Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro says Territorians can trust police crime statistics and her government’s questionable use of them to promote its policies because she recently gave a “Chief Minister’s Medal” to the person who “crunches those numbers”.
Ms Finocchiaro did not explain why the police crime statistics needed to be “crunched” or what that entailed exactly, which was one of the problems raised in a recent academic research study that found the CLP Government cherry-picked the crime stats it uses publicly and does not provide any public information to explain how the statistics are collected.
The medal to the public servant was handed out at last Friday’s 2026 Chief Minister’s Awards for Excellence in the Public Sector, where the politicisation of the public service was on full display.
Ms Finocchiaro also handed out the new “Restoring the Territory Lifestyle Award” to the Department of Corrections and the “Safer Territory Award” to NT Police for managing her office’s “OC Spray Trial”.
The Jumbunna Institute at the University of Technology Sydney’s report found that the Finocchiaro Government was publicly misrepresenting claimed reductions in crime and cherry-picking certain crime data to share in government press releases, while ignoring other data that would present a more complete picture of crime in the NT.
The report also found that crime figures collected with NT Police’s current SerPro system were delayed and could not be compared to the previous PROMIS system, and that changes to the classification of certain offences also impacted how crime was being recorded.
“…The published data extracted from SerPro is not an accurate representation of actual crime rates, with up to a five-month delay in transitioning data from ‘provisional’ to ‘finalised’,” the report stated.
“…Changes to the way assaults and property offences are classified may lead to apparent reductions when they actually reflect a shift in the numbers across crime classification codes.”
Ms Finocchairo was asked on ABC Radio Alice Springs on Wednesday for her response to the report’s findings.
“Yeah, it’s a load of nonsense,” she said.
“I mean people just want to try and tear you down because we’ve been so successful.
“And I mean good on you for trying, but you’re just diminishing the hard work of our police and Children and Families [Department] and all of the agencies and people who do this work.”
Ms Finocchiaro appeared to attempt to add credibility to the NT Police crime stats by stating they are published by the Attorney-General’s Department.
“They have statisticians, like these are very highly qualified technical experts,” she said.
“One of which just won a Chief Minister’s Medal last week, so these are very technical people and they crunch those numbers and put them on the website for all to see, so it’s very transparent.”
Ms Finocchiaro and Attorney General Marie-Clare Boothby have both famously and repeatedly said they do not rely on experts or evidence while developing government policies, particularly around law and order measures.
In July 2025, ahead of passing controversial youth justice reforms, Ms Finocchiaro said on radio that “if [the] evidence-[based] approach worked, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now”.
The Jumbunna Institute’s study found the NT Government relied too heavily on the police data to claim its tough on crime policies were working, while not explaining how the stats are collected.
“As with all administrative data collected and managed by state authorities, crime data should not be viewed as the single, or even the most reliable source of information on the prevalence of crime,” the report stated.
“Data collected by police is subject to a range of systemic, structural and operational factors that influence what is counted, and more importantly, what is not counted. These factors can influence how data is interpreted and presented to the public.”
It added that “the process by which crime data is collected and ‘cleaned’ for analysis and publication is opaque”.
“There is currently no publicly available information on how information recorded by frontline police officers is converted into the monthly statistical publication,” the report found.
“In the absence of greater transparency, it is not possible to determine the validity of the claims being made by the NT Government or police.”
The report used additional data sources, including court statistics, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), and figures from the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) – which the authors said offered a more comprehensive view – with the report concluding that victimisation rates have risen, imprisonment rates and court listings have increased, and demand for legal services has surged since 2024.
What a bunch of Shysters! You are indeed restoring and exceeding YOUR Territory Lifestyle at our expense. You and trump in the US are a twin entity. All about Corruption, rigging data, secret deals (with Taxpayers Money)Jobs for the Boys and Girls, cheating, profiteering but hell I ,could be here all day regurgitating your criminal/immoral actions