By Erwin Chlanda
The debt greater than $ 11 billion and growing, costing the taxpayer “one million dollars per day” in interest. The number of people in prison at their maximum all time. The crime exceeds the ability of the courts to deal with him. The “national” aboriginal art gallery is still the breakfast of a dog.
Who would like to be the Minister of the Government of current Territory?
Bill Yan used to administer Alice Springs prison, home of more than 600 of the 25,000 people in the city. He has walked to the Mount Everest base camp three times. It is now one of the two members of the Center Bank, which represents the electorate of Namatjira. He clearly likes a challenge.
And as a treasurer, he often links policies with money. This is not more relevant than in the law and order, the favorite issue of the CLP.
“We have to increase some of our first -line services, to be health, police, corrections.
“We have to invest in the courts. This happened in NSW a few years ago, ”he says in an interview with the Alice Springs News.
“For every dollar investing in the police, you must invest a fifty dollar in the justice system.”
Yan says that it has not resolved what the relationship has been in the NT, but an adjustment in the last 12 months has been “very little, too late.”
“That has not happened here for many years. We have seen an increase in the police, but the investment in the justice system has not been there. That is the heavy work we have to do now, ”he says.
Courts, legal assistance, corrections, prosecutions: “That is a great cost.”
To pay it, you will be “looking for fat in other areas.”
The government is committed not to fire any public servant, but many will face changes to other tasks.
“We have made it very clear that we do not get rid of any public servant. But we have to make sure that we are using the public sector in the most efficient ways. “
It seems that Yan seems to solve this to the sad saga of the “national” aboriginal art gallery that has been reduced by half its size, while the $ 150 million budget remains the same.
Mr. Yan gives the impression that he would not lose much dream if the project, mistreated from the beginning, never continued.
The exhibition space would be reduced by only 100 square meters in the new Lite gallery, he says.
“The initial gallery had coffees, restaurants, meeting rooms and all these other parts. That is the private business, as part of the CBD. The art gallery is there to exhibit art. “
Given the growing debt “I cannot leave in good faith and say that I have to borrow another $ 150 million or $ 200 million for the great plans, the large land, which were part of the original design.
“$ 150m. That’s it. I have made it quite clear to the department.”
He is also “frustrated” by the art gallery planned next to Darwin’s Supreme Court.
“I have nothing against the arts at all, but we desperately need aging beds, we desperately need mental health beds. I wonder where the priorities are.
“Personally, if I were making decisions, I would be looking at what we desperately need for the people of the territory.
“It is nice to have art galleries, they are great, I like them, I have nothing against the arts, but there are services that we desperately need.
“We have remote communities that fight with the services below the pair and we are blowing money in all these other things. Sometimes it makes me ask me. “
When asked why the CLP, when it was in opposition, had not discovered that the cost of the initial concept of the gallery would be twice the announced budget of $ 150 million, as the party now states, Mr. Yan says: “We did not have those numbers.”
NEWS: Didn’t he get them or could he not get them?
Yan: We were never aware of the cost until we got into the government.
NEWS: The plans were public. The opposition could have obtained cost estimates from dozens of companies in Australia.
Yan: We could obtain estimates, but not exactly what it could have been.
Yan says that the NT is looking for an increase in government’s income, currently around $ 4.5 billion of the 2023/24 budget of $ 8.2 billion.
NEWS: According to the head of the population, does the NT get from Canberra five times more than the rest of the nation?
Yan: Yes. We need to see more. We are trying to make a deal.
He attributes that to the high cost of providing services to the remote regions of the territory.
The subsidies commission announced today, after our interview with Mr. Yan, that the GST relativity recommended by the northern territory will increase by 2024-25. It is estimated that you will receive $ 4,257 million in GST payments. It is estimated that its participation in the GST group increases from 4.7% to 4.8%.
The commission said in a statement: “The new 2021 census data showed that the non -indigenous population of the northern territory is relatively more disadvantaged and its most dispersed population than in the 2016 census.
“These changes increased the needs of GST evaluated from the northern territory, especially for health and housing.”
The CLP of Minister Yan and the Labor Party have at least one thing in common: their fierce disagreements with environmentalists about fracking and gas production, mainly from mass deposits, according to reports, in the Beetaloo basin, about 900 km north of Alice Springs.
Yan says that these are active that support the loans of the NT: “With regard to our income, our ability to generate royalties, yes, Beetaloo would be up there.
“Newmont, the gold mine in the Tanami, is really quite large. The income of those types are very large. Nolans’ rare land will be great.
“Merenie Gas [west of Alice Springs] He has been going for 40 years. “
It is Powerwater’s fuel source to generate electricity.
NEWS: Would your 400 Vandals Economic Vandals call the Environment Center as his fellow deputy Josh Burgoyne?
Yan: What I would say is that they are using their financing for activism instead of the action. These are my terms. Provide funds for organizations that actively work against government policy and management [is not something we’re going to do]. We are taking economic development.
NEWS: What would you like to do and what would you not like them to do?
Yan: Doing things for the community and the environment. Everyone talks about Buffel. (That is a great Alec approach – ed.) Evaluate different areas and find plans. Everything they seem to do, and that is just looking at, activism against whatever, no matter if it is under the Government or CLP’s work.
NEWS: As?
Yan: Opposition to gas production in Beetaloo, under the previous government and ours. The water license at the Singleton station. Attacking for good. If we close Beetaloo tomorrow and each gas production piece in the NT, and paralyze what remains of our economy, they would not yet be happy. They would still want more.
Photos: The Newmont Gold mine in the Tanami. Mining royalties are a key guarantee for mass loans of the NT.
