Finocchiaro meets Murphy, Davies in first day in new job

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro hit the ground running on her first day in the new job. Read what she did.

Day one for the Northern Territory’s new CLP government began with key meetings between chief minister-elect Lia Finocchiaro with the heads of police and the public service.

Ms Finocchiaro met with head of the public service Ken Davies for an hour in her Parliament House office on Sunday, before they were joined by Police Commissioner Michael Murphy for a separate hour-long exchange.

The meeting took place in Ms Finocchiaro’s Parliament House fourth floor office ahead of her eventual move to level five this week where the government offices are located.

NT chief minister elect Lia Finocchiaro meets NT police commissioner Michael Murphy and Ken Davies, Department of Chief Minister chief executive, at Parliament House.

She told Mr Davies and Commissioner Murphy she was looking forward to working with them to deliver on the government’s election outcomes.

“Territorians have spoken and it’s really important now more than ever that we come together and make sure that we reset the agenda for the Territory,” Ms Finocchiaro said.

“Law and order is the number one issue and we have seen people express that very loudly and clearly. Police have a huge role to play.

“What we have said to Territorians this election is about supporting our police and that needs to be done better. We will back the Territory’s police with the laws they need to do their job.

We will ensure there is a whole of government approach to supporting our police who can’t be left to carry everything as they have been in the past.”

Reflecting on the CLP’s landslide election win, Ms Finocchiaro said the party was “privileged and humbled” the Northern Territory had returned it to government.

She said law and order was the number one issue in the election, and this would be her government’s highest priority.

“Work is underway to ensure Declan’s Law and other measures including criminalising bail breaches, electronic monitoring for people on bail, ram raid legislation, reducing the criminal age of responsibility and minimum mandatory sentences for assaulting frontline workers will be ready for the first week of parliament as promised,” Ms Finocchiaro said.

“We are full of hope and optimism for the future and the work to move the Territory forward starts today.”

Meanwhile, the NT Electoral Commission said 88,221 ballot papers had been counted, 57.6 per cent of the NT’s enrolled voters, with 4727 postal votes to be returned by the Friday September 6 deadline.

In 2020 the turnout was 74.9 per cent and in 2016, 74 per cent of voters cast ballots.

NT Electoral Commissioner Kirsten Kelly said 12,000 additional voters were on the electoral roll, which contributed to the reduced voter turnout percentage.

“We always like to see an increase in voter turnout at elections, acknowledging that the addition of over 12,000 Territorians on the electoral roll could impact voter turnout at this election.”

“I would like to recognise Territorians that voted in the 2024 Territory Election and thank the NT Electoral Commission team, including over 400 casual staff that supported the election,”

The NT News has given the CLP 15 seats, Labor four and independents two with four undecided.

NTEC will on Monday finalise processing of absent and declaration votes prior to the exchange and at 9am a check of all counts will commence at the Eaton and Alice Springs including a reset of two-candidate preferred counts for the divisions of Braitling, Johnston, Fannie Bay and Katherine.

Originally published as Finocchiaro meets Murphy, Davies in first day in new job