Toyota dominated the Northern Territory’s new car market last year, with the four top-selling models all from the Japanese manufacturer, according to Motor Trade Association data and while new vehicle sales increased by 1.3 per cent overall, sales of new plug-in hybrid electric vehicles increased by 140 per cent.
It’s that time of year again to reflect on the wacky and wonderful stories that made news this year, and in most cases, crucial stories and issues that would never have come to light had the NT Independent not existed. FREE TO READ.
Cattle station manager David Connolly has been announced as the next Administrator of the Northern Territory by Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro, following a period of at least five months in which she said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would not approve his selection.
The taxpayer-funded Darwin Waterfront Corporation, which was thrust into the public spotlight earlier this year for unresolved governance failures, mismanaged conflicts of interest, and nepotistic hiring practices, ran a record $3.3 million deficit last financial year, while the DWC board’s chair appears to have ignored key recommendations to improve the corporation’s governance, according to its annual report.
An Alice Springs man who tried to complain about how the Health and Community Services Complaints Commission handled his health treatment complaint discovered the review committee meant to scrutinise the commission no longer existed, having been left dormant after Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby failed to appoint members, while she claimed it would be premature to do so ahead of the establishment of a proposed new integrity body.
The head of ambulance services at the troubled St John Ambulance NT, Andrew Thomas, has been appointed as the new executive director of Bushfires NT, while the ambulance contractor has said it has brought in former Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw to help find its next chief executive officer.
Police Commissioner Martin Dole told the former head of public prosecutions that Zach Rolfe should be charged with murder over the shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker, but did not have a conflict of interest despite his childhood relationship with the victim’s family, a new ICAC report has found, which also concluded that police management’s failure to record major decisions in the case was “unfortunate” and “surprising” but did not amount to improper conduct.
Darwin Council will not say if it spent the $126,500 allocated for the annual city Christmas display, that this year involves failing lights, decorations from Christmases long, long ago, and the old Smith Street Christmas tree that appears was only lit for one night.
The reward for information that leads to police finding missing woman Angie Fuller has been doubled to $500,000, NT Police said.
A 47-year-old man has been charged with murder following a more than three-year-long investigation into the suspicious death of a woman who was first found unconscious on a Katherine street corner in August 2022.
A team of scientists say the NT Government is being “misleading, inaccurate and potentially defamatory” by claiming their study that found a major aquifer was drying at an accelerated pace did not include enough years of data, a criticism that follows the government itself in 2022 inexplicably doubling the estimated annual re-filling rate provided for an aquifer by appearing to cut the data period in half.
A Darwin-based tree services company has been fined $10,000 following a serious workplace incident that involved an employee attempting to light a cigarette for another worker who was refuelling a work vehicle, causing a fireball that engulfed the vehicle and injured the employee.
