00:00 Shop after shop sitting empty in the Darwin CBD, but up in the city's office blocks, vacancy
00:07 rates are even worse.
00:09 We are the highest in the nation, an unenviable position, so it is something that we need
00:14 to be correcting.
00:15 So what we see at the moment is across our CBD is 58,000 square metres of vacant space.
00:21 The property council is sounding the alarm with concerns the problem is only likely to
00:26 worsen in the new year ahead.
00:29 People leaving the territory and this can maybe be related to a whole bunch of reasons,
00:33 whether it's the antisocial behaviour that we've been seeing, the economic downturn,
00:37 but also the cost of living pressures that come with the Northern Territory.
00:41 Smaller retail and hospitality venues are also feeling the pinch.
00:44 The property council estimates around 20% of the city's shops are unoccupied.
00:49 For some of those who've ridden Darwin's boom and bust over the years, they believe it's
00:54 just another period of transition.
00:57 Because there are a lot of owner operators, they do move to different locations.
01:02 So you might find, for example, Rabbit Hole, they were down in the moor, now they've just
01:07 moved across to larger premises.
01:09 The government banking on this new university campus, growing the cruise ship industry and
01:14 attracting big business to turn things around.
01:18 We are riding to and we are talking with big business around Australia.
01:21 The top 200 on the ASX we are engaged with currently and we're going to be trying to
01:26 get them to the Northern Territory.
01:27 For now, traders are most concerned by the cost of living and families tightening their
01:31 purse strings.
01:33 But they're still hoping for a last minute Christmas shopping spree to end the year on
01:37 a high.
01:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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