of Nhulunbuy, Indigenous fi shermen, handlines ready, are gearing up to take to the water to bring back fresh fi sh to sell. Nearby is a crocodile farm, complete with incubators to hatch valuable baby crocs for farming. Tourists are camping at sites set up on Aboriginal land at spectacular Port Bradshaw, and an Indigenous construction crew is erecting new accommodation on Garrithiya station, made from timber cut from the station forest. It is all part of the strategy of the Gumatj - creating jobs for their people on their land.

JOBSON theHOMELAND p41

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red emperor and bait. Will they have problems in hiring fi shing staff? “All you have to do is sing out the window, ‘does anyone want to go fi shing’ and watch all the hands go up. Lots of people are keen to be Gumatj fi shermen but they’ll employ four at the start and increase that later,” observes NT Government Business Advisor Stuart MacLean.

Another facet of the Gumatj clan’s growing business interests is their crocodile farm. There are already many mature animals in the farm, plus facilities for egg collection and incubation. An upgrade of the facilities is required before it can again be opened to the public.

Altogether, the Gumatj will be employing 20 people in full-time positions across the new operations. The cattle station is already attracting applicants eager to learn the timber milling on offer by the Jack Thompson Foundation. “We live with the materials that are going into the accommodation,” observes Mr Yunupingu. “It establishes pride within the people. It should be everybody’s project. Other communities in east Arnhem Land should put their hands up so we can equip them to use timber on their land. It’ll bring them the same independence that we are trying to establish here.”

In a region where building even a modest home can cost $500,000, the cost saving of using local timber can be signifi cant. “The main structural stuff is such a big saving but its also utilising all the resources that you have,” explains the community adviser. “We can make real savings for this community and, in turn, create employment,” explains Mr Mills. “If I can get four mill workers out of this – four guys who can actually operate the Lucas Mill properly – we can turn out structural beams, fl oorboards veranda structures, all in kit form.”

Closer to Nhulunbuy, at Ski Beach, the Gumatj maritime division is gathering steam. The association has recently acquired the Yiwarr Seafood business, which includes its retail seafood operation and fi shing licence, servicing the local market, a community enjoying one of the highest levels of boat ownership in Australia.

With a processing shed now being constructed, the clan has purchased a boat and will employ local people to fi sh and fi llet the catch before selling it to the community. Again, fresh food will be replacing tinned fi sh. Two days a week a freezer van will take fresh fi sh to Nhulunbuy and sell specialised species like blue swimmer crabs, reef fi sh, snapper,

Creating a valuable cost saving for the community, the work is carried out using a portable Lucas Mill, a sawmill set-up that fi ts on the back of a truck. Activating the Lucas Mill was the idea of John Moffl in, from the Jack Thompson Foundation. Visiting the Garma Festival in Gove with the Australian actor, Mr Moffi n noticed the presence of stringybark trees and stout paperbarks. “They are some of the highest grades of timber that there is and this country has millions of acres of it,” states Mr Moffi n. “It’s not a commercial growing timber area because of the size of the logs, but it’s a great resource for these people.”

The Jack Thompson Foundation donated Mr Moffi n to the Gumatj to get the Lucas Mill up and running and train station hands in its use. They are now profi cient in its use and 19 other communities have expressed interest in getting Lucas Mills operating in their lands. To accommodate that demand, the Jack Thompson Foundation has gone searching for corporate funding. Various corporations have invested in it. “We’d like to set up about fi ve or six projects in one year, but we need to get geared up,” says Mr Moffi n. “We need more Lucas Mills and lots more tooling. We’ve asked corporations to donate tooling because we want to leave the tools here so they can keep going after we’ve left.”

p43

Anxious to rid themselves of the reliance on government welfare, the Gumatj, led by chairman Galarrwuy Yunupingu and his advisers, have set out to create sustainable businesses that will employ local Aborigines in real jobs. They created businesses that suit the preferences and lifestyle of the Yolngu people. “It’s something that’s based on the land where they live. Somewhere close,” explains Mr Yunupingu. “We want to get young men and women into work, with the ultimate goal being economic independence.”

The push has begun on the cattle station. As the property’s 350 head of Brahman cattle look on, work continues on the accommodation bunkhouse, kitchen and ablution block. A crew of Gumatj trainees are erecting the structure that will house station workers. But those workers will be young juvenile offenders from Gove who have been diverted to the station rather than do time in a Darwin youth facility. Out here they’re kilometres from trouble, working on their traditional lands with Indigenous mentors. “These blokes can come out here and get a work ethic, and make something of themselves,” says station manager Tighe Mills.

“We can make real

savings for this

community and, in turn,

create employment.”

