The NT Police director of communications Margaret McKeown has been sacked without explanation, sources have told the NT Independent, which comes amid revelations the Fyles Government appointed a marketing manager to usurp the NT Police media unit to control how the police force reports crime to the public.
Police Minister Kate Worden used “spin and deceit” when backing Deputy Police Commissioner Murray Smalpage’s extraordinary, and ultimately incorrect claim, that crime in Alice Springs dropped to its lowest point in four years, an independent MLA has said.
The NT Fire Service will crew the Humpty Doo fire station during the day seven days a week over the Dry, relying on staff to do overtime to cover the weekend shifts, while the move was welcomed by some firefighters as a “positive start”, the union said the station needed to be permanently staffed for rural area residents’ safety.
Former NT police officer Zachary Rolfe will be forced to give evidence at the Kumamjayi Walker coronial inquest after he lost his appeal against a Supreme Court decision, with the judges finding his claim of protection from giving evidence by way of a “penalty privilege” was not covered under the Coroners Act.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has said it is investigating after a cattle mustering contractor died when his helicopter crashed on a remote Northern Territory station on Tuesday.
An investigation by an outside panel found a Charles Darwin University academic had plagiarised his students’ work, contradicting an internal investigation’s conclusion that was also supported by the vice-chancellor, but the university has not explained how the original inquiry found the former professor had not stolen his student’s work.
NT Police media has suppressed that knives were used in two different public attacks on Territory women, resulting in both of them ending up in hospital because of their wounds, in statements that came in the week following the NT Independent revealing the government installed a marketing manager who gives strategic advice on the “Territory master brand” to decide on what crime is reported and how it it is done.
The NT Police Association president has said he will talk about the perception of political interference in the operation of the NT Police force with Chief Minister Natasha Fyles after the NT Independent revealed a marketing manager who gives strategic advice on the “Territory master brand” to the Chief Minister’s department, had been installed by an unknown person to help decide what crimes are reported to the public.
EXCLUSIVE: A marketing manager who gives strategic advice on the “Territory master brand” to the Chief Minister’s department, has been installed by an unknown person to help decide what crimes are reported to the public, usurping the NT Police media unit, sources have confirmed to the NT Independent.
The proposed Middle Arm industrial precinct is an ambitious plan, but ultimately a flawed concept that relies on too many unproven assumptions, including the viability of carbon capture, the cost of which will ultimately fall on the taxpayer, a report by an international energy market analysis body says.
A website the Fyles Government built to advertise jobs in the Northern Territory is offering people the chance to relocate to Western Australia for work and has also bizarrely advertised a job with the Sydney Swans in partnership with a Wollongong high school to monitor “fan engagement” in Katherine South.
UPDATED: A train derailed southwest of Katherine and caught fire, NT Police said, which the NT Independent understands led to people being evacuated from nearby properties after reports the fire had spread.
