One of the perks of working in a place like the Northern Territory is the opportunity to cover stories in some of the most beautiful parts of Australia.
In mid 1986 I traveled to Kakadu National Park to cover a weed control program. The weed was Mimosa pigra, a plant which was a threat to these world heritage wetlands.
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A constant through my time political reporting in the Northern territory was Marshall Perron.
I interviewed him in all guises, while he was a minister, the Treasurer, the Attorney General, and Chief Minister.
In this story he announced he was stepping down from the front bench to spend time with his family.
Barramundi fishing is not just a recreational sport, but big business in the Northern Territory.
The tension however has always existed between the recreational and tourism aspects to barramundi fishing, and the commercial imperatives of our restaurant tables.
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When you are a reporter you sometimes come across people with a clean vision of what they want to do, and how they want to do it.
Rarely however have I come across some-one like Bill Neidjie, who not only had a clear vision of what he wanted, but had the strength of personality to buck tradition and carry it through.
While working in Darwin, TV reporters tend to do a number of stories relating to the military and Australia’s defence forces.
The top end is home to significant Australian forces, and regularly hosts ‘war games’ with other countries such as the USA and Indonesia.
One particular training exercise gave me my first close encounter with the legendary B52 bomber, while on another I traveled in a plane refueling the B52.
In 1985 I covered the maiden voyage of the HMAS Darwin.
A guided missile frigate, the ship was built in the United States and on shake-down had undertaken its maiden voyage to Australia, its first landfall being the port of the same name, Darwin.
Along with a camera crew, I flew to Cairns and then onto Thursday Island. From here, with a lift from the local pilot, we caught the Darwin as it passed through the Torres Strait.
An early experience of Aboriginal land rights came when I went to Tennant Creek to cover the Warramungu land claim.
What I found was no firebrand politics and protests, but a system where all parties seemed to want to make sure the right thing was done.
This was one of the first stories I covered on arriving in Darwin in 1985.
In March 1985 a large crocodile was worrying workers building a bridge over the the Elizabeth River, south of Darwin. Conservation Commission rangers set a trap for the crocodile however the animal was found dead in the trap.
While the conflict between commercial and recreational fishing interests was significant in the Territory, so was the conflict between recreational fishing and conservation interests.
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Not long after I arrived in Darwin, the city received one of its more unusual military visitors, the USS Pogy, a nuclear submarine.
At the time it was standard policy from the US Navy to “neither confirm nor deny” they carried nuclear weapons when entering Australian ports.