The cattle station will turn off small numbers of animals. They will be butchered on the property, and the meat sold to local people who are all too used to eating tinned meat. Meat, along with most commodities, is very expensive in remote Arnhem Land. “We’ll try and get the herd up to about 2000 to make the place viable and then start taking them out to sell for meat for the local people,” explains Mr Mills. “That way they’ll have cheap meat. We will be getting a mobile abattoir and a butchering room here and we’ll get a Cryovac machine for packaging.”

The timber used for the support beams of the new workers accommodation has been felled by the Gumatj station hands and milled into planks on the property.

p42

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p45

Displayed on the counter are NT seafood recipe cards featuring barra in foil, chilli mud crabs, steamed goldband snapper or naturally smoked wild-caught barramundi dip. On the walls are charts identifying many of the fi sh species that inhabit the waters of northern Australia. “Those charts should be compulsory in the schools,” exclaims Fish Market proprietor Ziko Illic. “Territory kids should understand about how the fi sh live, the species, how we look after the stocks, licensing. Then they will appreciate it.”

Mr Illic’s Fish Market is going great guns, doubling its turnover in its fi rst two years. The reason? He sells fresh Territory-caught seafood, sourced directly from the fi shermen, fi lleted fresh on site, to locals and tourists alike. And suddenly, local restaurants and consumers in general are demanding locally caught seafood. While cheap imports continue to fl ow in the country, a wide variety of local seafood is now on offer at the Fish Market, who are supplying local restaurants and retail outlets. “People used to complain that all the Territory fi sh went south,” explains Mr Illic. “When I started this market they stopped complaining. Now we have fresh whole fi sh or fi llets, live mud crabs or cooked and beautiful king prawns. Everything is here.”

Tourism sparked the new-found appreciation of the local product. Visitors to Darwin saw a meal of locally caught barramundi or king prawns as an integral part of the Top End experience, just as important as the sight of a saltwater crocodile on a riverbank or a sunset cruise on Darwin Harbour.

Local restaurateurs took heed of the demand. At the Buzz Café, in the marina-side development of Cullen Bay, owner John Bonnin and manager Sean Harragon decided to open an affordable seafood restaurant based on the idea of promoting local product. They went in partnership to open the Boardwalk Café, also in Cullen Bay. But before serving strictly local seafood they started out by serving half local and half cheaper imported varieties. “When we put the option straight in their face, deciding one or the other, they went for the local product,” recalls Mr Harragon. “In the fi rst three months I sold a couple hundred local and only about three imported. It was that dramatic.”

Today, after a year in operation, the Boardwalk is catering to nearly 1000 people a day during the busy tourist season, whether just stopping in for a cappuccino at their coffee shop or a full meal of local threadfi n salmon (see Territory Q second quarter 2008) or barra. The owners targeted tourists and locals equally, hoping to break the stigma of Cullen Bay as an expensive precinct and open it to everybody. Hence affordable Territory seafood served in the seaside marina atmosphere. “The whole concept was to reduce the staff because getting people is so diffi cult, and to create a package that people wanted. We’ve got a waterfront area that caters for our casual lifestyle that’s coupled with a coffee shop and a walk-in bottle shop,” says Mr Harragon.

The local seafood industry is currently making submissions to the Department of Regional Development, Primary Industry, Fisheries and Resources, which is investigating the possibility of new labelling directives. The department's Fisheries group is considering making it a condition of licence that seafood sold in restaurants displays its country of origin on the menu, just as supermarkets already do. Part of that is providing a paper trail that shows they purchased the fi sh legally, and the other is to give the consumer the choice of buying local or imported product.

It is a move, not surprisingly, welcomed by the Boardwalk Café. “All the fi ne dining restaurants that serve imported seafood could have to place that information on their menus. And that could change things and turn them to the local product,” says Mr Harragon.

Mr Illic believes that quality is the key to the upsurge in local product sales. Territory fi shermen are operating in a protected, regulated, pristine fi shery that shows no sign of declining stocks. They are bringing back some of the fi nest quality seafood in the world. “People come to Darwin and they want to experience the local cuisine,” he says. “That’s a life experience. The people want local stuff and there’s a big difference between the good, average and low quality” Mr Illic says. A man who knows his fi sh well, the CEO of the Sydney Fish Market, Graeme Turk, tried Territory Red Emperor, tempura style at the Buzz Café and declared he’d never enjoyed fi sh as much in all his life.

From the outside,

the Darwin Fish

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TERRITORYseafood – BUY local!

p44

Top left > Ziko Illic.

Bottom left > Inside the Darwin Fish Market.

