By Carey Joy

OPINION: How is it that not one of the NT Police staff members involved in alleged misconduct for sending “racist” text messages that have recently been strewn about in national media as part of the Coronial Inquest Show has ever been spoken to about their behaviour by the NT Police executive in more than two years?

Following the major attention given to those “racist” text messages between Alice Springs cops at the ongoing coronial inquest, you would think that since those messages were written in 2019 and later passed on to the top brass of the NT Police in late 2020 (according to evidence provided at the inquest), that something would have come of it by now.

The fact nothing has happened means Jamie Chalker is complicit in the alleged unethical behaviour for not taking any action and keeping the conduct hidden until he could use it for his own benefit to try to win support back, as he has recently stated.

For more than two years, these members who are now being painted as horrible humans have not been spoken to about this before it was aired very publicly; no counselling has been offered, no misconduct allegations have been put to them and nor have any corrective behavioural measures been discussed with them.

These same staff have been deemed suitable by the NT Police executive to be promoted, have had successful transfers throughout the Northern Territory in the time since, are acting in supervisory roles; some have even been transferred into the NTPOL training cells and some are placed in charge of our Watchhouses, where they are solely responsible for the health and safety of people in custody, which is sadly made up of 90 per cent Indigenous individuals.

How can this be? How can these officers which the NTPOL executive are working daily to publicly shame as racists and homophobes, be allowed to work night-and-day in our police force for more than two years before anything is done?

The troubling answer to that is that these text records have been kept from those involved, as the Commissioner and executive team sat on them, planning to expose them only during this coronial inquest – rather than confront them about the messages when they were discovered – in one of the lowest and most manipulative moves in the history of our once respected NTPOL organisation.

How the text messages were obtained and what was done about them

Sadly, we have seen the NTPOL leadership deliver a deliberate and planned attack on their own staff. This targeted agenda appears to be solely driven by a few members’ self-preservation and our Commissioner of Police’s completely out of control ego.

Here’s the secret of how the messages were obtained: detectives went through Zach Rolfe’s police body worn camera footage until they observed him entering his passcode into his private mobile phone. This code was then used to interrogate his private phone records, with texts taken from as far back as April 2019 – seven months prior to the Yuendumu shooting.

From information provided, we are talking about 16,000 pages of text messages and private information taken from Rolfe’s personal smart device in a questionable manner.

Rolfe was arrested and charged with murder well before these texts were located, meaning that the NTPOL executive cannot claim they used these texts as any basis for Rolfe’s murder charge.

Is it any wonder we now see further spikes in resignations, interstate transfers and again, mass episodes of stress leave being taken by current staff? The remaining staff have now seen the level of contempt they’re held in and the deceit that their employer will sink to.

Mr Chalker’s comments on the steps of the Peter McAuley Centre just hours after Rolfe’s acquittal in March are worth remembering, when he told us all to wait for the coronial inquest “where the truths will come to the fore”.

So, it’s clear Chalker knew about and actively planned this attack on his staff, yet kept it all under wraps for a big performance at the inquest show rather than deal with the issues raised at the time.

The Commissioner clearly believed for the past two-plus years the officers involved were all capable of carrying out their duties and suitable people to be caring for and protecting Indigenous people. And let’s remember in custodial issues, police staff must inspect and ensure those in custody are breathing every 15 minutes or 30 minutes depending on their duration of stay. Is this something you would trust to an apparent hard-core racist?

Would it seem appropriate that a commissioner allows these staff members to continue to operate in these spaces as supervisors, protectors, running training cells and protecting Indigenous Territorians’ lives and custodial human rights?

NT Police staffing issues concerning, TRG mass resignations, morale at record lows

Our police force is currently suffering through a staffing crisis and its morale is at the lowest level it has ever been in the history of the NT Police Force, all of it destroyed by a home-grown Commissioner.

The extra staff being sent to Alice Springs last week are not doing this out of loyalty or a sudden sense of trust in their Commissioner. I have heard from some staff who say they volunteered to deploy to Alice because of the Travel Allowance payments and bulk overtime payments leading up to Christmas.

They are aware Darwin is incredibly short-staffed, the same as every other location, but coming to Alice means getting further away from the executive and more funds for Christmas. Staff have been poached from general duties, a lot are still on probation and heaps are being taken from specialist units just to make up some numbers which are sadly coming from heavily depleted units already.

For example, we currently see detectives being used as FIFO workers to service multiple Northern remote indigenous communities as the stations no longer have permanent staff.

Another example of our depleted Police Force is in specialist units such as our TRG section which is required under the NCTC (National Counter Terrorist Committee) to maintain a minimum staffing of 30 members, but which currently has only 14 staff working in that section due to mass resignations. It is also known at least four others in this section have current applications into other jurisdictions, so by Christmas, we will be lucky to have 10 tactical staff left.

We also have to ask what protections the NTPA is providing as it appears to be next to nothing. They have not established permanent counselling or welfare officers in Alice Springs to assist any of these staff members during the coronial inquest which the NTPOL executive knew for the past two-plus years would involve staff members being called out for the text messages. More planning has gone into destroying their own staff than protecting them.

Never has the rank and file had so much contempt or distrust in their management as they do now. All NTPOL staff are aware the tragedy in Yuendumu had nothing to do with race, sexuality or gender.

We have all seen the body-worn footage of the tragic event and there is nothing which indicates misconduct, racism, homophobia, uncontrolled aggression or abuse of power, which renders this line of attack on Rolfe and his colleagues completely unfounded.

It is beyond comprehension as to how the NTPA and Minister for Police can actually stand by and watch this without taking immediate action.

Our Indigenous community deserve better from a system which they already have considerable trust issues with, the complete truth cannot continue to be kept from them.

Our police who lay their lives on the line each day for us also deserve so much better than what their employers and union are providing.

If only the former chief minister’s promise to the community was actually one which was upheld, “I promise there will be an independent coronial investigation”.

Carey Joy is a former NT Police officer who worked in the Territory Response Group (TRG), led the Immediate Response Team’s (IRT) initial task force, and was also a federal agent in the Tactical Response Team (TRT), a national and international police tactical group working on deployments around Australia and overseas. His last five years in law enforcement were in Alice Springs with the NT Police as a general duties shift sergeant and bomb technician for the Central Region. He resigned in 2016 to start his own company.