A powerful peak body for Aboriginal Territorians has publicly rebuked Police Minister Brent Potter for his comments about violence in Daly River, insisting the Minister and the Lawler Government are playing “the blame game” instead of accepting responsibility for their failure to uphold law and order across the Territory.

Last week’s violence in the community, also called Nauiyu, saw five homes set on fire by a gang calling themselves the Jovi Warriors, who also shot crossbows and shotguns while ramming cars into houses, leaving dozens homeless and fearing for their lives.

The Northern Land Council issued a statement on Tuesday, condemning Police Minister Brent Potter for a failure to ensure adequate police resources were deployed to the community in a timely manner and for claiming with no substantiation that unresolved land claims were behind the violence.

Police Minister Brent Potter said on Friday that the NLC had refused to be part of the solution to ongoing violence in remote communities.

“I mean, we can’t police our way out of the issues we see in West Daly and some of those communities,” he said. “What needs to happen is mediation. And we didn’t see the NLC coming to the table and getting out there and talking to those communities that have long standing disputes around that.”

The NLC rejected Mr Potter’s claims and said there was no connection between the violence and any land claim matters, adding that their constituents are “extremely frustrated with the NT Government’s inability to protect” the residents of Nauiyu.

“The [Lawler Government] is campaigning that community safety is a priority in the lead-up to the Territory Election, but this must extend beyond Darwin,” a statement from the NLC said.

“Contrary to Minister Potter’s claims of inaction, the NLC has been working to support its constituents in the Daly region including by notifying police of reports of imminent gang violence in Nauiyu/Daly River on Tuesday morning, April 30. It urged the NTG to take the matter seriously and swiftly send the Territory Response Group (TRG) to prevent the situation escalating.”

NLC chair Matthew Ryan said it was clear the government and police did not take the NLC’s alert seriously enough, “and over the 48 hours that followed, people were terrorised, injured and houses were destroyed”.

“The response was just not good enough. What is the point of a tactical unit if it’s not being used?” he said.

“A few weeks prior, countrymen saw the TRG instantly mobilised for car theft, but when Territorians living in Daly River first needed protection, they were nowhere to be seen. They were asking me: ‘why is there this doubled standard?’

“Minister Potter’s blame game is not helping our people or any Territorians.”

Mr Potter also said on Friday that a decision was made earlier that week that police resources were put to better use at a development protest at Lee Point than at Daly River, where the gang violence was escalating.

The NLC also called out Hospitality NT chief executive Alex Bruce for comments he made on Monday in relation to Mr Potter’s announcement that bottle shop security guards will soon be able to dispense pepper spray into the faces of anyone acting aggressively.

“…Personally, I’d like to see the mongrels cop it in the eye with some of the spray, put it on TikTok and give the Jovi Boys a run for their money,” he reportedly said.

Mr Ryan said the remarks were inappropriate and conflated bottle shop staff security concerns with unrest in remote communities.

“Mr Bruce is just adding fuel with his out-of-touch comments,” he said. “Why mislead and trivialise these issues that need serious attention?

“NT leaders need to come together with community leaders in good faith to find solutions. The NLC is already waiting at that table.

“I travelled to Daly River on Thursday and met with stakeholders, alongside the police, which was a positive step. But it’s crucial that this not be another talk-fest that gets sidelined – we need a concrete plan and action to follow.”

Mr Potter’s office issued a statement in response late Tuesday, in which he did not address all of the NLC’s concerns or apologise for the unfounded land claim assertions. He said police were working “tirelessly” to make arrests in connection with last week’s mayhem, with six people arrested so far, while reiterating that the solution to ongoing unrest in the Daly River region was “not a problem which can be solved by police alone”.

“I have always said that we need to work together to improve community safety in the Daly River region – and that means police, Northern Territory Government agencies and local community leaders working together closely to solve these issues,” he said in the statement.

Mr Potter was controversially kept in the Police Minister role by Chief Minister Eva Lawler in March, amid community outrage over historical social media posts he shared including racist, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic material between 2013 and 2019, including one post about destroying the Black Lives Matter movement and another that contained the N-word.

Mr Potter and Ms Lawler contended that he had shared the posts when he was in his 20s and early 30s and now at 36, no longer shared those views.