Hoops 4 Health, the Darwin basketball and youth program founded by Timmy Duggan OAM, was named NT Blak Business of the Year on Saturday night at a sold-out Mindil Beach Casino Resort Pavilion, where Northern Territory Indigenous Business Network chief executive Naomi Anstess told 500 guests that Blak business is "the goddamn heart of this place and the future of it all".

Key Points

• “We are the goddamn heart of this place”: the line that put Darwin on its feet ~ NTIBN chief executive Naomi Anstess
• The Chief Minister was billed to speak. She pulled out. Her government provides no financial support to the Network.
• The Territory’s first NBL player just won its top business award

The NTIBN named thirteen category winners and a new Regional Champion under the banner "Bring the Fire", months after the network itself was moved out of a Territory Government office at short notice.

Duggan, a Warumungu, Wagiman and Nyikina man, was the first Territorian to play in the NBL, in 1996. Hoops 4 Health runs Hoops on the Inside in Don Dale and the Territory's adult prisons. It beat Mick's Cranes Australia and last year's winner, North East Arnhem Land Aboriginal Corporation. "It's about more than just winning games," Duggan told National Indigenous Times in December.

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro was billed to speak but pulled out at the last minute. Minister for Trade, Business and Asian Relations Robyn Cahill spoke in her place, setting out the Territory Government's support for business. The government provides no funding to NTIBN, and its recent eviction of the network from a government office left Anstess's team working around the clock to relocate.

"When people tell us we are not important enough to support, when people take our funding, when they move us on, when they do those things, we will rise and we will continue to rise," Anstess said. "Because we will do it ourselves."

She built her speech on the network's BlakPrint Report, modelled by Deloitte Access Economics, which puts the Blak business contribution to the Territory economy at $3.4 billion in 2024-25, or 10.1 per cent of gross territory product, "almost on par" with the public sector and Defence.

"We are not on the periphery, we are in the centre. We are driving it forward, and we are critical to the Northern Territory economy."

"It is our business owners who are losing profit for purpose. So don't anybody dare tell me a Blak business is not a social enterprise, because we are doing the heavy lifting and closing the gap," she said.

"We're saying, 'No more teacher aide, be the teacher.'"

The resources and energy sector paid about $10 billion in tax nationally this year, she said, and NTIBN's members paid the equivalent of eight per cent of that. The sector employs 3,500 Territorians. "I've got 11,500 Blak ones. That's you."

Anstess named gold sponsor Rusca Developments, whose $35,000 she set against the "billion-dollar entities" offering $5,000 community sponsorships. "Thank you, that paid the rent for a day on our country," she said. "It is our Blak businesses investing in each other."

She told allies to "get with the program. Get more money in the bank, pay more rent and donate, because we want you to buy from us."

Yung Milla, the Marranunggu rapper from Darwin who won The Voice Australia three weeks ago, performed alongside J-Milla. Anstess said the pair were "changing the conversation across the country" and told parents who send their children away to "make sure they come back".

Michael Assan of Mick's Cranes Australia, last year's Start-Up winner, was named Blak Male Business Owner of the Year ahead of Duggan. The Wakka Wakka man launched the Territory's first Indigenous-owned crane company in Katherine in October 2024 and now dry-hires a 130-tonne crane to INPEX.

Nicole Thompson, a Mak Mak Marranunggu woman, won Blak Female Business Owner of the Year for TRACKS Integrated Services, which has placed more than 88 people into Ventia's Defence contracts, and its NDIS arm TRACKS Care.

Anstess presented the new Regional Champion award to Triple P Contracting of Elliott, a town of 287 people on the Stuart Highway. Gordon Jackson and Susey Kidd founded it in 2013 and hold about $11.5 million in Territory roadside contracts with a crew that is 90 per cent Indigenous. "Since 2013, we have businesses on every part of the highway in every corner of the Territory," Anstess said.

Nalan Seafoods won Start-Up of the Year ten months after Bo Carne, a Jabirr Jabirr and Bardi man and the inaugural chief executive of the Aboriginal Sea Company, and his wife Shay bought and renamed a 27-year-old Winnellie fish wholesaler.

Shots on Country took Creative Business of the Year thirteen months after Will Lauenstein, a Wuthathi man and serving RAAF Indigenous liaison officer at RAAF Base Darwin, registered it as a sole trader.

Sinead Burnett, a Darwin mother of two who moved into traffic sign manufacturing in 2024, won Young Blak Entrepreneur for Absolute Signage NT. Jipungwayi, whose name means "the fire in me", won Growth Business of the Year for founder Mikey Coombes, who runs youth diversion and NDIS programs on the Tiwi Islands.

AKJ Services, the Larrakia-owned civil contractor former INPEX site cleaner Jessie Risk built into a 100-strong business with more than $100 million of Defence work, won Blak Impact Creator, four years after taking the top award.

Kalano Community Association of Katherine, seven months on from the town's worst flood in 28 years, won Community Controlled Organisation of the Year. Buymarr Getaways of East Arnhem Land won Tourism. Cross Cultural Consultants won Consultancy. Black Cat Civil won Construction and Resources. McMahon Services Australia NT, which manages 1,200 remote homes with its majority Indigenous-owned partner Intract, won Ally Business of the Year.

"There is no economy without us," Anstess said. "If you want to rebuild the economy, then you better look Blak, and I can help you with that."