00:00Almost a decade on, the Darwin port is once again a federal election issue, and it's something
00:07many local voters still feel strongly about.
00:10We should control our own infrastructure. I don't think it's a good idea that China
00:15should run our infrastructure.
00:17It is important and it should come back to Darwin, or to Australia.
00:21Both sides are saying it shouldn't be done. Well you did it. It's been done. And now we're
00:27saying it shouldn't have been done. It's embarrassing. Utterly embarrassing.
00:31It's a battle of the port pledges. Peter Dutton's commitment to regain control of the asset
00:36follows the PM's impromptu call to ABC Radio Darwin's Drive program on Friday, when he
00:42promised to negotiate a deal to take back the Darwin port.
00:46We will enter into negotiations to do that. That is what we've been doing informally through
00:54potential buyers up to this point already.
00:57The Prime Minister's had three years to act. He pretends on radio last night in a hurried
01:01call late in the afternoon. I don't know what he'd been doing before he got on the phone,
01:06but he was pretty muddled in what he was saying and it was almost incoherent.
01:11The controversy began in 2015 with a deal worth just over half a billion dollars.
01:17Lambridge has been appointed as the operator of the Darwin port for the next 99 years.
01:24At the time, the country Liberal Party government said the port's infrastructure was ailing
01:28and that privatising the publicly owned asset was the best move for the Territory.
01:33And leverage the returns from that investment into other areas of economic advancement.
01:39The move attracted criticism from defence analysts. In a public statement this weekend,
01:44Lambridge says it's an active supporter of the Northern Territory community and again
01:48maintains the port is not for sale.
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