By John Lawrence
OPINION: The NT, and it’s far from alone, continues to slide backwards into barbarism. I understand Se Acabo has a tendency to be monotonous, but; “If not me, who? If not now, when?”
Our collapse has gone through sufficient tipping points to have become a “cascade”. A catastrophic cascade. And still it includes that remarkable feature, which is how few people seem to see it, acknowledge it, accept it, maybe even try and resist it? How can that be, despite it being the nose on everyone’s face? We are living, necessarily it seems, in an “Age of Denial” which, like many features in a decline, is both a cause and a consequence. “Blue pills all round! Don’t look over there; look here!”
The Departure Lounge
After all these years, watch now for the increased departure of people, being those largely responsible and personal beneficiaries of our decline into this dysfunctional malaise, as they jump ship and head South taking with them their superannuation luggage, their titles and medals, along with their dishonest and delusional explanations as to how their exciting adventures up North all ended up so terribly, terribly bad.
“Darwin has become just too hot!” Some of them may even have the gall to harbour designs of writing their memoirs sitting on the verandas of their hobby farms or in their elite, inner suburban homes. If they are, my advice is; “Forget it!”
Like everyone else, history has been, and continues to be, watching over all of us.
Democracy is Broken
For too long now the way our democratic system “works” has become the biggest impediment to the real interests of the citizens of the Northern Territory.
The reality, the “truth”, is the two party system and all who sail in her no longer works; it therefore no longer serves its purpose being to represent and promote the interests of all citizens, majority and minority while being accountable to the same.
Remember accountability? It went out with Ministerial responsibility and the conflict of interest principle. Democracy really is about representing the majority and the minority.
The reality for all to see is that our current system of “democratic” government is broken. We have become dysfunctional and yes, a “failed state”. Our central Institutions of Law, Health, Education and Government have all deteriorated to inexcusable levels. And yet we all just plough on taking the blue pills.
The Political Class and Mediocrity
The recent history of the NT abounds in evidence of gross incompetence and abuse by the people who are supposed to be acting on our behalf, i.e. those who are democratically elected, their unelected advisors, senior bureaucrats and their higher management agents. Where does one start?
There’s the NT ICAC which was established in 2018, ironically to investigate and clean up corruption in the public sector. It has been, and remains, a complete joke achieving virtually nothing. It has spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars while being led by two incompetent commissioners whose very appointments illustrate a pivotal feature of our decline. Both commissioners were appointed by somebody, somewhere, some time, and presumably on some basis. Who were these people who, in their wisdom, appointed the commissioners? What were their reasons for appointing both?
On a lighter note, but still in many ways an accurate illustration of the incompetence of the political class, is the infamous Cavanagh Street “arbour” which still hangs over Cavenagh Street looking as sick as the people who made the decision eight years ago to erect it and spend $100,000 a year maintaining it. “Dying on the Vine” as the NT Brand certainly makes more sense than “Boundless Possible” ever did.
Our City Council and Councillors also illustrate the point. We have “Kon Tower”, a massive expensive construction which will eventually consist of debt, empty offices and a giant eyesore to the skyline. Similarly we are saddled with that woeful piece of bling which offends the coastal landscape down at Bundilla Beach (Vestys). Coming in at $700,000 sits well with Kon Tower and the “arbour” in being not only an eyesore but a complete waste of taxpayers’ money.
Further, we have, but don’t benefit from, a $12 million-plus Police Station in Nightcliff. Ask the people of Nightcliff! This was going to be a 24/7 fully manned police station placed there to reduce crime. The opposite seems to be the reality. Within this edifice there exists, in total, a front desk staffed during weekday hours! When I drive past it I wonder if it only “exists” through a hologram projection.
It is a classic white elephant, and we’re all paying for it due to again the gross incompetence of our political class. Who is responsible for this giant mistake?
We all know only too well that the current CLP government will just blame the previous Labor Government who will then respond with lies claiming “it would have become a real elephant one day”. And on and on. And on. This further illustrates our political system is not only incompetent but consistently dishonest, run by people who are incompetent and consistently dishonest. This is mediocrity, and the trouble with mediocrity is it breeds mediocrity.
