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

It's been over 300 days now since the Prime Minister last came to Darwin. That was during the election campaign. Noting that the Prime Minister loves visiting tropical destinations like Fiji and Hawaii, I urge the Prime Minister to visit Darwin. We are part of Australia too, Prime Minister. We are not just part of Australia; we are the northern capital of Australia. We are a vital, crucial part of our nation. As the northern capital, we are on the doorstep of the largest transformation in human history. It's happening in the Indo-Pacific—in particular in Asia to our north. They are advancing at a great rate of knots, and we are perfectly placed in Darwin to be part of that growth. So it would be good if the Prime Minister could come up and show us that he is acknowledging Darwin's importance and that Darwin wants to advance too, in the interests of the nation and of Territorians like those in Darwin and Palmerston that I represent.

The Prime Minister is a marketing man, so I've got a good one for him. It's the wet season at the moment, but we've just had a bit of a think about that. We're now marketing it as the 'tropical summer'. The tropical summer is a beautiful time of year in Darwin, I think. Some other people much prefer the dry, which we call 'summer'. In summer we get a lot of politicians visiting. I'm just encouraging the Prime Minister to come up, because it is the most fantastic place in the world. The weather is perfect every day. We do have some reasonable gripes with the current government, but we've got so much that we are excited about that we want to talk to the Prime Minister about and get support from his government for. It's in agriculture. It's in aquaculture. It's in renewables. We're going to have the world's largest solar farm. I'm sure the Prime Minister will get excited about that. The carbon farming opportunities are also amazing. And of course there are our First Australians, with their ancient culture and art, which is truly incredible. I encourage the Prime Minister to finally visit Darwin.