Above > Fresh seafood at the Boardwalk Café

p46 p47

It’s really about meaningful traditional owner involvement in our parks and reserves.”

Joint management also brings families together. Leading up to the initiation of new joint management plans are a host of meetings where Aboriginal families discuss their views on how the land is to be managed and what cultural values can be shared. “In Rainbow Valley, those four families might have seen each other on occasion, but the whole planning process has really brought people together,” observes Ms Scopel. “Old people that had not visited the reserve for many years are now visiting regularly with family. There’s great inter-generational exchange as well as with the rangers.”

A visit to Wurre with Ricky Orr’s tour will appeal to the many visitors to the Northern Territory who seek an opportunity to meet Indigenous people and discover more about their culture. More and more Aboriginal people are involving themselves in tourism, providing a product with a unique view. “We live out in this area and we want to look after the place,” says Mr Orr. “They talk about contracts for traditional owners and I can see, one day, managing this park as being a contract for us. We’re the best people for the job.”

The fact that the site was occupied for generations is evident everywhere you look. Stone tools were manufactured at the site with spearheads and hand cutters in evidence. Grinding stones, which women used to grind wild grass seeds into bread patties, shine in the sun, as if they are waiting for the seed gatherers to return. Mr Orr and his family know the area to be of great cultural signifi cance. “My grandfather told me the story of the rain dreaming track that runs from Koolpinya Springs (near Hermannsburg) and goes from there to Rainbow Valley, then to Deepwell Station, then up to Ewaninga and up to Harts Range, covering hundreds of kilometres,” recounts Mr Orr.

Enigmatic petroglyphs have been pecked into the sandstone, and ochre designs decorate the rock walls, often carrying messages and patterns whose meanings have been lost to the ages. Visitors taking the tour, organised by tour operators, Alice Wanderers, experience the Indigenous view of the landscape, a layer that is sometimes missing in some park interpretation.

The only noticeable difference of Territory parks coming under joint management should be a stronger Indigenous view of parks and reserves like Rainbow Valley. “The vision is now a shared vision between traditional owners and the Parks and Wildlife Service,” says Ms Scopel. “We’re looking at greater outcomes than traditional park management. We’re looking at economic outcomes in employment, training and business.

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For the past few decades it has been known as

Rainbow Valley to locals and the thousands of

tourists who have visited here, but for millennia it

was known as Wurre to the upper southern Arrente

people of Central Australia. That traditional Indigenous

knowledge of the site is now taking greater

precedence than it has in recent memory because

the Territory Government, the land councils and

traditional owners of the land have agreed that some

of the NT national parks become jointly managed.

Here in Rainbow Valley the Aboriginal traditional owners have become the fi rst to engage under the

new arrangements.

The traditional owners of the place they called Wurre are four families related through kinship laws. Ricky Orr, a member of the Kenny family, has developed a cultural tour that showcases Rainbow Valley through an Aboriginal perspective. He sees joint management as a valuable opportunity for his family. “I defi ne joint management as two partners working together to get things right,” states Mr Orr, 41. “It gives us employment opportunities like this. It gives us access to our country again. And the Parks and Wildlife people listen to us.”

Mr Orr’s tour takes small numbers of visitors by troop carrier or Coaster to the Rainbow Valley area, 75km south of Alice Springs. There the sandstone bluffs have become famous for their stunning color change and glow in the late afternoon. But Mr Orr’s tour takes his visitors much further. They take a track behind the valley in a place where Aboriginal people have gathered for centuries. “Following signifi cant rainfall events, people used to come from across the region to that area,” explains Dianne Scopel, NT Parks and Wildlife Service. “Archeological evidence includes rock art where there are motifs displayed over and over again which could link to the area being

a signifi cant bush tucker dreaming site.”

p46

Bottom right > Ricki-Lee Orr and father Ricky Orr, some of the traditional owners of Wurre, or Rainbow Valley.Bottom left > Walk through the valley of the rock art.Right > A grinding stone used to grind wild grass seeds.

p48 p49

The June trade mission was the largest to travel offshore from the Territory in recent memory with 26 business people representing 21 different organisations across a wide range of mining supply businesses. The delegation’s size was a testimony to the growing export capacity of our mining and petroleum services sectors, as well as the Territory’s expanding relationships with the Indonesian business community. Sponsored by the NT Government, the delegation was guided by departmental staff who provided market intelligence, marketing and advice, and Trade Support Scheme fi nancial assistance.

The expo opened at a time when soaring commodity prices promised big rewards for miners – especially coal. With coal prices at over US$100 (up from US$30 just two years ago), new mines are currently opening up across Kalimantan. “We get approached every week by new mining companies that just started up,” says Trevor Kroemer, managing director of Transcon, a Balikpapan-based supplier of quality four-wheel-drive vehicles. “There’s so many new greenfi elds projects, because the price of coal is so high, that the opportunities are amazing.”

