EXCLUSIVE: Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro breached the Disclosure of Interests Act by not divulging for two years that her husband Sam Burke was a director of a company that received annual payments from the Darwin Waterfront Corporation and which held a conference at the Waterfront earlier this year with the assistance of an undisclosed amount of taxpayer funds, the NT Independent can reveal.
UPDATED: A Toyota troop carrier that was involved in a fatal road crash that killed a 76-year-old male tourist near Delemere on Wednesday was stolen from a residence in Katherine, NT Police revealed on Thursday.
A 34-year-old man has been arrested and charged with sexual intercourse with a child under 10, in what NT Police have described as a “confronting investigation” involving a “very young victim”.
The nearly three-year long coronial inquest into the shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker has cost two government agencies more than $7.4 million combined, with the total costs for the inquest still unknown, the government revealed in an answer to a question at Budget Estimates.
Five senior police officers who lied to the coronial inquest about the existence of racist awards in the TRG that the Coroner described as “grotesque examples of racism” in her final report will have no action taken against them, the NT Police have said, while former constable Zach Rolfe has accused the officers of colluding “with the support of some members of the NT Police executive”.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has publicly mused about introducing Castle Law in the Northern Territory – the legal doctrine that would decriminalise the use of lethal force for people to protect themselves and their property – saying on radio that she hears from the public about it “a lot” and that “people are very, very interested”, while laughing off the public’s concerns about current bus safety officers being armed with guns.
The Finocchiaro CLP Government has launched its first NT Investment Summit in Darwin, bringing to town over 100 business leaders, investors, and key stakeholders from numerous countries and industries, but has not disclosed the cost to taxpayers of the summit or details about what is being discussed.
The Coffee Club in Katherine was ransacked overnight by a group of offenders in a stolen Toyota Hilux from the showgrounds, NT Police said, but police media did not report that the intruders reportedly returned to the cafe around 7:15am this morning, where they allegedly attacked staff, the owner and customers, with one staff member reportedly sent to hospital.
The CLP Government has committed to “fast-tracking” the majority of recommendations from the Approvals Fast Track Taskforce report to cut red tape and boost the economy, including extending food business registrations to three years, exempting “low-risk” electrical works from needing a certificate of compliance and extending responsible service of alcohol certificates from three to five years.
Overcrowding in the Palmerston Police station watch house hit ‘crisis point’ on Monday with 92 people in custody, including 76 Corrections prisoners, the police union has said, which is a statement at odds with the government’s claim in March that all the Corrections prisoners had been moved.
Only one of Darwin and Palmerston’s public housing and bus safety officers wants to become a police public safety officer, the Commonwealth Public Sector Union has said, a new role that comes with a gun that the Finocchiaro Government announced last month to crack down on antisocial behaviour.
A 46-year-old Darwin man was arrested on Monday morning for multiple drugs and firearms offences after NT Police detectives, the dog unit and Australian Border Force personnel intercepted him at a Katherine service station following his return from Queensland, police said, while also executing search warrants at his home and business.
