Former NT cop, Attorney-General, and CLP MLA John Elferink returns police medal over apology

A former NT cop, MLA, and once Attorney-General has returned his police medal after a historic apology to Indigenous Territorians by Police Commissioner Michael Murphy.

Former NT Attorney General John Elferink.

A former Northern Territory officer and once CLP MLA and Attorney-General has returned his “once cherished possession” to the Territory’s top brass, calling it now “something to be ashamed of”.

In a letter titled “your unqualified apology to Aboriginal Territorians” and addressed to NT Police Commissioner Michael Murphy, Adelaide-based lawyer John Elferink enclosed his police medal.

“An unqualified apology implies that the people being apologised to are by some mechanism granted absolution,” Mr Elferink in his letter stated.

“If there was an apology to be made it should have been coupled with a call on all people (Aboriginal or otherwise) to be responsible citizens in their own communities and to impress upon the citizenry that their safety starts with them.”

John Elferink in 1986 when he was a serving officer in the Northern Territory Police Force.

Mr Elferink – who was the CLP MLA for MacDonnell and Port Darwin, as well as the Territory’s Attorney-General – also served an NT Police officer from 1983 to 1997.

Speaking to this masthead, Mr Elferink said the idea to return his medal – which he said he received in 1998 – came to him immediately after Mr Murphy’s speech at Garma Festival.

“It was after a lot of contemplation about my own motives that I determined that it was still the correct course of action,” he said.

“Essentially, what the Commissioner has done – he’s diminished what that medal means to me, and therefore he can have it back in its diminished form.”

Mr Elferink’s letter blasted Mr Murphy’s apology as “reinforcing this idea of victimhood”.

“It may now be fully expected that your frontline members will now be accused of racism when they try to do their job by the people who should be restrained from being villainous, violent or criminal in their conduct,” the letter said.

“It needs to be recalled that many Aboriginal people have been employed by the NT Police to serve, and they have done so as they have seen the Police force as the best vehicle to represent their communities as well.”

Mr Elferink said his action was purely a “personal determination” and said nothing was preventing other police officers from doing the same.

“If they still see their medals as cherished mementos, as many police officers do, and they don’t want to part with them, nothing prevents them from writing a letter of protest, nevertheless, to the commissioner,” he said.

Mr Murphy and NT Police have been contacted for comment.

More to come.

Originally published as Former NT cop, Attorney-General, and CLP MLA John Elferink returns police medal over apology