A former Territorian, Mr Kroemer came to Balikpapan fi ve years ago and set up a foreign investment company with an Indonesian partner and four international partners. He says it took nearly two years to get some understanding of the way business is done in Kalimantan. “The fi rst 18 months to two years were really slow because we had to better understand the market we were entering and fi nd our position in the market here,” he explains. “We found that we didn’t understand this as well as we need to. Then after a few years we started to build a momentum and now it’s just snowballing.”

Transcon’s edge was its insistence on selling quality vehicles. Mr Kroemer, a former managing director of Darwin’s Bridge Autos, says that Indonesian companies were reluctant to pay more for Transcon’s vehicles than others until they realised that quality meant reliability and longevity. In effect, it was worth the extra money. “We prepare these vehicles for the mining environment, which is very severe, better than anyone else here in Balikpapan,” says Transcon’s Shane Wiese. “We put all heavy duty parts from Australia, full suspensions, bullbars, snorkels that go on every car we send to a mine.”

Because of Transcon’s high standards of quality, it is the sole supplier of vehicles for BHP Billiton in Indonesia because it is the only company that meets BHP’s vehicle safety requirements. And that is a company that is about to embark on three or four new ventures where it will need many more vehicles and new maintenance facilities.

Transcon has maintenance teams at ten different sites in eastern Indonesia, with any mine having more than ten vehicles on hire from Transcon eligible for a maintenance team. One of the region’s largest, Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) in northern Kalimantan, has 70 Transcon vehicles and ten staff. Transcon rents its vehicles to mines on three-year contracts and sells them at the end of the contract. Already 300 vehicles are out on three-year hire.

One particularly rugged location, the Gunung Byan mine site at Petrosea, is recognised by Ford and Mitsubishi as a testing ground for vehicles where the hard rock takes its toll on vehicles. Were Transcon’s Toyotas up to the challenge? “We had a fl eet of 22-odd vehicles that went up there and they all did three years,” says Mr Wiese, “They all drove out of the site, drove back home, had a wash and were sold.”

theBOOMTOWNexpo

Asia’s mining industry came in force to eastern Indonesia and the Balikpapan Expo. They were all there - the major companies representing some of the world’s biggest mining operations from remote locations across the Indonesian archipelago; commercial suppliers of everything miners require, from elaborate safety gear to massive excavators to high-tech security systems; plus a trade delegation from the Northern Territory, comprised of companies eager to make contact with the miners and win contracts to supply them.

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Many Territory businesses that traditionally worked off a set list of regular clients are now expanding their markets

to include mining and offshore gas and oil support. One of those companies is long time Territory fi re safety

operator Fire Protection Professionals International Pty Ltd (FPPInt), now competing with

multinationals like Wormald and Chubb for offshore fi re safety work.

It started over a decade ago providing quality service in the maintenance of clients’ fi re and safety equipment, assessing their needs and recommending suitable equipment from a range of manufacturers. Now, recognising the growing market in the mining and oil and gas sectors, the company is taking its technical expertise offshore, where fi re safety is of paramount importance; certifying the fi re safety equipment on international vessels, drill rigs and fl oating production platforms.

The company recently sent out staff to conduct a fi re safety survey on an FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offl oading) vessel, concentrating on the operation’s gaseous fi re suppression systems, portable and mobile fi re equipment, and foam fi re monitor systems. Equipment offshore must be in fi re-ready condition or it cannot be certifi ed, creating potentially nasty insurance issues and more importantly

risk to life. “Our advantage is the quality of work we provide,” states Tony Hunnam, FPPInt’s Marketing Manager. “We’re fi xing problems that the vessels or rigs have sometimes had for many years, but which have not been previously picked up. Our guys are skilled and do the job right.”

Recently FPPInt was contracted to assess ships working out of Papua New Guinea after successfully seeking out contracts in Port Moresby and New Caledonia using the Territory Government’s Trade Support Scheme. “We get the locals to do the work and we supervise and certify the results under the ship’s certifying body” says Mr Hunnam. “Recently we did eight ships over in PNG but we have to go back because some of them didn’t pass. If they don’t pass, the ships can’t leave port.”

FPPInt started out started out testing and certifying portable fi re equipment for a wide range of clients, providing

TAKING FIRE

six monthly service and fi ve yearly pressure tests. Their expertise included fi re detection and other systems, assessed to Australian Standards. In response to escalating labour and fuel prices, they now provide clients with a new extinguisher for a trade-in price after fi ve years, rather than transport extinguishers to and from their workshop to carry out labour intensive pressure testing.

