St John Ambulance NT says a critical situation over the weekend led to nearly half of all emergency triple zero calls “abandoned” due to overwhelming demand, leaving 29 life-threatening emergencies unaddressed for up to five hours, with calls for the Health Minister to take urgent action to keep Territorians safe.
UPDATED: The CLP Government’s last minute move to block Alice Springs corrections officers from walking off the job for 12 hours has failed, with the Fair Work Commission ruling early Friday morning that the industrial action is legal and can proceed.
The ongoing emergency response to flooding events across the Territory has led to “system-wide pressures” on the NT Health system, the government says, leading to Code Yellow declarations issued Tuesday for hospitals in Darwin, Palmerston and Alice Springs, with calls for the public to avoid the hospitals outside of real emergencies.
Alice Springs corrections officers’ plan to walk off the job next Friday over stalled pay negotiations with the government will force prisons into full lockdown, with the Corrections Department raising concerns about community safety.
A federal parliamentary inquiry into “racism, hate and violence directed at First Nations people” has been struck amid a “reported increase” of online racism directed at Indigenous Australians that will report back by September, NT Senator and Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy has announced.
Seven girls and women have been arrested in Alice Springs for allegedly bashing a 16-year-old female last Friday which NT Police did not make public until today, while a video of the brutal attack shows the victim being being hit in the head with a scooter, bashed with a metal baseball bat, her head kicked and stomped on, and her assailants trying to smash her head into a bitumen road. Police have also alleged the group “forcibly removed her clothes” following the beating.
One person was taken to hospital with cuts to his back and three others were arrested after a machete fight through the Alice Springs CBD on Friday afternoon, NT Police said, while other offenders remain at large.
The Northern Territory will see “up to” $1 billion in additional federal health funding over the next five years, the Chief Minister has said, following the signing of a new funding agreement with the Prime Minister on Friday heralded by both sides as a “historic deal”, but that funding will “only keep the lights on” here, says the Australian Medical Association NT.
The owners of the Yeperenye Shopping Centre in Alice Springs are planning a $27 million redevelopment of the facility, which will include a new supermarket tenant, and a rooftop restaurant.
A 16-year-old male has been released from custody with no charges after he was arrested early Sunday morning in connection to an incident involving a male allegedly entering an Alice Springs home and attempting to indecently assault a female inside, NT Police said.
Three senior NT Police officers, including two executives, were issued with serious discipline breach notices for alleged racist comments during a recent senior management meeting, with one of the accused identified as one of five officers who lied in a statutory declaration to the Kumanjayi Walker coronial inquest, sources have told the NT Independent.
OPINION: Wasteful and scandal ridden Darwin projects such as the Ship Lift and the Waterfront give politicians in the Top End city the ability to claim credit for such developments and enable mates and political supporters to be paid off by an inappropriate and extravagant use of tax-payer funding, while tourism in Central Australia declines, Dr Don Fuller writes.
