The Finocchiaro Government has announced an extra $3.9 million in funding for Legal Aid NT this financial year, but an internal email sent to staff warned the agency will still have to find savings, including being more stringent in who was provided legal aid, while hoping the government will increase its base funding for next financial year.
Darwin Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis has cancelled his VIP-only unveiling of the controversial Cyclone Tracy memorial sculpture, claiming the Prime Minister had a “bad personal issue” to deal with and could not attend, then attempting to justify keeping the $300,000 in government funding for the memorial by bizarrely claiming that while the sculpture is not a memorial, giving the money back “would be a slap in the face” to Cyclone Tracy survivors who helped select the design.
The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency will not say whether any directors resigned from the board at its annual general meeting on Wednesday, while NT Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby issued a statement seemingly showing she did not know what happened at the meeting, but that she expected the entire board had stepped down or she would re-direct the organisation’s funding elsewhere.
Darwin Mayor Kon Vatskalis will not say how the design for the controversial Cyclone Tracy memorial was selected, or how it represents the disaster, with one survivor pointing out its similarity to the artist’s earlier works said to represent temptation in the Garden of Eden, while an international transparency organisation has criticised a gag order signed by the committee that approved the design.
EXCLUSIVE: A damning review into St John Ambulance NT’s treatment of patients has found multiple failures and poor decisions resulted in harm to patients and significant risk to staff, with a near complete breakdown in trust between hospital emergency department staff and the Territory’s ambulance service provider, the NT Independent can reveal.
Darwin Council has threatened to take action against Cyclone Tracy survivors who protest the VIP-only unveiling of the controversial 50th anniversary memorial unless they get public liability insurance, a provision the council gives contradictory advice to the public about on its website, while NT Treasurer Bill Yan said the event needs to be opened to the public and labelled the monument debacle “a dog’s breakfast”.
Prominent Darwin silk John Lawrence has condemned the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency board’s years of mismanagement and called for their resignations, following an extraordinary public apology to chief executive officer Priscilla Atkins after the Federal Court found the board unfairly sacked her.
The Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education will not say how its council members dealt with potential conflicts of interest when voting to confer an honorary doctorate on their own chair, with the Office of the ICAC last year finding in its review of the organisation that it had no policy to deal with personal or social conflicts of interest.
The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency has issued a public apology to its chief executive officer Priscilla Atkins for unlawfully sacking her in 2023, and for the accusations it made against her, with the agency also clarifying that she is currently the organisation’s CEO.
The Parramatta Eels will play a last game in Darwin next season, and while neither the club nor the Finocchiaro Government has explained why the deal between the two will end, NT Major Events has said it is looking for a new NRL team to play from 2026.
Golden snapper around Darwin remain overfished, with around one fifth of their original population left, and with fishing mortality rates estimated to be more than double the rate considered sustainable, which will prevent stocks from recovering, the Golden Snapper Stock Assessment report says.
Empire Energy’s pilot project to frack gas in the Beetaloo Basin has been given environmental approval, the company has said, while an environmental group estimated the approval would allow the company to use 410 million litres of water, the equivalent of 164 Olympic swimming pools and produce 72 pools worth of fracking wastewater over the life of the project.