Also since its inception, a large part of the company’s focus has been to carry out regular service runs, by a pair of technicians on the road, to service regional centres like Nhulunbuy, Alice Springs and Broome in WA. “We’ve knocked up a hell of a lot of kilometres over the last 12 years,” states Mr Hunnam “and we always make a point of calling in on all the mines along the way.” This regular presence and persistence has helped the company progress to attracting larger clients like the NT and WA mines and their contractors.

protectionOFFSHORE

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The KPC mine requirements are enormous and they will be even greater following the mine’s upgrade in 2011. It is a mine with a workforce of 15,000. It burns 538 million litres of diesel per annum, increasing to 750 million litres in 2011. The processing plant uses 117,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate a year, increasing to 175,000 tonnes in 2011. KPC spends about US$25 million on tyres a year. The mine’s yearly average goods and services purchases are valued at approximately US$450 million.

Lead time on supplying the KPC mine is often 100 days or more. Only fi ve days sailing from Darwin, Territory suppliers have an edge on the competition, but do they have the capacity to supply in such large numbers?

Territory companies displaying at the Balikpapan Expo were hoping to make the

contacts that would allow them to enter that lucrative market. Among them was Chris Loveless, the Sales and Marketing Manager for Burrana Engineering. He was pleased when buyers and procurement executives were stopping for a chat. “It’s been excellent,” he said. “We’ve had high-quality people come through who say they need some help. They’re not happy with the service they’re getting from the current people that are supplying them, so we’re able to help with the resources.”

Another Darwin company, Engine Engineering, found the business opportunities so exciting, it decided to go into a business partnership in Balikpapan. The Indonesian business would be known as PT Powertrain. “The original plan was to take engines and transmissions back to Darwin, refurbish them and bring them back,” explained PT Powertrain Manager

Dave Cooper. “That hasn’t changed, but the opportunities up here are so great that we’ve seen other things that we can do, like retail. Products that work in Australia will work here, as well as service contracts for some of the smaller mines. It’ll be a multi-faceted business.”

The expo proved to be the catalyst that will see the Territory’s mining supply industry expand into south-east Asia. As a direct result from participating in the trade mission, delegates advised that they are currently in negotiation on AUS$1.7 million in immediate orders. One company estimates sales of up to AUS$10 million per annum and another advises of sales for the next 12 months in excess of AUS$3.5 million. “We need to expand our economic base,” says the Territory Government’s Brian O’Gallagher. “And mining supply and services are a natural one for us to get involved in.“

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regular feature:stephengarnett on the know

ledgeeconomy

p53

CHANGE Other opportunities may be available for the pastoral industry. Under conservative grazing regimes carbon builds up in soil. Overgrazing kills soil micro-organisms and the carbon enters the atmosphere. Once the science is watertight there may be opportunities for pastoralists to get paid to have fewer cattle but better country, so over-grazing would not be needed to keep the banks at bay.

All these schemes, however, would be outside the formal carbon-trading scheme being brought in by the Australian Government. That means they will need supportive local policy if investors are likely to take advantage of them. Developing that policy is one of the major challenges of the NT Government over the next six months.

There are other opportunities at both large and small scales. Increased gas sales to China would reduce their need for dirty coal. Though much disputed, uranium is also touted as a greenhouse winner – though will never be more than a small proportion of total global fuel use. The potential for biofuels also causes much excitement, though that too needs much research into the social and environmental costs.

At a local level, solar, gas and geothermal power sources compete in the minds of the public and power providers. Though, under current cost structures and available technologies, the jury is currently favouring gas for the major urban centres, solar is already being rolled out in outstations through Bushlight and other programs. Geothermal power, generated by pumping water through hot rocks deep underground, is a power source of the future for which the NT has some of the best rocks in the world.

Building standards, developed for southern climates, are also much debated. Even as they stand there are big opportunities at a domestic level for individual contributions through solar water heating and improvements to airfl ow and insulation in our homes. And for those brave enough to live outside air-conditioning, local architects have some great designs that take advantage of the natural climate.

So whatever decisions are made at Territory or Australian Government level, these are both challenging and exciting times, times when innovations that help the world adapt to climate change may be richly rewarded.

For governments and societies around the world, impending climate change is forcing major consideration of the way they do business. But amid all the gloomy forecasts of rising sea levels and temperatures, stronger cyclones and changing rainfall, there are also opportunities. Adaptation can be good business.

And here in the Territory is no different. One area where we lead the world is management of savanna burning. Greenhouse gas emissions from late dry season fi res make up a third to a half of the Territory’s total output, far higher than in any of the states. Controlling this fi re is not only a good thing for our environment but can also deliver economic and social benefi ts to those who do the controlling.

