It's taken a while, hasn't it?

I think, yeah, I have done so many stories.

I reckon I've done for five years, I've been doing stories saying the gas is going to flow from the Beetaloo next year.

Well, you know, and there are a lot of times along the way, Katie, where I just thought this is probably not going to happen.

And I think talking to people this week, I think it went pretty close at times to not happening.

I think one of the things that ensured it did happen was the gas sales agreement that was signed by Eva Lawler back in 2024.

I know there's a bit of politicking around this whole issue and who's the champion of the B-loop, but I think Eva Lawler in particular deserves a fair bit of credit for how we got to this point.

it's hit the bank

What are you guys hoping to learn at this show?

Anything from, I mean, how to do our snow better than we're doing it.

I mean, we just recently got a new software aspire and that's made things much better as far as scheduling the routes, um, getting our crews around invoicing the clients, everything from ticket management to scheduling to, uh, like I said, invoicing to all of it, even sending out alerts to our clients before snow.

That's kind of a new thing.

I know we've always done in the past, but it's been so much easier.

You know, me and Logan will come up with an update.

Hey, we know what, huge six inch storm is coming over the area.

Just planning is very key with snow.

What was your reaction when you learned that he said that he was going to be resigning effective immediately?

Yeah, look, I was surprised when I saw the news yesterday, Wolfie, I would have to say.

I mean, I probably wouldn't have expected Yngwie Aguilar to resign.

to contest the next election, but I would have thought that he would most likely have seen out this term of government, given it's only two years since the last election.

I think it's a real shame and it'll be a loss for the parliament.

I think he's made a pretty remarkable contribution over the last decade.

Really, if you go back to 2016, when he first ran against Lynne Walker as an independent in one of the safest Labor seats in the Territory.

Any word on the street when that might be, Matt?

I mean, Matt, with the Deputy Prime Minister here and certainly these announcements being made, what's the feedback been, you know, in terms of the investment into the Northern Territory when it comes to defence?

Well, I think for most people it's welcome, Katie, and you would have read some of the stories in the ANSI News recently about the lengths that you know, local businesses went to to make sure that they were getting a big share of that investment that is coming from the United States.

I mean, you know, Master Builders and others have made several trips and some of the biggest companies in this town have made several trips to Hawaii to talk to, you know, the United States officials about their investment here and trying to reassure them, I think, that they have the capability of doing a lot of that work, and I think that's paying off for them now.

So there's an enormous amount of defence investment, both from Australia and the United States, that's happening in the top end at the moment.

I was out at Tyndall Air Base just last week as well, Katie, where there's an enormous amount of money that has been invested by Australia and the US over the past couple of years for upgrades there that are almost complete.

Yeah, spot on.

A lot of talk about that role as well, of the special envoy.

Mark Butler was interviewed by Andrew Clennell on News 24 on Sunday, and Mark Butler said, well, the reason he hasn't been removed from that position is that Essentially, it's a position that holds no power and he's, quote unquote, just a backbencher, which Amal sort of took a slightly different view today.

Well, today or tomorrow?

Look, I was just blown away.

And I'm actually in Sydney at the moment, which might give you an idea as to how I did the research into this story, Wolfie.

But I was looking last week to book to come down here.

And when I saw some of the fares, we've talked about high airfares and the cost of airfares for Territorians for a long time, but I had never seen anything this extreme.

And the fact that this is when I was looking last Thursday, I think it was.

So to book today a flight from Sydney to Darwin at 8 a.m. this morning, $1,955, and the same on Wednesday.

I'm pretty sure we've had like a bloody Senate inquiry or something into it as well, haven't we? So how do we get to the point where something changes?

[laughs]

... um, walked into one, and I think we barely stepped in the door, and like, "Oh, you guys are Aussies." I'm like, "Yeah, mate." And like, it's like, "You guys can't have suppressors at home." I'm like, "Nah, not really.

It's a bit hard." He's like-

Yep

... you know, you can stay on target.

Um, and if, if you do require a follow-up shot that, you're not, you're not trying to find your sight picture again, try and find an animal that's, you know, you're winding your scope up to 25 times and-

matt tell us more about what this internal investigation found

Well, I mean, as you were summarising there in your intro, it has substantiated allegations that there was workplace misconduct that occurred before the sudden death of Sean Joyce last year.

Of course, he died in August last year while he was working on the troubled, to say the least, Acacia project.

Now, after his death, his siblings, Cara and Adam, came out and spoke a bit about the treatment that they say Sean was subjected to in the weeks and months leading up to his death.

And they say that he was overworked but also bullied in the workplace.

And subsequent to that, Katie, we then heard from other contractors who had worked in that department at a public accounts committee hearing earlier this year who basically just described a totally dysfunctional workplace, a toxic environment, a place where if people raised concerns about what was happening, they were basically shut out.

That was the direct evidence of one contractor who had worked on that project a man by the name of Andres Knoxall, who basically said, you know, if you put your hand up and you said, hey, this isn't working, this is going in the wrong direction, et cetera, et cetera, you'd just be frozen out.

before, haven't we, Matt? Like not One Nation before, but we've seen other alternatives before, you know, different political parties.

very

senior Labor people on the board of CareFlight who won the contract when the Labor, Henderson or Martin, no, it must have been the Henderson government were in power.

And the RFDS, you know, at some levels has close ties to the coalition.

So, I mean, Gerard has said that the government was at arm's length from this decision.

So we take him at his word on that.

But it does seem to be that when that tender comes up, it goes one way or the other depending on who's in power.

Someone else has said to me who knows about these things, and I don't know the financial details of the contract, but they reckon that CareFlight charges around $28 million per year, while RFDS charges around $14 million.

How about just do your job?