Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has failed to front the public following the release of the damning Justice Alan Blow review into NT Police senior employment practices, issuing a statement to claim she will accept the report’s six recommendations, but making no mention of why she failed to set it up as a proper inquiry, which the NT Police Association said fell “well short of what was expected”.
The Darwin ship lift project, initiated by the Giles CLP government in 2015, has seen the cost to complete the project increase to an estimated $820 million now, with the real possibility it could be over $1 billion by the time it’s completed, while a leading economist has raised financial management concerns.
A 79-year-old German national who was part of a tour group at Nitmiluk National Park was found dead after leaving camp on foot on Monday morning and failing to return, NT Police said.
Two Northern Territory Government departments have refused to explain the contradictions contained in an internal government report into a breach of fracking legislation by Empire Energy – now called Beetaloo Energy Australia – which involved one department sending a letter to “encourage behaviour change” after considering prosecution of the matter, while the other considered the company had done nothing wrong but still took action “to ensure it does not happen again”.
The CLP Government has ordered a three-day “visibility operation” across the Darwin bus network aimed at cracking down on ‘anti-social behaviour’ at “known hot spots and problematic bus routes”, but critics say it’s another “intimidation tactic” targeting vulnerable people.
Education Minister Jo Hersey has become the first CLP minister to admit using the taxpayer-funded white car chauffeur service for a personal trip, raising the prospect of other potential misuse by ministers, but claims she received advice from a body that has nothing to do with the car service that her personal trip to Casuarina was “within the guidelines”, even if “it doesn’t probably float with the public”.
The NT Fire and Rescue Service’s Special Operations Command is ramping up its preparations for natural disasters this wet season by focusing on critical specialised training, including deploying rapid temporary shelters in preparation for use in remote and regional areas and operating drones to survey disaster zones.
The CLP Government says it will put parents of students who consistently fail to attend school under income management, with critics arguing reinstating the old policy will cause more problems, while questions have also been raised about how the NT Government will enforce the policy and whether the Federal Government was involved in its development.
A 4WD owned by a member of the public allegedly rammed into the side of a stolen ute with children inside, including a 16-year-old driver, in an attempt to stop it after a two-hour dangerous driving rampage that included a campdraft camp in Tennant Creek where it almost ran over three small children, sources have told the NT Independent, while NT Police has provided an account of how the stolen ute was stopped that does not match the photographs of the damaged vehicles.
EDITORIAL: There is no way to overstate the damage the Justice Blow report has had on the already fragile Northern Territory Police Force, its members and the trust every Territorian should have in its police service. It shows an organisation paralysed in the face of its challenges, overcome with infighting and accusations, its senior and most experienced officers’ morale shattered and the culture of a once-proud police service left to rot from the inside out.
Opposition Leader Selena Uibo was forced on Friday to admit to abusing the taxpayer-funded government white car service for personal use following an FOI application filed by the ABC, stating she will now pay back the money, which the NT Independent understands was used for transport to dinners in Darwin, a birthday celebration earlier this year and other personal events.
The Justice Alan Blow inquiry into senior police appointments under former police commissioner Michael Murphy has found the promotion and appointment processes “have many shortcomings” that need to be addressed immediately, while also exposing a war within the senior ranks of the NT Police over unresolved allegations of favouritism, bias and “undeclared or unmanaged conflicts of interest” that is continuing to affect the police’s culture and morale.
