Here is a good article on the history.
It was a decision that baffled everyone from NT locals to Barack Obama, a strategic asset lease that slipped past the Foreign Investment Review Board and Defence. It's the most-asked Curious Darwin question, so we look at how the port sale propelled the sleepy territory into a geopolitical brawl...
From the article:
How did it get through FIRB and Defence?
A 2016 Senate committee revealed that while the Foreign Investment Review Board had been contacted to look at the deal, it ultimately didn't formally investigate because, at the time, there was an exemption from scrutiny of a deal like this because it involved a private company and a state or territory government.
The head of FIRB admitted the entire process had undermined public confidence, failed to show a balance between economic gain and national security concerns and was finalised on an "ad-hoc" basis.
The committee called for greater transparency in the decision-making process and for more details to be publicly disclosed, and its report stated the NT Government failed to answer key questions around the details of the port deal to the committee's satisfaction.
The rules were ultimately changed to not let this happen again.
FIRB chairman Brian Wilson told the committee he had become aware of the deal in late 2014 and asked for a response from Defence and intelligence agencies a few times in 2015, but was repeatedly told that Defence had no issue with the deal.
It was also later revealed that the Defence officials were only middle management, and that senior figures and the Minister of Defence only learned of the deal hours before the NT government announced it publicly.
Mr James said.
"You can't mortgage the strategic security of 25 million — and in the future more Australians — just to make a quick buck for a local political problem you have at the time, and then lie about it, and lie about it consistently in your supposed defence of it.
"You may well find that future generations of Australians reading Australian history books will have the most scathing judgments about the idiocy of the decision-making.
"It's quite possible many decades in the future if there is a serious war, where this becomes a serious problem for us, people will wonder whether the decision wasn't just a stupid one, but whether the people doing it hadn't looked seriously at the concept and laws surrounding treachery."
Back in mid-December, when the current Labor Government was trying to explain how the NT was in the middle of a full-blown financial crisis that sees it borrowing $4 million a day to keep operating, Jodie Ryan was asked in a briefing what happened to the $506 million the NT received for the port.
She said it was put into general revenue and spent. It's long gone, with less than 96 years left.