The Finocchiaro Government will re-establish a legislation scrutiny committee despite declaring as late as Friday that it would not, while it also plans to introduce amendments to five different pieces of legislation into Parliament over the next five days.
A man has been arrested after allegedly stabbing his partner to death in the remote community of Lajamanu, NT Police said.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro today announced eight assistant ministers, meaning that all government members are now ministers or assistant ministers, and Independent MLA Robyn Lambley has been endorsed as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.
The NT Independent has won another NT Media Award, this time for Best Text News Coverage, beating out the ABC and The Australian, marking the fifth gong for the online newspaper since starting in March 2020.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro will not re-establish a legislation scrutiny committee despite calling it “the dismantlement of transparency” and “closing down democracy” when it was scrapped by the Gunner Labor Government, a position former independent MLA Gerry Wood has labelled hypocrisy.
The Finocchiaro Government has now said it is working to “fix” Legal Aid NT’s funding shortfall, a week after the issue became public, but has not said what it will do, while the agency itself will not say what the government is doing, or whether it will still dramatically reduce its representation of people in criminal matters.
Public drinking will be criminalised with police given new powers to issue on-the-spot fines, as well as arrest and charge people for consuming alcohol in prohibited places, under so-called ‘nuisance drinker’ laws, the Alcohol Policy Minister Steve Edgington has said, but a peak alcohol body has said it would be better to treat the issue with a therapeutic, rather than punitive approach.
The CLP Government’s new ram raiding law will carry the same maximum penalty as the offence of damage to property, which already covers ram raids.
Police will be given the power to use hand-held metal detectors to search for weapons in schools, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said, while principals will “very likely” be able to reject their use while new Greens MLA Kat McNamara said the move was turning schools in airport security checkpoints and asked the Chief Minister to rule out police using the wands in primary schools.
Inadequate funding has been blamed for NT Legal Aid not taking on new adult clients in criminal matters from October 21 and imposing a range of other service cuts.
A woman’s electric scooter was stolen late at night in Alice Springs by two male youths who blocked her path, hit her on the wrist and pulled it away from her, NT Police said.
An independent MLA has questioned why acting Independent Commissioner Against Corruption Naomi Loudon selected the person to assume responsibility for Operator Jupiter rather using ICAC legislation to have the Administrator independently appoint a temporary commissioner.
