EDITORIAL: There is no way to overstate the damage the Justice Blow report has had on the already fragile Northern Territory Police Force, its members and the trust every Territorian should have in its police service. It shows an organisation paralysed in the face of its challenges, overcome with infighting and accusations, its senior and most experienced officers’ morale shattered and the culture of a once-proud police service left to rot from the inside out.
Australia’s first national climate risk report warns Northern Australia faces the harshest impacts, with extreme heatwaves, bushfires, flooding and tropical cyclones, intensifying safety and security risks, potentially resulting in loss of life, destabilisation of community structures, and increased migration away from the north, writes Steven Turton.
EDITORIAL: If we needed any further proof that Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby is completely out of her depth in her role as the Northern Territory’s first law officer, it came this week during her latest disaster that led the public to once again question the integrity of its government institutions. It’s time for her to resign or be sacked to restore some modicum of confidence in our beleaguered justice system.
EDITORIAL: The Northern Territory’s public integrity bodies’ ongoing dysfunction is due in part to the CLP Government’s own integrity failures, its insistence on bypassing democratic standards and its stubborn refusal to recognise investment in accountability is crucial to the future of the Territory instead of viewing transparency as a threat to its day-to-day business model.
EDITORIAL: Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro is openly dodging media scrutiny and public accountability of her actions that should alarm voters and every journalist in the Territory, especially considering she once condemned Michael Gunner for “ignoring a media outlet”, stifling the free press and obstructing the public’s right to question its elected officials.
EDITORIAL: The Finocchiaro CLP Government doesn’t seem to understand the only way to make a political scandal go away is to confront it head-on, complete with resignations, if not from the politicians overseeing the dysfunction, then from those who engaged in and benefitted from it, with a thoroughly independent investigation to follow.
On the anniversary of former police commissioner Michael Murphy’s apology to Aboriginal people, it is timely to reflect on the two-tiered system that has endured in Australia since the first fleeters set foot on the east coast in 1788, writes Dr Robyn Smith.
The ‘girls and boys from the bush’ who are our politicians have bought far too much gas for electricity generation at far too high a price, which could increase costs to the Territory by $300 million per year, while Beetaloo Basin gas could be too expensive to attract local manufacturing, and too expensive to send to the east coast, writes Dr Don Fuller.
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, Darwin barrister John Lawrence writes, 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.
The trial of pepper spray for use by the general public with minimal restrictions, coupled with the closure of all public bus interchanges, could lead to violent hot-spots in locations that don’t have security, writes Craig Hubbard.
Has the Litchfield Council lost the plot and forgotten who it represents, and to be open, transparent, accountable and rural, asks Gerry Wood.
An environment conducive to corruption and undermining the rule of law has been created in the Northern Territory, with serious reforms needed to stop it from accelerating further, but our current Chief Minister and government have demonstrated an inability to grapple with such essential tasks needed for the benefit of everyone, writes Dr Don Fuller.
