I went down to Perkins shipping agent in Darwin to retreive the bike last week. Had to make an appointment to have the customs and quarantine come to check the bike and luggage. All this took a couple of days.
The payment was 43$Aus for Perkins handling charges and $90Aus for the quarantine inspection.
Next step was to ride to the Motor Vehicle Registry . I was able to get 3 months insurance on my German plates by showing the following:
Carnet
Current Registration papers for Germany
Current German insurance
Driving Licence - I showed my English European one)
Passport

this then cost $A145 for 3 months

Compulsory insurance for N.T on a 650cc bike is A$600 per year! In W.A. it is only $A200 so it may be cheaper to ship to Perth insurance wise.

I do have permission to import my bike and will do so after the three months is up but I will have to pay extra fees. Apparantly there is no import duty on motorcycles but there are taxes which are 10% of shipping and handling charges and another fee (I cant remember what for) of $60. All up it is about another 260$Aus so I'm hoping to get a job first to pay for this.

You can ride here on your European licence, you have to be resident to get an Aussie one.

Hope this helps someone.

linda