The Problem of ‘The Mandate’
The CLP Government claims they have a “mandate” to reduce crime by getting tough on criminals whilst prioritising victims. The election was described as a “landslide” with the CLP winning 58 per cent of the two-party vote, which was a swing of 11 per cent, and winning 17 out of the 25 seats.
Their recent decision to stop people getting on the bus wearing dirty clothes and arming the transit police with Glocks, along with allowing the public to “tool up” with OCC spray is, on any analysis, just ignorant. By that I mean the product of stupidity.
These are Government policies which will backfire and become counterproductive. Are they “mandated”?
Neither of these measures sat in the CLP’s election manifesto and highlight the serious limitations that exist when our Government claims “mandate” to justify their new legislation.
As we all know people vote for one party in preference to other parties for all kinds of reasons. People may have voted for the CLP this time in preference to the Labor Party because they just couldn’t vote Labor again due to the lies and corruption that Labor consistently exhibited when they were last in power.
Likewise the personality of the candidates, moreso than policy, could be the reason people voted CLP. Some others may have voted CLP because they wanted longer sentences for convicted criminals. But does this mean the current Government, being the Cabinet and their nameless advisors, can bring in laws which are destroying our legal system and increasing crime? Because on every analysis, that’s what the current CLP government is doing.
The prison “system” and our Courts are on an unsustainable trajectory which can only lead to collapse. Off duty prison officers, out walking their dogs, have been identified and attacked by angry former prisoners recently released.
The entire NT prison situation is a powder keg which grows more combustible by the day.
There are no rehabilitation programs never mind therapeutic models functioning to ultimately reduce crime. Pregnant women and mentally ill prisoners are unable to even make bail applications due to the Government’s new laws. “Lockdowns”, namely solitary confinement, increase, as do the resentment and anger of the prisoners and their families.
The NT Local Court “process” is a train heading for its “Cassandra Crossing”. Our incarceration levels are now the highest in the world, with 90 per cent of adults being Aboriginal, and 95 per cent for juveniles.
Fifty per cent of those adults are languishing on remand, while 83 per cent of the children are on remand. Their conditions have become grossly inhumane and clearly unlawful. The prison is now a meat grinder.
The numbers have increased at an astonishing pace since this Government came to power. In the last seven months, the Darwin Local Court “in custody” numbers have increased by 250 per cent. Our Judges continue to process these “loads” through their Courts and into unlawful prison conditions. Go into the Local Court on any given day and watch what is a lamentable sight, being in many ways the opposite of Due Process.
At times it is just chaotic and shambolic.
The Attorney General’s response to questioning on this is certainly consistent. She says they “have a mandate and they won’t apologise for putting victims first before criminals”. It reminds one of earlier democratically elected politicians telling us that there were, apparently, “Children Overboard” and “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. Lies. Complete lies.
What our “mandated” Government is definitely doing is treating remandees, sentenced prisoners and detained children in a cruel and unlawful manner which will inevitably result in an increase in crime and a less safe village.
Have they really got the “mandate” to do that?
John Lawrence first started in the Territory in 1987 as a Crown Prosecutor, five years later becoming the Solicitor in Charge of NAALAS, now NAAJA. He later joined the Independent Bar where he has remained for 28 years. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 2010 and has featured in many high-profile cases, including several Royal Commissions of Inquiry. He has served as President of the NT Bar Association as well as the Criminal Lawyer’s Association NT (CLANT) and as a Director of the Law Council of Australia.
John has written numerous articles for various national publications over the years, mostly on justice issues. He has been a passionate advocate for human rights, the rule of law and the rights of all Territorians having spent a large part of his career representing Indigenous people and organisations in their struggle against disadvantage and injustice.
His regualr column for the NT Independent is called Se Acabo. John has witnessed how the NT has developed over the last 38 years and pulls no punches in his assessment of our current problems.
I cry sincerely . . . as a last means. Will you John take one further step into OUR wilderness. Our totally fractured Communities? Will you give genuine thought . . . to place, finger embedded. Within the hairline fracture that now has split. Become a disconnected gap. Between two cultures? Neither community able. To resolve. Or mend. As neither can exist under current corrupted systems – lack of leadership? Will you consider the sacrifice and stand at next Election? There has to be . . . . ?
Certainly. Here’s an alternate view of John Lawrence’s opinion piece — one that challenges his framing by highlighting middle-class perspectives, and critiques what could be seen as a privileged, overly cynical narrative.
