The Finocchiaro CLP Government is proposing new laws to grant ministers and the unelected Territory Coordinator sweeping powers to “step in” on major projects and overrule regulatory processes by departments, ultimately making decisions to approve projects themselves, which critics have labelled “anti-democratic and anti-Territorian”.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro’s hiring of a liquor industry lobbyist as her chief of staff has been raised during debate in Parliament about new alcohol laws, with Greens MLA Kat McNamara suggesting the government’s plan to scrap the minimum alcohol unit price would benefit the liquor industry and not Territorians.
Any person found guilty of spitting at any worker will be subject to a mandatory three-month jail sentence, as part of the CLP’s anti-crime agenda to be debated in Parliament this week, that has been labelled a “recipe for injustice” by the Australian Human Rights Commission.
The old Berrimah jail will hold adult prisoners again, while inmates from the newly refurbished Alice Springs youth jail will be moved to the yet-to-be opened Darwin facility, making it the Territory’s sole permanent youth jail, under an un-costed plan that the Finocchiaro Government said will add about 250 corrections beds across the NT by March.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said she will not be sacking public servants, when asked by the Opposition about how she was going to fund election promises with the $11 billion debt Labor created, and while the bill lowering the age of criminal responsibility passed Parliament, the government said it had not yet seen a report evaluating the impact of raising the age of criminal responsibility.
The eight assistant ministers announced for the CLP Government will not be paid extra for their assistant ministerial work, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said.
The first of a raft of legislative changes promised by the government has been passed by the Legislative Assembly. Legislation providing for a presumption against bail for serious violent offenders and giving police the power to search people for weapons with metal detectors in any public place was approved after the government used its numbers to prevent referral of the bills to the Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
The Finocchiaro Government stopped its crime legislation being reviewed by the newly re-established scrutiny committee, instead pushing on to have its five amendment bills dealt with on urgency over the next two weeks, but some members told the Parliament they had only seen one of the five pieces of legislation.
The Finocchiaro Government will re-establish a legislation scrutiny committee despite declaring as late as Friday that it would not, while it also plans to introduce amendments to five different pieces of legislation into Parliament over the next five days.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro today announced eight assistant ministers, meaning that all government members are now ministers or assistant ministers, and Independent MLA Robyn Lambley has been endorsed as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro will not re-establish a legislation scrutiny committee despite calling it “the dismantlement of transparency” and “closing down democracy” when it was scrapped by the Gunner Labor Government, a position former independent MLA Gerry Wood has labelled hypocrisy.
Public drinking will be criminalised with police given new powers to issue on-the-spot fines, as well as arrest and charge people for consuming alcohol in prohibited places, under so-called ‘nuisance drinker’ laws, the Alcohol Policy Minister Steve Edgington has said, but a peak alcohol body has said it would be better to treat the issue with a therapeutic, rather than punitive approach.
