NT sets sights on infrastructure funding

The Northern Territory will bid for as much of a new federal infrastructure development fund as it can.

The Abbott government's second budget provides $5 billion in concessional loans for infrastructure loans to develop the territory and northern Western Australia and Queensland.

"We've got a pipeline of projects up here that's enormous and we'll be wanting to get as much of that money as possible," NT Treasurer Dave Tollner told the ABC on Wednesday.

Mr Tollner nominated a gas pipeline to NSW, a second railway line from Tennant Creek to Mount Isa in Queensland, and a second port as some of the projects the NT government wants developed.

He would also like to grow the $200 million infrastructure development fund the government has seeded with money from the sale of the Territory Insurance Office, taking it up to a billion dollars.

That, combined with the federal loan facility should work very well in tandem to put the territory on the map, he said.

Mr Tollner is pleasantly surprised to find the money had been allocated as Reserve Bank loans rather than outright funding.

He expects the money will be wholly used by private investors with capital contributions coming from the NT government for big projects.

"The reason we don't want the money is we're already dealing with a debt problem left to us by the previous government," he said.