One such group is the award-winning team from the West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement project, who have been mentioned before in these pages. Their idea is deceptively simple but based on some brilliant science. Late fi res put the

theBUSINESSOF

really nasty greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Methane is 21 times stronger than carbon dioxide at warming the planet; nitrous oxide a whopping 271 times. Early fi res produce much less of these gases and act as fi re breaks. Every year those fi re breaks work there is a reduction in greenhouse impact of savanna burning.

The science behind the idea is good enough for Conoco-Phillips to put a $1 million a year into paying Aboriginal land managers to protect their country in western Arnhem Land. And now there are plans afoot for other groups to get involved.

There are also opportunities for Aboriginal people to get involved in control of feral animals. A buffalo produces about a tonne of greenhouse gases each year. Dead buffalo produce much less. So too do dead camels, horses and donkeys.

There are extra benefi ts for the environment and the economy too. Dr Adam Drucker of Charles Darwin University has calculated that investing about $30 million in feral animal control could yield over $200 million in benefi ts to the cattle industry from reduced grazing competition and methane reduction.

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ECONOMIC GROWTHThe Northern Territory Treasury’s 2008-09 Budget papers report thateconomic growth is forecast to moderate to 2.8% in 2007-08 before

strengthening to 6.6% in 2008-09.

GSP 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08e 2008-09f

% Change 5.5% 5.5% 5.6% 2.8% 6.6%

• In 2007-08 the Northern Territory’s State Final

Demand increased by 3.4%, compared to a national

average increase of 5.2%.

• Total consumption rose by 4.1%, while total investment

increased by 1.7%.

• In 2007-08, infl ation adjusted total construction

work done decreased by 21.1% to $1.75 billion.

• In 2007-08, the number of residential building approvals in the Territory decreased by

21.4% to 1150.

EMPLOYMENT

• Employment in the Territory increased by 5.7% in the year to July 2008 to 110,160.

• The trend unemployment rate was 2.9%.¹

• The trend participation rate was 71.8%, the second highest of the jurisdictions.

• The ANZ Job Advertisement Series reports that the number of job vacancies in the Territory, in seasonally adjusted terms, decreased by 2.1% over the year to July 2008. Nationally they declined by 21.7%.

POPULATION

• In 2007, the Northern Territory’s population was estimated to be 217,559.

• The annual rate of increase was estimated to be 2.4%, above the national growth rate of 1.6%.

INFLATION

• In annual terms, Darwin’s CPI increased by 3.9% in the June quarter 2008. Nationally, the annual infl ation rate was 4.5%.

FOOTNOTES 1 Due to extreme volatility in monthly Territory labour force fi gures, the ABS does not publish seasonally adjusted data.

the territory economy:fastfactsAVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS

• In the May quarter 2008, Average Weekly Earnings per full-time adult employee in the Territory increased by 4.8% to $1146.10 in annual terms, compared with a national average of $1181.60.

• Over the same period, the Territory’s Wage Price Index rose by 4.3%, compared to 4.2% nationally.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

• In 2007-08, Northern Territory goods exports grew by 13.0% to $4,534 million.

• Imports decreased by 9.3% to $2,582 million, giving a balance of trade surplus of $1.95 billion.

RETAIL TRADE

• In 2007-08, infl ation adjusted retail turnover increased by 7.5% in the Territory compared to a 4.3% increase nationally.

• In the year to July 2008, total sales of new motor vehicles increased by 9.2% to 10,626 (the highest level on record) in the Territory and by 5.3% at the national level.

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It was the fi nale of the Duprada Dance Company’s Attitudes in Arabesque, being performed in Singapore. Called Juliette’s Soliloquies, it is the company’s signature piece, a neo-classical ballet in six parts that was choreographed as a tribute to the 20th Anniversary of the company back in 2004. In the audience are many of the most infl uential Singaporean festival directors and theatre directors that purchase performance packages, along with a representative of the Australian High Commission. As the piece fi nished, the Drama Centre Theatre roared with appreciative applause for the dance company from Alice Springs and Darwin.

This was the Territory dance company’s fi rst international performance, and it appears it will not be its last. This performance was the culmination of fi ve years planning by company director Lynne Hanton. She had travelled to Singapore on a number of occasions, aided by Austrade and the Territory Government’s Trade Support Scheme, helping her to understand the local art scene.

In many ways this performance was an audition. If the arts organisers liked what they saw, they would invite the company back, but this time they would pay for the show and market it from that side. And that is what transpired. “The people who watched the performance are now interested in me going back to Singapore when they hold an art market where buyers offer you performance fees,” says Ms Hanton. “Then Singapore decides whether it’s a fee performance or whether it’s paid and they take the box offi ce.”

