Children and Families Minister Robyn Cahill prioritised changing child protection laws over the past two years to suit her party’s ideology while ignoring her department’s culpability in failing to keep children safe, NAAJA says, while the co-author of the report that identified the department’s extensive failings says she is “very confident” action will occur within the next six months, with other groups warning reforms will reduce the threshold to remove children by an already overwhelmed department.

Former NSW Ambulance commissioner Dominic Morgan has been appointed chief executive officer of the Royal Flying Doctor Service SA/NT, weeks after the organisation was awarded the NT Government’s $625 million aeromedical retrieval contract for the Top End.

A report into the NT Department of Children and Families’ handling of the case of a five-year-old girl who was allegedly abducted and murdered earlier this year has found multiple failures by the department, including that child “safety plans” are not adequately monitored and that the case of Kumanjayi Little Baby was not an isolated failing in the department rife with leadership shortcomings and no accountability.

Darwin Council is still withholding records on the controversial Cyclone Tracy memorial’s design selection two years after an FOI application was filed, citing a non-existent provision of the Information Act to justify its refusal, while the Information Commissioner has yet to resolve a cyclone survivor’s complaint after 22 months.

The Finocchiaro CLP Government will follow other states’ lead by mandating that the Darwin Private Hospital operator provide maternity services by law, but the move comes 16 months after the services stopped because the government failed to act on advice that it legislate for it at the time. An obstetrician has also warned it will now take at least two years for the services to return.