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.
The CLP Government’s new ram raiding law will carry the same maximum penalty as the offence of damage to property, which already covers ram raids.
Police will be given the power to use hand-held metal detectors to search for weapons in schools, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said, while principals will “very likely” be able to reject their use while new Greens MLA Kat McNamara said the move was turning schools in airport security checkpoints and asked the Chief Minister to rule out police using the wands in primary schools.
The Director of the Centre for Public Integrity has described as “absurd” a decision by the Acting Independent Commissioner Against Corruption to suppress the name of a former Supreme Court judge she briefed to oversee the continuing investigation of the then-Labor government’s misuse of public resources during the 2020 general election.
Hospitality NT chief executive Alex Bruce has announced he will be Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro’s new chief of staff.
The CLP has preselected Lisa Bayliss, a police officer and daughter of former CLP minister Daryl Manzie, to contest the division of Solomon against Labor incumbent Luke Gosling in next year’s federal election while no candidate has been named for the division of Lingiari.
The first sitting of the Northern Territory Parliament under the new Finocchiaro Government will begin on October 15, and run for two weeks, with the government saying it will introduce its promised bail reforms, decrease the age of criminal responsibility, and bring in minimum mandatory sentences for assaulting frontline workers in the first week
The CLP Government’s director of communications is being paid more money than the NT’s head of nursing and midwifery and more than every new CLP minister, the NT Independent can reveal, with former NT News editor Matt Williams given the plum gig by Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro that pays up to $300,000 a year, despite having no experience as a political adviser.
The Territory’s anti-corruption watchdog’s suspension following alleged “inappropriate behaviour” towards several female staffers will end on Sunday, before the investigation into his alleged conduct is complete, while Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has refused to comment on whether he will be reinstated to the role on Monday.
Existing “infrastructure” could be used to house overflow prisoners who are being held in police watch houses, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has said, but her government remained silent on the potential for using the old Berrimah jail when youth prisoners are moved out next month, while the former chief minister told the police union in April there were no immediate solutions to the problem.
The former editor of the NT News, who left the job after his involvement in the Darwin Turf Club’s grandstand scandal was made public and who wrote an editorial backing the federal Labor Party in 2019, has been named director of communications for the Finocchiaro CLP Government.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has announced her first Cabinet, that will be made up of all six of her former opposition team members, as well as newcomers Robyn Cahill and political unknown Jinson Charls.
