Oh yes, they are busy putting up apartments everywhere, but I think a vast majority of them - possibly more than 50% will sit empty for a while when Inpex reaches endgame. Just across the road from us, they started building a 4 storey apartment/shopping complex last year, but the company in charge pulled it a few months ago because they could see the writing on the wall. It's just a 1/4 built concrete framework, and likely to stay that way for years.

We visit the local markets frequently, and almost all the stall holders (some who have been at the markets for 2 or more decades) are struggling. All the local hotels and services apartments are occupied by fly in fly out workers, taking rooms that tourists normally buy in the dry season, and they don't visit markets or spend coin locally. Inpex was touted as a boon for the Northern Territory, but it has been a total bust for us. I really love Darwin, but I fear it will be a ghost town in a few years.

Did you walk down the mall in the CBD when you were here? Notice how many empty shops and 'For Lease' signs were up all over the place?

We used to have a solid public service contingent in this town, which sort of kept things going through the lean times, but even that is under threat. Our newly elected Territory government is looking to axe 100+ jobs over this year via natural attrition. We've already sold off most of our high value assets (the port and our TIO insurance company etc.), and the Federal government have just announced they are slashing $2billion from our GST revenue share over the next few years. There is not much left in the kitty.