Category Archives: Northern Territory

Senator may go against party room on voice – as it happened

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Should governments have acted sooner on alcohol restrictions in Alice Springs?

The Northern Territory chief minister Natasha Fyles and the minister for Indigenous affairs Linda Burney have appeared on ABC Radio after the announcements in Alice Springs yesterday.

It was the previous coalition government that walked away and left the Northern Territory with no measures.

I had expressed that there needs to be some very, very real thoughts put into our alcohol restrictions.

Do you think it took too long?

Look, I’m not going to get into whether they’ve taken too long, If you ask the people in Alice Springs, the answer might be yes.

I went to Stuart Park last night and met with local people living in town camps ... many of who had obviously experienced violence. And one of the things that really shocked me is, I was talking to the local member Marion Scrymgour who had visited the hospital and there are 16 beds in ICU, 14 of those were taken by Aboriginal women who had been beaten ... I think alcohol is one of the major contributors to some of the problems.

It’s about balance – but being able to drink is not more important than being safe, in my view.

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Australia news live: flood victims targeted by online scammers; Albanese discloses helicopter flight to Lindsay Fox lunch

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Social media scam promises thousands of dollars in relief funding. Follow the day’s news

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, is heaping pressure on Anthony Albanese over law and order issues in Alice Springs.

Dutton told Nine’s Today Show:

I was really shocked when I went up there in October. I spoke to a number of ... public servants who are at breaking point from what they’re seeing and experiencing. I said to the PM we would support whatever measure the government would take, whether it needed legislation, additional resources, additional money going into the Northern Territory. It was clear speaking with Indigenous elders and women on the ground and business owners this issue was completely beyond the capacity and resources of the Northern Territory government.

The prime minister, you know, was very critical of Scott Morrison at the time for not standing up [during natural disasters] ... I was hoping that the prime minister would take up the offer [to visit Alice Springs together] because it does require both sides to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and that’s what we’re offering to do.

If there is a strong Indigenous voice coming out of the Northern Territory at the moment that they wanted prime minister to lead, to act and to help them out, but the prime minister is not listening to that voice, then I think most Australians would say: why not?

It’s got to be a partnership between the feds and the state. No one is saying it should just be the Northern Territory government left to deal with it.

The highway patrol vehicle followed and in an attempt to pull that vehicle over. At the time the vehicle did not stop. And the police activated all their warning devices and a pursuit was commenced.

The vehicle travelled for approximately 2km north along Centenary Drive, at which point it continued at high speed, and when taking the corner into the on-ramp for the westbound M4, collided with the railing. And as a result of the collision, the vehicle travelling at high speed landed upside down after travelling through the bush onto the M4 upside down and burst into flames.

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NT government issues ultimatum to alcohol retailers amid Alice Springs crime wave

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Northern Territory police minister warns businesses to self-regulate or authorities will toughen laws to help curb rising street crime and family violence

The Northern Territory government has told alcohol retailers in the troubled central Australian town of Alice Springs they need to limit grog sales to help put a lid on spiralling harms, street crime and family violence, or it will step in and toughen up the laws.

The NT police minister, Kate Worden, issued the ultimatum after meeting with the town’s social order response team (SORT), made up of police, local council, business and community leaders, on Friday.

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Not cool: push for insulation in all Australian rental homes as study shows dangerous heat levels

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People in social housing often face hottest conditions and struggle to pay for air conditioning, advocates say

Advocates are calling for insulation to be regulated in all Australian rental properties as research shows some people swelter through temperatures above 30C in their homes for extended periods in summer.

Many of the hottest homes are those of people living in social housing, with some residents forced to go into debt to buy air conditioners, or hose down their houses to stay cool.

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‘Billionaire biffo’ shines light on hugely ambitious $30bn Sun Cable solar project

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The row between Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest reveals the technical, economic and even geopolitical hurdles to completion

Behind the “billionaire biffo” between Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest over the future of Sun Cable is a project that has analysts dubbing “visionary” but also “extremely ambitious”.

In Australia’s first big business story of the year, Sun Cable was placed into voluntary administration on Wednesday. That signalled the company won’t be able to meet debt payments without another injection of funds said to be $60m, with Forrest the one not “aligned” with other investors in a willingness to dig deep again.

