NT: Laboir targets marginal CLP seat with powerline promise

AAP General News (Australia)
08-05-2001
NT: Laboir targets marginal CLP seat with powerline promise

By Rod McGuirk

DARWIN, Aug 5 AAP - Labor targeted the Country Liberal Party's second most marginal
seat in the Northern Territory today with a promise to bury powerlines.

NT Opposition Leader Clare Martin announced today that the Darwin seat of Nightcliff
would be the first to have overhead lines removed by a Labor government.

Former chief minister Stephen Hatton retires at the August 18 election from the seat
he has held since 1984.

The only more marginal CLP seat is held by leader of government business in the NT
Legislative Assembly, Mick Palmer. His seat of Karama covers more modern suburbs which
were developed since the devastation of Cyclone Tracy in 1974 with underground power.

Ms Martin said powerlines were unsightly and unsafe in the cyclone-prone northern beachside
suburbs of Nightcliff and Rapid Creek.

"The residents of these older suburbs would really like to see their powerlines undergrounded,"

she told reporters.

She would not predict whether the $20 million committed to the undergrounding over
four years would be enough to give Labor's Jane Aagaard (Aagaard) the edge over Mr Hatton's
son Jason, who is endorsed by the CLP.

"There are a whole range of issues, this is one of them," Ms Martin said.

Chief Minister Denis Burke said getting power to rural areas deserved higher priority
than undergrounding power in Darwin's older suburbs.

Mr Burke, who today announced video surveillance cameras would be placed on all public
buses within a year, predicted Labor's undergrounding plan would take a century to complete.

"It's enormously expensive and whilst we would like to move on that, a responsible
government I believe should be getting power out to those rural areas," he said.

Ms Martin said the scheme would cost $80 million over 10 years.

AAP rmg/lmc/bwl

KEYWORD: POLLNT

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