The White Paper is a vision to unlock the great potential and opportunities of the north. It focuses on building priority roads, developing water resources, removing red tape, building a sustainable workforce and ensuring effective governance arrangements.

To unlock the north’s full potential, the Commonwealth Government will address challenges to development by:

• making it easier to use natural assets, in close consultation with, and the support of, Indigenous communities
• providing a more welcoming investment environment
• investing in infrastructure to lower business and household costs
• reducing barriers to employing people
• improving governance.

These themes are explored throughout this White Paper. The actions needed to develop northern Australia will be rolled out over the next two, five, 10 and 20 years. These actions reflect community views, expressed through the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia’s report: “Pivot North — Inquiry into the Development of Northern Australia” (Pivot North) and submissions to the Government’s Green Paper on Developing Northern Australia (the Green Paper).