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Concerns over use of ‘cheap and easy’ offsets – as it happened

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More than 80% of council areas declared disasters in the past four years, Watt says

Murray Watt was hesitant to attribute the individual disaster in the Kimberley to climate change, unlike his colleague Chris Bowen. But he said the overall pattern of increasing disasters was “undoubtedly climate change”:

I don’t think that you can point to one particular event and say it’s due to climate change, but there is no doubt that we are seeing before our eyes is climate change happening. We know from all the scientists that we’re going to be facing more of these intense events more frequently.

I was actually advised yesterday by our agency that just in the last 12 months we’ve seen 316 of Australia’s 537 council areas disaster-declared: that’s about 60% of the council areas in the country. And if you go back four years to the black summer, 438 council areas in Australia have been disaster-declared, which is over 80%.

A lot of people aren’t aware but the wet season in northern Western Australia … generally doesn’t begin until later this month. So their wettest months actually tend to be February and March rather than starting as early as January. So to have this amount of water come through the system this early in the wet season is a concern.

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Engineers to assess flood-damaged bridges on key WA route amid concerns some could take years to fix

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Fitzroy River Bridge among those apparently collapsed after record flooding in state’s north destroys roads and isolates communities

Engineers will assess the destruction of major bridges on the trucking route connecting Western Australia and the Northern Territory on Wednesday amid concerns key infrastructure could could take months, or even years, to fix.

Main Roads WA and structural engineers will assess the Fitzroy River Bridge on the Great Northern Highway, as photos and videos emerge showing that the bridge has collapsed after being hit with record floods.

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Australia live news update: fifth child airlifted to hospital with irukandji jellyfish sting; Albanese and Dutton trade insults over Indigenous voice

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Federal opposition leader wants Labor to legislate its preferred model before referendum is held this year. This blog is now closed

‘I’m genuinely interested in advancing the cause of reconciliation’

Peter Dutton is asked about whether the prime minister has been given a copy of his letter – Anthony Albanese has said he has not received it – and Dutton says a copy has been provided to the prime minister’s office and he expects “he will respond in due course”.

I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Certainly not racist. It’s not being opposed to reconciliation. It’s all about, frankly, just being informed about what it is they’re being asked to vote on. I don’t think that is unreasonable to ask the prime minister to provide that.

I’ve met with the prime minister and I’m grateful for the meetings that we’ve had and he knows that I’m genuinely interested in advancing the cause of reconciliation.

I’m speaking of millions of Australians, we’re asking you the reasonable questions.

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Wong condemns Taliban’s decision to ban women from NGOs – as it happened

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Ferry services resume in Sydney as fog clears

The fog looks to be clearing in Sydney, or at least the sun has just broken through the clouds where I’m sitting.

Passengers should continue to allow extra travel time and check information displays for service updates as services return to timetable.

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Tropical Cyclone Ellie downgraded to tropical low but will dump ‘months’ of rain on Northern Territory

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Communities directly in the path of the cyclone have reported no major damage despite wind gusts up to 100 km/h

Cyclone Ellie, which made landfall in the Northern Territory overnight, has been downgraded to a tropical low but is still expected to dump “months” worth of rain over the next few days.

Chief minister Natasha Fyles said communities directly in the path of the cyclone, including Wadeye, Daly River and Peppimenarti had reported no major damage despite wind gusts up to 100 km/h.

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Victoria police to prosecute pitch invaders; more contaminated spinach cases in Queensland – as it happened

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Sport governing body says ‘such behaviour has no place in Australian football’. This blog is now closed

‘We will look at the facts’

James Johnson is asked whether Melbourne Victory has any outstanding sanctions for past incidents. He says he is not aware of any but past events may be considered as an “aggravating factor” as an investigation into the incident unfolds:

There is no other suspended disciplinary action that I’m aware of, but what I will say is that we will be working through that today. We have already started working on the show cause process as of late last night, and we will be moving forward as quickly and swiftly as possible to finalise it, because it is important we get ahead of this issue as a sport.

What I can say is that we will look at the facts, we’ll look at it objectively and we will take a decision that we believe is in the overall best interest of the game but I prefer not to comment on the specifics of the outcome because we have to go through that process first.

What happened during the game last night and what happens with the result;

A “show cause letter” to Melbourne Victory;

An attempt to identify individuals involved in the pitch invasion.

This is an element that … infiltrates our game and tries to ruin it for the people who love us was in. We’ll be looking to weed out those people from the sport.

