The CLP has pledged to return the age of criminal responsibility to ten but the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child says 14 should be the absolute minimum. Adolescent health and psychology academics Susan Sawyer and Nandi Vijayakuma look at what the science says about how much those under 14 understand the consequences of their actions.
Vice-chancellor Scott Bowman needs to improve Charles Darwin University’s teaching and research, rather than be an activist on political and social issues, which quashes the academic right to freedom of thought and expression.
The community sector has served the needs of Territorians for decades through a measured, reasonable, collaborative approach, which will continue under a CLP government, writes NTOCSS chief executive officer Sally Sievers.
Through ignoring ideas about making speed limit changes easier to spot, and not creating a bike lane on Girraween Rd, Litchfield Council has shown it is more interested in revenue raising than safety, writes Rob Wesley.
CLOWN TOWN: Another week in the Territory and a further slide into terminal decline, or bright new hope with a bright new government from a party that totally screwed the buffalo last time it was in power?
The new CLP government is going to be on the hunt for savings to prove its economic credentials, and NTCOSS will be in the firing line because of the organisation’s devotion to the Labor party, writes Paul Morris.
Running the government of the Northern Territory is immensely difficult, writes Willem Westra van Holthe, Lia’s team will have to make haste and do their best to bring the people of the Territory along with them on the ride. This was a part of the reason the Giles government was smashed to bits in 2016.
ANALYSIS: The election carnage was devastatingly brutal and somehow beautiful in its fury and righteousness. Most of the Labor bastards who thought they owned the Territory were put in their place by Territorians.
EDITORIAL: We have all been subjected to a Weekend at Bernies-style election campaign, with tortuous public debates, in which the leaders said nothing of value and offered the same old, lifeless ideas that will not fix the Territory. The best hope for our democracy at this election is a hung parliament and a minority government made up with help from independents.
The mood of the NT electorate seems slightly sombre, and the most important answer lies in not who will win but how do we fix the system to better serve the Territory?
Police Commissioner Michael Murphy’s recent apology to Indigenous Territorians shows he is not proud of the members of the Northern Territory police force, writes former police officer Bob Harrison.
The NT should have a ‘consensus government’, where all the politicians are independents, with the leader and ministers selected by all members, and those who are not chosen hold the balance of power as the ‘opposition’, meaning the executive and the legislature operate independently of each other, writes Gerry Wood.
