Minns says that, if elected, his government will outlaw the ‘dangerous and damaging practice’

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The Norfolk Island administrator, Eric Hutchinson, says there are “probably anywhere between 800-950 visitors on the island at the moment.”

Flights have been suspended for the next couple of days, although the usual flight from Sydney arrived as scheduled yesterday, as did the flight from Brisbane on Thursday.

We’ve moved through four stages of alertness, we are now at an orange. The Emergency Management Norfolk Island is meeting now and there is the possibility that they will then increase that to the highest level of alert, which is a red alert, and that basically means that people stay at home and don’t go out.

People are doing the right thing. The community has been well communicated with and, as I say, we have just got to now see this out. There is an emergency shelter that has been set up just now, where I am at the moment in the hall, so that is probably going to be used we think by visitors to the island.

It was a pretty wild night but the impact of Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle isn’t expected to make its full impact until early this afternoon and that can potentially extend into the early hours of Sunday morning.

I will say, though, that Emergency Management Norfolk Island, we’ve had an incredible amount of support through the National Emergency Management Agency.