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‘Only fit for a bulldozer’: nurse alleges children in distress and clinic ‘crumbling’ at Don Dale

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Exclusive: Some young detainees are so anxious about lockdowns they request anti-psychotic medicine, ex-employee claims

A nurse who worked at the Don Dale youth detention centre alleges it is an unsafe environment for staff and that children detained there are so distressed they ask for anti-psychotic medication.

The nurse, whodoes not want to be named, says Don Dale is “only fit for a bulldozer” and feels that not enough has changed since a royal commission into the notorious Northern Territory facility.

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Temperatures forecast to reach mid-40s as heatwave hits northern Australia

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North of Western Australia, NT and Queensland to swelter in up to 47C as ‘monsoon break’ allows build-up of intensely hot air mass

Temperatures are expected to soar across northern Australia over the coming days as a heatwave spreads across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland.

Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino said hot air was building over the north-west of the continent and moving east, driving temperatures in some areas as high as 5C to 6C above average.

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Territory governments regain right to make assisted dying laws after Senate vote

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A bipartisan push in the upper house means the ACT and Northern Territory are free to legislate on euthanasia after a 25-year ban

The territory governments have had their rights to make laws on euthanasia returned after 25 years, with a bipartisan push in the federal Senate overturning a Howard-era ban on the final night of the parliament for the year.

The Australian Capital Territory will begin considering euthanasia laws early in 2023, after the repeal of the assisted dying ban was greeted with cheers and clapping in the Senate late on Thursday.

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Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright appears in Darwin court on multiple charges related to fatal helicopter crash

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Judge extends bail to 25 January for Netflix star who denies the charges which include perverting the course of justice and destroying evidence

Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright has appeared in a Darwin court on multiple charges related to a helicopter crash that killed a cast member.

The crocodile trapper and media personality says he is disappointed police charged him in connection with the “tragic accident” and he would fight the allegations.

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Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright charged in Darwin over fatal NT helicopter crash

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Crocodile trapper, who strenuously denies any wrongdoing, handed himself in at Darwin police station over February crash that killed cast member

Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright has been charged over a helicopter crash that killed a cast member after earlier handing himself in at a Darwin police station.

Wright, 43, who strenuously denies any wrongdoing, flew from Sydney on Tuesday after Northern Territory police issued an arrest warrant.

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Covid-19 Australia data tracker: coronavirus cases, deaths, hospitalisations and vaccination

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Guardian Australia brings together all the figures on Covid-19 cases, as well as stats, charts and state-by-state data from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, the ACT and NT. Here you can also find the numbers on the vaccine rollout and fourth dose booster vaccination rates.

In September 2022, federal and state governments began releasing data once a week, on Fridays, rather than daily. As a result, Guardian Australia has aggregated the data released before that date to weekly values, to make the new figures comparable with the old.

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Former senior NT police officer tells inquest failure to probe complaints of excessive use of force was ‘corrupt’

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NT police service ‘needs to be able to deal with badness in itself’, coronial inquiry into police shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker told

A former senior Northern Territory police officer has told the Kumanjayi Walker inquest that the force’s failure to adequately investigate excessive use of force complaints was corrupt.

Former assistant commissioner, Nick Anticich, told the coronial inquiry into the shooting death of Walker in 2019 that the failure to adequately investigate alleged incidents in Alice Springs was “wrong and shouldn’t have happened”.

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Albanese meets Chinese premier Li Keqiang at summit – as it happened

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Victorian opposition vows to restrict gas produced in the state from being exported in a bid to reduce household bills; Anthony Albanese speaks to Chinese premier Li Keqiang at East Asia Summit gala dinner. This blog is now closed

Two historic military planes collided and crashed to the ground Saturday during a Dallas airshow, federal officials said, sending plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky.

Officials didn’t immediately make clear how many people were on board the aircraft or if anyone on the ground was hurt. Nonetheless, an ABC News producer – citing reporting from a colleague – said on Twitter that at least six people, all crew members, were feared dead after the crash.

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NT federal Labor MP says families need to be more accountable for youth crime

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State proposal to take unsupervised children off Alice Springs streets a ‘Band-Aid solution’ that will fail, Marion Scrymgour says

Federal Labor MP Marion Scrymgour says a Northern Territory government plan to take unsupervised children off the streets at night is “putting a Band-Aid on the situation” and she is calling for traditional owners “to show leadership on the issue”.

Scrymgour has raised concerns about the proposal in which children undertaking “risky” behaviour in Alice Springs at night would be taken into custody for assessment, and removed from their families if they are found to be continuously unsupervised.

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