Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank everyone for their patience while I get my phone sorted! Last night, I was very proud to co-host with Senator Nigel Scullion a bipartisan event called Facing North. I thank all those members of this House and the other place who attended. It was a very successful night, and I was very appreciative of everyone coming along, getting into the spirit of it and talking to the over 100 Territorians who flew down from Darwin and other places in the Territory to take part, promote the north and talk to parliamentarians about our vast capacity and our vast resources, a lot of which remain untapped—potential unfulfilled. In particular, I thank my parliamentary colleagues Warren Snowdon and Malarndirri McCarthy, as well as Senator Scullion, for working with me and with the other organisers, the Darwin Major Business Group and the Northern Territory government. It was great to have the Northern Territory Chief Minister, Michael Gunner, here with his deputy and Treasurer, Nicole Manison. It is always fantastic to see our Territory colleagues down here because, with only four out of 226 parliamentarians, trying as we might and fighting as we must, working in a collegiate way with our colleagues, we need to be selling the Territory's message at every opportunity. So we did that last night in a big way.

I thank Ian Kew for his leadership in this area. Ian runs Northern Territory Airports but also chairs the Darwin Major Business Group. Along with many other captains of industry in the Northern Territory, characters from the Territory and successful cultural exports like Matty Wright, the Outback Wrangler, we put together a bit of an event last night that, hopefully, captured the imagination of people, not only because of their great fondness for the Territory but also because of a deeper appreciation of our most varied culture, landscape, characters, businesses and capacities. Territorians are an innovative bunch and we saw that last night. We saw it through the great displays there but also in the marvellous way in which the Karen Sheldon catering team, with those young Territorians, made amazing food from Territory products like buffalo, crocodile, magpie goose and pearl meat from the Paspaley company.

I thank the Paspaley company and the other sponsors for the assistance they gave us in putting together what was a cultured larrikin experience, epitomised by a chat that I had with Matty Wright on Sky News. He's a great export, in his third season of Outback Wranglerhe's hitting the States soon—and is a great ambassador for tourism to the Northern Territory. I want also to thank CapitalHill Advisory, particularly Catherine and Sarah, who did a wonderful job assisting us to put this quite complex event together. We had Green Ant Gin, which was made into wonderful cocktails. We had many and varied contributors to the event. CapitalHill Advisory did a fantastic job, so I just want to thank them.

Most of all, I want to thank the Territorians who came along. It's a long way to come down—as I know, looking to fly back home tonight—but for Territory businesses it's worth the trip down. The networking that we did last night will bear fruit into the future. I thank the House for the opportunity.