She will go back next year to negotiate a performance in 2010, the year Singapore hosts the fi rst Youth Olympics. “Our company has young dancers, professional dancers and dancers in training - three levels of dancers that just seems to fi t that Youth Olympics glove exceptionally well,” offers Ms Hanton.

A company of 33 went to Singapore for the event that took the form of three performances. Dancers from Alice Springs stopped in Darwin on the way, and were joined by the Duprada Darwin dancers for a week’s rehearsal. Once in Singapore, the principal dancers did classes with the Singapore Dance Company. It was an experience that strongly affected the young dancers. “I was surprised that the young ones

developed tenfold while we were away and have come back much more confi dent and mature,” observes Ms Hanton.

Ms Hanton says that if there was a criticism, the program was probably 20 minutes too long. In Singapore audiences are used to things in short form. People will do three or four things in any one night, not simply go to a performance. “They will go out to dinner, then to a free art show, walk through a gallery, stop for a drink at a wine bar as well as the theatre,” says Ms Hanton. “So they would be prepared to buy a show that lasts only an hour - which for us is a breeze.”

exportingterritoryDANCE

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Hot enough for you?The heat of a chilli is measured using the Scoville scale, developed in 1912 by American chemist Wilbur Scoville. A number of websites provide detailed charts, but here’s a brief guide based on the one at www.chilliworld.com:

Loong Fong’s Famous Chilli Barramundi

This recipe comes from the Loong Fong Seafood Restaurant in Nightcliff.

INGREDIENTS:

2 medium-sized fresh chillies,

chopped

400g of local barramundi

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon sugar

100g fresh watermelon

100g fresh pineapple

2 teaspoons vinegar

3 tablespoons chilli sauce

3 handfuls of plain fl our

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 handful of potato starch

METHOD: Slice barramundi into bite-sized pieces and marinate in 1 tablespoon chilli sauce.

Make a batter from the fl our, baking powder, potato starch and water.

Dip the barramundi pieces in the batter, deep fry and drain.

Combine the vinegar, chopped fresh fruit and remaining chilli sauce.

Combine gently with the barramundi, sprinkle chopped fresh chilli over the dish and serve.

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Type of chilli or product

Scoville Heat Units

Pure capsaicin 16,000,000

Capsicum spray 2,000,000–5,300,000

Birds eye chilli 100,000–225,000

Cayenne pepper 30,000–50,000

Tabasco sauce 2500–5000

Pimento 100–500

Capsicum 0

A FOCUS ON TERRITORY PRODUCE.

by Sam McCue

But that’s still just the tip of the chilli iceberg. In the wide and often weird world of chillies, celebrated online through a number of websites including chillifreak.com, you’ll fi nd pickled jalapenos, smoked chipotle and sauces with names like Dragon’s Aftermath, Ultimate Burn and Crazy Jerry’s Brain Damage. “Dave’s Insanity Sauce ... lifted me onto a different plane of consciousness and I felt like I was fl oating. My heart pounded like a jackhammer and I went deaf for a minute. Good luck to you all,” writes one fan.

In truth, chillies won’t send you deaf and actually have a number of health benefi ts. Chillies are basically capsicums that taste hot because of an alkaloid called capsaicin (the potency of which is harnessed for the capsicum spray used in policing). Like capsicums, fresh chillies are high in vitamins A and C, which are powerful antioxidants. Red chillies are the same as green ones, only riper and therefore sweeter, and are richer in vitamins.

Native to central America, chillis were adopted enthusiastically in Asia when they were introduced several centuries ago. Now, it’s hard to imagine Singapore without its chilli crab, or Thailand minus the chilli paste known as nam prik.

One man who really knows his chillies is Vietnamese-born Viet Cau Ho, who harvests up to 100kg of chillies a week from his 13ha property between Darwin River and Berry Springs. His rows of leafy chilli bushes,

laden with fat green fruit, are testimony to his expertise. “We learn from our mistakes,” says Mr Ho. “Like wrong fertiliser, too much humidity, sunburn. When you lose the crop, you learn. We add more nitrogen, then there’s more leaf to shade the fruit.”

He grows bullet chillies, named for their shape, which have a good fl avour and are medium-hot. “After the hot, tastes sweet,” he says.

The bulk of Mr Ho’s chilli harvest goes to wholesalers in Melbourne, and quality is paramount. “We pick early in the morning so it’s more crunchy, not in the afternoon when it’s soft.”

