The Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler has given the TIO Stadium grandstand an exemption, with no end date, from complying with the building code, but she has not said whether the government has given up trying to get proper safety certification for the building, and fix unresolved critical safety issues, including some that NT firefighters have said expose the public to risk.
All officers rostered to work the night shift at Casuarina Police station called in sick last Saturday because of dissatisfaction with issues in the NT Police broadly, including Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker’s statement in response to the announcement of a Territory-wide vote of confidence in him in the coming weeks, sources have told the NT Independent.
Knives stolen, attempted theft of other knives and a crossbow, in third break-in at Mitchell’s Adventure this month
Planning Minister Eva Lawler has announced the need to review all government buildings in “control areas” for non compliance with the Building Act 1993, while saying she has extended TIO Stadium’s exemption from complying with the act, with the first exemption having sparked an Office of the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption investigation into her actions.
There were 42 officers leave the NT Police from late February to late May, a slight reduction in the rate from the three months before that, but the attrition rate hit 10 per cent for the last 12 months, with 171 officers having left, which compares to the about 60 who left the force each year several years ago, according to NT Police Association figures.
The Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker has issued an extraordinary media statement saying he does not know why nine NT Police Association regions have asked for a vote of confidence in him, but wants to understand the “primary drivers”, while once again not mentioning by name Constable Zach Rolfe and his Supreme Court murder trial acquittal for the shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker.
Student paramedics and ambulance volunteers have been used in St John ambulances with urgent patients, including a person who had hung themself, and those who were suffering seizures or needing resuscitation, without, or with delayed paramedic and or intensive care paramedic back-up, the United Workers Union has said.
NT Police Association president Paul McCue has sent a message to members saying it was clear they want a vote of confidence in Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker, and that the vote would happen in the “coming weeks”, but also took the opportunity to distance himself and the union executive from any involvement in the motions put from sub-branches for the confidence vote, which he is referring to as a “survey”.
Ongoing “disturbances” in Wadeye will only be resolved if family groups, elders, traditional owners and government agencies come together to discuss and implement solutions to the current feuds plaguing the community, the NT Police have said, adding they had 17 arrest targets under investigation for riotous behaviour.
NT Police Association president Paul McCue has said motions for a vote of confidence in Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker in nine of the 12 union sub branches was really about doing “a survey” of members’ feelings toward the Commissioner “not about necessarily a vote of no confidence”, while claiming there was an equal amount of positive comments he had received from members about Mr Chalker.
Crossbows and bows stolen in one of two ram raids of a Darwin business have been used to shoot at least four people in Wadeye, sources have told the NT Independent, but the thefts and the shootings have not been made public by the NT Police in a continuation of authorities suppressing information about violence in the remote community.
An internal investigation into well-being and mental health in the NT Police, Fire and Emergency Services will not be made public, Police Minister Kate Worden told Budget Estimates on Monday, adding she did not know when its recommendations would be implemented.
