OK so it sounds very much like the NTEPA could have taken these political comments to heart.
Every so often where I work they have a division meeting where employees are able to submit a question to management.
I'm not sure if you can sense my frustration that Australia is playing laggard & we are missing out on new industry, skill, employment opportunity, wealth creation & improved standards of living by not jumping on board the critical mineral/value add/advanced processes, train which is leaving the station, so I submitted a question to management.
They read my question out about the above (remember nobody knows it was from me) & the guy who read the question out was a young engineer who introduced it something like this (paraphrasing).
"This is one of the best questions we've had submitted, probably one of the best we've read, so we're really interested in the companies response...."(sorry for sounding like Donald Trump BTW)
I know a few of the people who review the submitted questions for selection. So I was pretty chuffed they chose & read this one out.
My point is this, there are extremely bright, talented, enthusiastic & capable people, even working for organizations you wouldn't normally think would have people interested in these things, who are looking for those opportunities, modern technological advances which will change the way we do the things the way we have grown accustomed to doing them. Because the outcomes are better. Better for higher skilled work, better for profit, better for the footprint required to meet modern needs and thus better for the environment/sustainability.
TIVAN could be just one part of that & Darwin is potentially missing out on a future filled with incredible opportunity in industries that people WANT to work in.
On the jobs numbers - the plant appears complex so will have lots of manual tasks to complete, uses rail, road, ship for transport, has a remote mine where workers will likely FIFO OUT of Darwin, but also very likely, the value adding done to raw materials IN Darwin means manufacturing industry could see that as location to set up shop, close to supply lines.
Sorry for the rant. Just would like to see people thinking more long term, not short.
(20min delay)