OPINION: Four years after former NT Police sergeant Paul Milne warned about psychological injury, stigma and a system reliant on officers asking for help, he writes that the recent coronial findings into Senior Constable Michael Deutrom’s death, along with years of reviews, strategies and investment, raise questions about whether officers are any safer.

There is no current market for production-scale Beetaloo gas fracking until a pipeline is built, so the CLP has announced plans for a string of water-guzzling, AI data centres powered by Beetaloo fracking, writes Bree Ahrens, that might make things easier for the fracking industry, but there’s no happy ending for Territorians.

The Acacia IT project was intended to transform healthcare, not simply replace ageing systems, but failed to follow its master plan, maintain clinical involvement, test whether continued spending was delivering value, and mistook extensive governance structures for effective oversight, writes project consultant André Snoxall.

The Northern Territory Government’s claims that developing the Beetaloo Sub-basin will contribute $17 billion to the economy and 13,000 jobs relies on a very low probability scenario in nine-year-old modelling, while the moderate scenario shows less than $40 million a year in economic benefit to the Territory and an average of 82 jobs a year over 25 years, writes Climate Integrity executive director Claire Snyder.

The Northern Territory’s voluntary assisted dying laws risk creating fear and confusion among Yolngu people because of failures to communicate in their language and within their cultural framework, potentially leading them to avoid medical treatment and worsening already poor health, argues Richard Trudgen.

OPINION: There were two significant political stories during the week ended August 21, which provided, in combination, a revealing and accurate “report card” on the health of the Northern Territory’s Polity, writes John Lawrence. Once again it showed beyond any doubt that the NT is no longer even near being a functioning jurisdiction; quite the opposite.

A hyperscale AI data centre proposed for the Barkly would require a gas-fired power station larger than the one powering the Darwin-Katherine grid, as well as a new gas pipeline and vast groundwater extraction, despite being promoted as a renewable-powered project, writes Justin Tutty.

Darwin residents are increasingly concerned about emissions from the city’s LNG plants, particularly benzene and other toxic gases, as regulators approve expanded “hot venting” while community groups push for independent air monitoring and experts warn of serious health risks even at low levels of exposure, academics Melissa Haswell and Kerrie Mengersen write.

The government believes that by the time of the next election Territorians will have forgotten their record on probity and governing in the public interest, writes Charlie Phillips.

The facts and the players involved in the recent appointment of the Northern Territory’s 24th Administrator David Connolly present a morality play which not only illustrates the moral abyss to which we have descended, but also how this decline occurs through the inadequacies and unprincipled actions of our institutional and political leaders, writes John Lawrence.

A citizen science event at Ludmilla Primary School has raised concerns that development proposals in the Ludmilla Creek catchment are being assessed in isolation, without considering their combined impact on one of Darwin’s last natural tidal creek systems, writes Planning Action Network volunteer Sonja Pastor.