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An Alternate View: Perspective from the Middle Class Majority
By [Your Name]
OPINION: John Lawrence’s recent commentary paints a dystopian image of the Northern Territory in collapse, a failed state spiralling into chaos, abandoned by elites and betrayed by politicians. While some of his observations reflect genuine frustrations shared across our community, his portrayal also reveals the deep disconnect between those observing from a lofty perch of privilege, and the everyday reality faced by the Territory’s middle class majority.
For most Territorians, teachers, tradies, small business owners, healthcare workers, and public servants, this is not the luxury of a philosophical crisis. It’s the daily grind of raising families, paying mortgages, navigating rising costs of living, and trying to make the best of where we live. We don’t live in an “Age of Denial” we live in an age of resilience.
We Haven’t Given Up and We’re Not Leaving
Lawrence describes an “exodus” of so-called elites taking their superannuation and retreating south to their verandas. But the vast majority of Territorians aren’t planning their escape, we’re investing in our homes, our communities, and our kids’ futures. We’re staying. Because we believe the Territory is still worth fighting for, even when it’s hard.
This isn’t naivety. It’s commitment.
The idea that we’re all popping “blue pills” and ignoring systemic issues is not only dismissive, it’s inaccurate. We are aware of the challenges. But sweeping despair doesn’t help us build anything. It’s easy to call the system broken from a distance. It’s harder to roll up your sleeves and work to fix it.
The Democratic System Needs Reform, Not Rejection
Yes, our democracy needs improvements. Accountability has suffered. Bureaucratic missteps have occurred. But to label the Northern Territory a “failed state” is hyperbolic at best and irresponsible at worst. The middle class doesn’t see its institutions as dead, we see them as under pressure and in need of smart, collaborative reform.
The courts, police, local councils, they’re not perfect. But there are still countless public servants doing the best they can under immense strain. To write them all off as incompetent and corrupt is to ignore the many who work tirelessly to keep the wheels turning.
Let’s Talk About Crime! Realistically!
Lawrence criticises the current government’s law-and-order agenda as “ignorant.” But for many families in Darwin, Palmerston, Alice Springs, Katherine and beyond, public safety is not an abstract philosophical debate. It’s a daily concern. People are worried about their cars being stolen, their homes being broken into, and their kids walking home after dark.
You might not agree with every measure, Glocks for transit officers or spray for passengers might seem excessive to some, but dismissing people’s fears as stupidity is unhelpful. It’s not ignorance to want to feel safe. And while incarceration rates are a serious concern, especially for Aboriginal people, solutions need to balance compassion with consequences. The pendulum must swing towards justice, but not at the cost of community security.
Privilege, Memoirs and the Irony of It All
There’s irony in criticising those who “sit on verandas writing memoirs” while doing just that, issuing sweeping declarations about the state of the world from a position of comfort and security. Middle Australia doesn’t have time to write essays about collapse. We’re too busy keeping the Territory going, working shifts, running schools, raising kids, training apprentices, building houses.
If we are to move forward, we need less theatrical cynicism and more grounded realism. Not everyone can afford to abandon ship. Most of us are still here, trying to patch the sails.
Yes, We Must Do Better
None of this is to excuse the real failures: rising incarceration rates, a lack of youth rehabilitation, questionable government spending. These issues demand attention. But reform requires constructive engagement, not condescension or despair.
The Territory is not a “meat grinder” or a “Cassandra Crossing.” It’s a place of potential, of grit, and of remarkable people who still care. Rather than indulging in the language of ruin, let’s demand better, from our leaders, from our systems, and from each other.
And instead of asking “If not me, who?”, perhaps the better question is:
“If not us, together, then who?”
So full of straw men. **roll eyes emoji**
The NT is totally a Failed State, by almost every metric. It’s wilful blindness to ignore that and to us it really makes no difference what the self-proclaimed ‘class’ of people is who point that out.
The first step to fixing a problem is to identify it and accept it as a problem. One can use cynicism to good effect if one has lived through generations of rising incarceration rates, a lack of youth rehabilitation, questionable government spending etc etc
But it’s possible to hold this Failed State view AND be critical of others – as you are being about John Lawrence – and still believe that change can happen which is what both of you actually believe I think.
