After the Northern Territory’s right to legislate on euthanasia was restored, two inquiries were held, with one highlighting a shift in Indigenous communities thinking on voluntary assisted dying, moving from seeing it as the sorcerer’s needle and “kill business” to it allowing people to finish up on country, with family and at a time of one’s choosing, writes Dr Robyn Smith.
A former “distinguished” senior traffic officer has been heavily fined but escaped conviction after instructing his son, who recorded a positive breath test, to drive away from a crash scene, enabling him to evade a drug test despite suspicions he was under the influence of drugs.
NT Police are investigating the death of an infant allegedly found inside a parked vehicle in a Palmerston driveway on Friday afternoon.
A private consultancy company started by one of the Territory’s most senior public servants has recently employed another senior bureaucrat, with both heavily involved in establishing the NT Government’s private investment attraction and gas regulation policies over the past five years, raising questions about the potential for confidential government information to be used for private gain.
A 33-year-old man has now been charged with murder in connection to the suspicious highway death of a 27-year-old Queensland woman, who he claimed had “stopped breathing” after their vehicle struck a kangaroo, which the NT Police said they have found no evidence to substantiate.
Sex crimes detectives have arrested and charged a 20-year-old male with gross indecency of a child under 14, in connection to a sexual assault that occurred in Anula early Saturday morning when a girl was allegedly assaulted while sleeping in her bed.
King Charles III has sent a message to Territorians following recent floods across the NT, saying the “devastating havoc the wet season has caused” is the result of climate change, while the NT Administrator’s Office said his Majesty also included a “personal donation” of an undisclosed value to help with flood recovery efforts.
A police officer who was not criminally investigated for sharing a photo of a half-naked, distressed Aboriginal woman with colleagues in a social media chat group was later recommended for a National Police Service Medal by former commissioner Michael Murphy for his “ethical and diligent service”.
Twenty per cent of motorists specifically tested for drugs at checkpoints as part of last weekend’s Easter road safety campaign were found to be under the influence, NT Police said, in an alarming result of a small sample size.
UPDATED: The death of a woman who reportedly stopped breathing after the vehicle she was in “allegedly” struck a kangaroo near the Barkly Homestead Sunday morning is being treated as suspicious, NT Police said, with more information provided on Wednesday as police continue to call for the public’s help.
Nine people have been arrested in Alice Springs after two separate incidents in which four males, including one armed with an edged weapon, broke into a house and five males, armed with edged weapons and metal poles, broke into a caravan, threatening residents and stealing car keys in both cases, NT Police said.
A post-euthanasia legislation education campaign in remote Northern Territory Aboriginal communities in 1996 revealed deep cultural fears about whitefella “kill business”, evidence that informed a federal inquiry, but it was moral arguments from outside the Territory that ultimately drove the law’s override, writes Dr Robyn Smith.