Mr Ho, who also grows sweet and Thai basil, loofah melons, bitter melons and snake beans, is one of about 20 growers across the Top End producing chillies commercially.

The total Northern Territory chilli harvest is about 20 tonnes a year, says Stuart Smith, the Northern Territory Government’s Sustainable Agriculture Research Scientist.“About fi ve per cent of that stays in the Territory and the rest mostly goes to wholesalers in Sydney and Melbourne,” says Mr Smith.

Meanwhile, back at the Rapid Creek Markets, a woman in white linen is trying to fi nd the perfect chilli for her Sunday night stirfry. “How hot are these ones?” she asks.

“Hot-hot,” comes the reply. “But it won’t make you cry.”

Perfect indeed.

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It’s a steamy Sunday morning at Darwin’s Rapid Creek Markets and the growers have lined up their wares: golden turmeric, pink-tipped galangal, greens of every description and chillies ... fat, thin, smooth, gnarled, tapered, stubby, big, small, hot, mild.

Left > Cau Ho with a day's chilli harvest at Darwin River Herbs and Veg.Below > Loong Fong's Connie Huang with their Famous Chilli Barramundi.

regular feature: partingshots!• The Territory Storm, Darwin’s new addition to the

Australian Netball League, enjoyed its fi rst win of the season, beating the Canberra Darters in front of an enthusiastic home crowd at Marrara Stadium. “We came out fi red-up,” recalled Storm player Katherine Hollis. “We knew we wouldn’t leave without a win.”

The Storm and a Territory AFL team were the recipients of a sponsorship deal from mining company Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA) and its majority shareholder, Rio Tinto, owner-operator of the Rio Tinto Alcan Gove bauxite and alumina refi ning operations.

ERA and Rio Tinto will contribute more than $1 million over fi ve years to support the new teams. It is expected that the football and netball teams will provide sporting, employment, study and personal development opportunities for young people across the Northern Territory.

• The Ochre auction, which supports Indigenous health through art, will take place on Tuesday, 14 October, in Melbourne. In an effort to raise funds for the Indigenous child health research programs at Darwin’s Menzies School of Health Research, the organisers will auction off 15 artworks produced by some of the Territory’s most prominent and marketable Indigenous artists including John Mawurndjul, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Djambawa Marawilli, Eubena Nampitjin, Makinti Napanangka (winner of this year’s Telstra Award) and Patrick Tjungurrayi. Sponsors have donated over $100,000 to purchase the works from remote community art centres at a reduced rate, ensuring their support for the local economy. The 200 invited bidders will be entertained by Aboriginal musical sensation Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu and his group.

• Bamurru Plains, the luxury safari camp that featured in the Second Quarter issue of Territory Q, was voted the best hotel in the Asia Pacifi c in the 2008 Condé Nast (UK) Travel Awards.

Located about 150 km east of Darwin, Bamurru Plains opened almost two years ago on a private station near Kakadu National Park. The camp has picked up the prestigious Condé Nast Readers’ Travel Award for the best overseas leisure hotel in the Asia Pacifi c at a ceremony in London.

The property was also ranked 17th in Condé Nast’s World’s Top 100 Awards, and 11th in the world (when country and city destination awards are excluded). Other Australasian properties rated in the awards included Lilianfels Blue Mountains, Longitude 131° and Huka Lodge.

• Following on from the Balikpapan Expo, a delegation of Territory businesspeople dealing in mining support products and services fl ew to Jakarta to speak directly with the leaders of some of the region's biggest mines. Assembled and guided by an NT Government representative from the Department of the Chief Minister, the delegation was also fl own to the PT Newmont minesite in Sumbawa and the PT Inco nickel mine in Sulawesi. If the delegation is anything like Balikpapan’s, the orders will swiftly follow!

• A skilled worker recruitment show was held this month in Melbourne, where NT Government representatives, the Chamber of Commerce and the Territory Construction Association presented 400 Territory jobs to an audience of 600 at the Flemington Race Course. Employment opportunities ranged from health care professionals, to trade services, to marketing and media positions. In the next Territory Q we will meet some of those who came to the NT Jobs Show and relocated as a result.

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...December08

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...of Baz Luhrmann's

Australia, showcasing

the Top End.

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2008

Media Associates

DR JOHN TICKELLPut the Life Back In Your Business

MS MEGABYTEInnovation and Creative Ideas for Businesses

BEN DARKLife Balance for Business People

Don’t miss the huge line-up of events offered during October Business Month.

The following keynote speakers will appear across the Northern Territory and share their knowledge and expertise.

ROWLAND McGABHANNStaff Recruitment, Retention and a Productive Workforce

Grab a Calendar of Events from your local Territory Business Centre or visit

www.nt.gov.au/obm