People in class houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Give us a break. Perhaps a move toward realism would be helpful!
WRD comments remind me somewhat of a tortuous undergraduate essay in – wait for it – sociology!
And yet by NT standards he’s basically Voltaire
‘Democracy is Broken
For too long now the way our democratic system “works” has become the biggest impediment to the real interests of the citizens of the Northern Territory.’
Our household agrees with this statement but not with the headline John.
To play devil’s advocate, it’s not necessarily that the 2 party system is broken per se but that the people populating it are as unaccountable, self-interested and negligently short sighted as they currently are.
This is a problem of quality of people, not of quality of system.
You can have the best political system in the world (whatever that means) but if it’s stacked full of Marie-Clare Boothbies then your system will be in predictable decline and disrepair very quickly.
Alternatively, you can have the worst political system (again, a generalisation) in the world but the nicest, compassionate, most intelligent and benevolent autocrat running it and everyone would be singing its praises.
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Although, as we’ve discussed many times in the comments over the last 18 months, we believe that the base line system of voting in the NT needs changing away from the current model which gives us that 2 party system majority and nothing else.
There are simple ways to change this but it would require what chess players call ‘a Queen sacrifice’.
As a new Party, you would sacrifice your strongest political piece (Queen = unfettered policy making by majority vote, what our current Attorney Generally Terrible likes to describe as a mandate) in order to benefit your overall position.
On the surface you are giving up your strongest player.
But in the background, this overall position being a more diverse political group of candidates representing a wider range of interests, thereby reducing the chance of a majority by a long way.
A new Party would need to use the current system with which to gain a majority then when in power start changing the voting regulations into one that truly offers proportional representation (PR).
Just based on last year’s numbers you might then get something like, this is a vague estimate: 12 CLP, 8 ALP and 5 Independents.
If these were the numbers of MLAs for argument sake then as a majority party in Government you would need to spend more time collaborating and accepting minority interest changes to your policies to get them through, assuming they all banded together to create a viable opposition.
Political decisions in theory then become made more strong by group consensus instead of someone’s favourite hairdresser or those with delusions of grandeur and no idea what they’re doing in Ministries they have no experience and/or qualifications to run.
There are many different kinds of democratic voting systems out there and there are ways to tweak PR so as to make it more applicable to NT demographics but what it does is take away your power of majority sway in Parliament which is really what both of the 2 Party system wants and because our voting system hasn’t changed, it is precisely what they get.
They love it this way because the political power pendulum always swings back to them at some point thus giving them no real incentive to change the status quo.
We only have the voting system – and therefore political system – we have because it has not been turned into a different one. This hasn’t happened because it will distribute power away from the CLP-ALP coalition of complicity and towards smaller and more representative actors.
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Here is an example of a few other voting systems for those that can’t imagine what they might look like:
https://electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/
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We’ll say this again: the system as a whole is deliberately dysfunctional.
Chaos creates cash opportunities for private interests while at the same time it needs someone to ‘fix it’ ie politicians.
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There is also the perennial problem of social scientists: how do bad systems attract good people?
Bad systems – and by this we mean systems stacked full of self-serving, incompetent, inexperienced, arrogant bullies and fraudsters and their supporters – attract only more bad people because they are that bad.
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the worse it gets the less inclined any good people are to join it, the worse it gets, ad infinitum.
But the worst it gets, and the fewer and fewer good people in there, the better it becomes for bad people.
In order to truly break this cycle we’re going to need a collection of brave, experienced, good people who want to Change For Better, the voting system and dispense with its allies, so the NT can begin on the path of cleaning up the mess left by both the CLP-ALP snake oil salesmen and women, getting rid of the TICK INFESTATION slowly killing its host and restoring some real justice to the InJustice System with a dose of compassion for all in society who need our help.
Adequately funded and supported for the long term Justice Reinvestment models would go a long way to help achieving this.
Once people see how easy it is not to have the current disaster that we have, our hope is that this will motivate them to get more involved and to make sure, in the future, that the NT never goes back to what we have now.
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The ALP has already been politically exiled and with good reason.
The CLP will follow them out the door at the next election.
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Ready to join us in reshaping the NT, John?
We would welcome your foresight, knowledge, experience and expertise.