Despite vast areas of land owned by NT Aboriginal groups, the fundamental building blocks of a successful market based economy are absent due to land rights legislation, and the suffocating presence of the land councils which sets a self reinforcing cycle of very weak business activity, low school attendance, low educational outcomes, social dysfunction and crime, writes Dr Don Fuller.
Like its government predecessors the Finocchiaro Government has gone down the trajectory of imposing policy violence on First Nations people, when the NT needs progressive thinking with problems solved by community thinkers, not politicians emboldened by their narrowed sense of entitlement, and presumed mandate to impose racialised belief systems, writes Dr Gary Fry.
The NTFL should have an ‘Inclusive’ round, rather than a Pride one, because it would say that no matter who you are, male or female, and no matter your religion, ethnicity, sexuality, or politics, you are still welcome to participate in Australian rules football, writes Gerry Wood.
CDU vice-chancellor Scott Bowman needs to be far more concerned with strengthening the Northern Territory’s democracy, as the staff member he publicly rebuked is, rather than appearing to wish to ingratiate himself with whoever happens to be in power, writes Dr Don Fuller.
A new evaluation of a project that involved 214 kids at two preschools in Queensland receiving an enhanced program focused on communication skills 20 years ago, shows it reduced the amount of young people before the courts for serious crime by 56 per cent, writes Jacqueline Allen, Kate Freiberg, and Ross Homel.
Given its importance to the wider Aboriginal community, Batchelor Institute needs to be placed under the organisational control of a federal government department to ensure appropriate levels of governance and financial standards required of an organisation so heavily dependent on taxpayer funding, writes Dr Don Fuller.
The NT CLP Government’s move to reduce the age of criminal responsibility for children as young as 10 is a brutal, costly and genocidal attack on the NT’s most vulnerable, writes prominent barrister Alistair Wyvill, which raises troubling questions about the Territory’s capacity to govern itself.
We had a taste of an archaic approach to passing bills last week by the CLP Government not using the scrutiny committee and rushing them through on urgency, and while the government has promised to reintroduce the committee, we must now wait and see the fine print, writes Gerry Wood.
Successive NT governments seem more concerned with maintaining power than making principled leadership decisions following honest and transparent communication with voters, and the problems of rapidly developing social conflicts, and escalating debt, point to a bleak future, writes Don Fuller.
If the new government wants to keep Territorians safe from crime it needs to open the new youth detention centre as a priority, not lower the age of criminal responsibility, and fix the ‘silent crisis’ of pervasive delay in the Local Court to provide justice for all, writes criminal lawyer Clancy Dane.
The CLP has pledged to return the age of criminal responsibility to ten but the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child says 14 should be the absolute minimum. Adolescent health and psychology academics Susan Sawyer and Nandi Vijayakuma look at what the science says about how much those under 14 understand the consequences of their actions.
Vice-chancellor Scott Bowman needs to improve Charles Darwin University’s teaching and research, rather than be an activist on political and social issues, which quashes the academic right to freedom of thought and expression.
