The Finocchiaro CLP Government has passed changes to the Youth Justice Act in Parliament on urgency Thursday night, that will see the use of spit hoods on children reinstated, the principle of detention as a last resort removed, increased powers for youth justice officers to use force on youth inmates and the reintroduction of the use of restraint devices and dogs, essentially rolling back the changes made in response to the royal commission into youth detention in 2017.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro’s comments in Parliament that 45 paediatricians who voiced concerns about the treatment of children in youth detention should stop “wasting” her time and go back to “looking after sick children” have been condemned by the Australian Medical Association NT.
A Corrections officer whose two-month-old baby was left with a fractured skull and a brain bleed after a violent home invasion was not told by his superiors that the alleged offender was being transferred to Alice Springs Prison where he works, the United Workers Union has said.
A 32-year-old man has been arrested after allegedly indecently assaulting a female who was walking through the Palmerston golf course grounds shortly after 7am this morning, NT Police said, with the man later throwing a bottle at officers who were searching for him.
EXCLUSIVE: A fracking well drilled by Beetaloo Energy Australia that potentially connected two different aquifers, posing a risk of contamination for both, and which was forbidden under the company’s environmental management plan, was the reason the Department of Lands Planning and Environment recommended former environment minister Kate Worden prosecute the company, a response to questions on notice from Budget Estimates hearings shows.
Territory Labor appears not to have learned any lessons from an ICAC investigation into its misuse of public funds during the 2020 election campaign, with the Auditor-General finding the now-Opposition members used taxpayer-funded staff to produce party-political social media posts in recent months, in breach of the Public Information Act.
A coordinated extensive search for missing 26-year-old Alice Springs man Gach is continuing west of the town ahead of forecasted sub-zero temperatures, three days after he vanished, with more than 50 personnel from police units, emergency services and Parks and Wildlife combing through 500 square kilometres of “challenging terrain”.
The Northern Territory recorded growth in business investment and construction activity over last year, according to the latest CommSec State of the States report, with other economic indicators, such as population growth also showing modest improvements.
Proposed legislation that will change the Anti-Discrimination Act is being heralded by the CLP and religious groups as a major win, while others have criticised the government for the changes that they say weakens protections and waters down reforms brought in three years ago.
A female police officer was sent to hospital after an altercation with five females in Yarrawonga yesterday afternoon, in an incident that saw the “aggressive” females allegedly surrounding the officers at one point, with pepper spray deployed and damage to a police vehicle, the NT Police said.
The CLP Finocchiaro Government has shut down a censure motion brought against it by an independent Indigenous MLA in Parliament, who said the government was “contributing to increasingly unsafe communities across every part of the Northern Territory” with its unilateral policies.
A little-known ‘networking’ company connected to Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro’s husband Sam Burke has not made its annual financial reports public since 2021 while its auditor resigned two years ago, the NT Independent can reveal, raising more questions about how much the company received from taxpayers through the Waterfront Corporation to hold a conference this year and the value of ongoing fees paid to it with taxpayer money.
