A high-ranking police officer and other still-serving senior officers attended a Territory Response Group annual party where the “coon of the year” award was handed out to a police member with the “winner” presented a caveman club with nails in it, while some officers have lied to the coronial inquest about the frequency of racist language being used in the NT Police force, the Kumanjayi Walker coronial inquest was told on Monday.
The Lawler Government has said promising initial testing of gas deposits in the Beetaloo Sub-basin by Tamboran Resources will see “economic activity” in the NT increase by more than $17 billion once realised, as part of a “new economic era for the NT”, while critics said the government should not be spruiking private gas interests ahead of final approvals being made.
NT Police responded to three aggravated assaults over the weekend, resulting in the tasering and arrest of one man in connection to a disturbance in Tennant Creek, while two other suspects remain at large, including a man who threatened a 60-year-old woman in Palmerston with a pair of scissors while she walked along the street on Saturday afternoon.
Federal Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney has referred allegations against Anindilyakwa Land Council to her department’s integrity group, which could then be referred to Commonwealth and Territory enforcement agencies if any wrongdoing is found.
‘Clown Town’ is a new column where the NT Independent quietly reflects on the misdeeds, malfeasance and asinine behaviour of our elected leaders and explores that sweet corruption-incompetence nexus that makes us all feel like home.
UPDATED: Once touted by the NT Labor Government as the biggest prawn farm in the world that would create hundreds of jobs, Seafarm’s $2 billion Project Sea Dragon was ordered by the Federal Court on Thursday to be wound up as insolvent, which the court found was operating insolvent since “at least June 2020”.
Five youths, aged as young as 10 years-old, broke into a Daly River business and stole alcohol, NT Police said.
A man shot off a rifle inside a house while demanding residents hand over any drugs and money they had, during a home invasion in Leanyer, NT Police said.
A 44-year-old Dundee Beach man was arrested and charged on Thursday for allegedly attempting to run over his female neighbour with his ATV earlier this month, sending her to hospital, NT Police said.
Infrastructure Minister Joel Bowden could not provide an estimate of how much the Civic Park and State Square redevelopment would cost taxpayers while announcing the latest “revitalisation” project Thursday morning, and said he was unaware of the existence of a business case for the project, which appears to have ballooned to close to $200 million at least.
The NT Police’s new estimated $65 million electronic case management system is leading to wrongful arrests, failed prosecutions of domestic violence crimes, not recording all incidents and placing police officers at risk, the head of the police union says, while also accusing the government of misleading the public about historical crime statistics for political purposes.
The Anindilyakwa Land Council chief executive officer is also the CEO of a mining company, as well as the director of a mining logistics company that services the mine, both of which directly or indirectly received a total of $24 million in royalty money from the land council in one year, an independent audit found, raising conflict of interest concerns.
