ONLY yesterday I talked to the Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Jenny Macklin Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Regional Manager of the New Future Alliance SIHIP project, my Northern Territory Cabinet colleagues and a number of Barkly constituents and they say, ‘a week is a long time in politics!’

I should qualify the chanced meeting with the PM as an unexpected encounter with Dwight who was operating a Kevin Rudd ‘look alike’ stick puppet while fronting a YDU film crew as part of the long and trusted working relationship between the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) and the youth of Tennant Creek and the Barkly.

For which, the NT Government part-funding of $45,000 for the YDU-ATYP 2009-2011 Program as a Barkly Electorate Bid both acknowledges and supports the valuable work of the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation – Youth Development Unit in our town.

Meeting Minister Macklin and the Future Alliance partners was an important occasion for witnessing the Strategic Indigenous Housing Infrastructure Project roll-out in Tennant Creek where I got to speak with both contractors and local Indigenous trainees on working construction sites located throughout the new and emerging suburbs of my home town.

Meeting with Cabinet colleagues is an honoured event where each week I participate as a Minister in the peak decision making instrument of the Northern Territory Government in the design, development and implementation of policy shaping and growing the Territory toward 2030 and as you would expect I take that role very seriously indeed!

And at the ‘grass-roots’ level reflecting on a seven day road trip through the electorate after the June parliamentary sittings I was both informed and advised by constituents on matters of importance for the Barkly and the Northern Territory that I take with me back to Government as a local member and Minister for Transport and Corrections.

Some would say, ‘what a charmed life’ and I respond with, ‘never had a job like it,’ but at the end of each long day in politics in town, out bush or in the Parliament the challenges for getting it right are enormous and all Parliamentarians stand accountable on this level!