CANBERRA: The Northern Territory government has signed a $506m agreement with a Chinese based group for a 99-year lease of the Darwin port, but the union has expressed outrage at a lack of protections for workers.
The deal, resulting from a tender process begun in 2014, gives the Landbridge Group 100% operational control of the port and 80% ownership of the Darwin Port land, facilities of East Arm wharf including the marine supply base, and Fort Hill wharf.
The remaining 20% will be held by the Northern Territory government for the first five years before transferring to another Australian entity to ensure some local ownership is retained.
NT chief minister Adam Giles said the decision to lease the port rather than sell allowed the government to ensure conditions are upheld. The government intends to invest the money from the agreement into other strategic infrastructure, but in contrast to similar interstate port agreements, Giles provided no details on Tuesday.
“This money will go into a small part of paying back Labor’s debt but the other parts in investing in economic strategies for the NT to ensure we are recycling this money into job-growing activities for the future of the Northern Territory,” he said.
The NT government will retain “a range” of oversight and regulatory functions, and should port revenue rise above 130% of current modelling, the government will receive 15% of profits.
Landbridge Infrastructure Australia’s director Mike Hughes said the company had committed to no forced redundancies of the permanent workforce before 2018, and when questioned added he did not foresee any job losses through voluntary redundancies, or cutting of non-permanent staff. However he did say there were “operational efficiencies” which could be made.
