Attorney General Chansey Paech has backflipped on his previous position that a youth curfew is “madness”, “punitive” and treats kids like “dogs,” as he publicly supported the Chief Minister’s unilateral decision to implement the Alice Springs curfew, which she has now indicated could be used in Katherine and Tennant Creek.
Chief Minister Eva Lawler has pledged to recruit 200 new police officers over the next four years, despite the Labor Government telling Territorians for years that there were enough officers, and announcing the figure before the review into police resources is publicly released.
NT Police Commissioner Michael Murphy has not ruled out deploying the Territory Response Group to assist in Alice Springs, despite preliminary ICAC findings that the elite group of officers engaged in racist conduct, while sources say the TRG members will most likely be deployed as general duties officers to prevent stoking racial tensions in the community.
UPDATED: Chief Minister Eva Lawler has declared a youth curfew as part of an “emergency situation” for Alice Springs after a day of rioting in the troubled town, pledging to send more police officers to restore order over the next 14 days.
The Territory’s anti-corruption commissioner released a statement Tuesday confirming that the Territory Response Group’s annual awards are “racist towards First Nations people” and calling for those involved to “take responsibility”, amid criticism of his joint investigation into racism in the police force.
CLP Leader Lia Finocchiaro’s chief of staff is departing the role she has held for over a year to run the CLP’s election campaign, with the chief of staff role to be filled by a party figure who quit the CLP last year over the membership’s position on the Voice referendum.
Chief Minister Eva Lawler has contradicted her Police Minister’s claims that the Labor Party knew about his racist and homophobic social media posts before they preselected him as the candidate for Fannie Bay, while the NT Independent can reveal that Brent Potter also shared a post appearing to condone domestic violence.
Department of Infrastructure chief executive Andrew Kirkman knew about serious corruption issues at the department’s Katherine office, including tender manipulation, failure to disclose conflicts of interest and other improper procurement practices since at least 2019, but does not appear to have taken any action, according to a new ICAC “review” that confirmed misconduct in the department.
CLP Member for Barkly Steve Edgington has resigned as the Opposition’s spokesman on domestic violence, following revelations he hired a staffer with a long history of contravening domestic violence orders.
The CLP’s spokesman on domestic violence Steve Edgington has defended his staffer after The Australian revealed the staffer’s “serious domestic violence” history, which has seen him face NT courts 27 times in the past four years, including for breaches of bail and contravening a domestic violence order, but later said he would be suspended until his criminal history could be verified.
UPDATED: Police Minister Brent Potter says he and the Attorney General have called in the NT Anti-Discrimination Commission to investigate racist award certificates handed out by NT Police TRG members, but says there is no hypocrisy in him criticising the police members’ actions despite posting racist, homophobic and misogynistic material on social media around the same time the TRG awards were produced.
Chief Minister Eva Lawler pulled a stunt “straight out of the Nazi playbook” when she personally attacked an ADF veteran for calling on Veterans’ Affairs Minister Brent Potter to resign over claims that his hateful social media posts were the product of his ADF experience, the veteran says.
