Northern Territory Police Association conference: ‘Tense’ affair sees promises, apologies
The NTPA’s annual conference has been told of overtime bills in the tens of millions, bug-infested shipping containers serving as remote police stations, and record levels of violence. Here’s what we learnt.
Northern Territory
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The president of the Northern Territory Police Association (NTPA) has commenced the organisation’s 2024 annual conference at Darwin by offering an apology of his own in response to Commissioner Michael Murphy’s well-publicised speech at Garma Festival.
Nathan Finn, delivering his opening statement to conference delegates, executive staff, politicians and media, said it was “no secret the last few weeks have been very tense,” a reference to Commissioner Murphy’s apology to Aboriginal Territorians for past police misdeeds and the subsequent resignation of his membership from the union.
Mr Finn said he would like to counter with his own apology: an apology that his members, who have made sacrifices, suffered trauma and witnessed tragedy, continued to fall prey to government “mismanagement”.
“Our members have copped enough,” he said.
Mr Finn called on the government once again to swiftly implement the recommendations of the Vince Kelly review into police operations.
Items of particular concern to Mr Finn included:
– The closure and replacement of “intervention era, run-down, bug-infested dangerous shipping containers” still being used as remote police stations.
– The introduction of a retention bonus to stop the organisation’s brain drain.
– Better fatigue management for overstretched members, who worked 177,000 overtime hours at a cost of $15.2m in the nine months to March 31.
– Greater staffing and improved infrastructure at the police college in order to cater for the government’s promise of 200 extra general duties officers.
– The removal of police auxiliary liquor inspectors.
Mr Finn said police’s job was being made more difficult by “record levels of crime and violence” in the Territory – with the Joint Emergency Services Call Centre receiving an average of 540 calls each day last financial year – and an expectation that NT Police could plug any service gap in the community.
He said his members were expected to be psychologists, youth workers, prison guards, security guards, liquor inspectors and youth taxi service all at once.
Commissioner Murphy told the conference his Garma apology “was not intended as a blanket characterisation of the good people sitting before me today as being racist”.
“It was a gesture of accountability and a commitment to healing and improving our organisation’s relationship with the community, and to improve our skills, knowledge and sensitivities,” Commissioner Murphy said.
He said he resigned his NTPA membership “to maintain my impartiality and independence as the Commissioner, not out of any lack of respect”.
“[It’s so I can] ensure I can advocate for what is right for the Northern Territory Police Force and make decisions for the benefit of the organisation and community with fairness and integrity,” he said.
He listed recent achievements such as signing off on a pathway for Aboriginal liaison officers and community police officers to become constables, refreshing the force’s executive team, and decentralising financial and HR functions as evidence the organisation was renewing itself after a turbulent time in its history.
Commissioner Murphy said recruitment was finally tracking in the right direction, with 135 constables graduating from the police academy since last year’s NTPU conference (although 80 had left the force since January, Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro later pointed out in her speech).
Staff attrition had declined from 9.7 per cent in July last year to 7.9 per cent this year.
“We recognise there is still work to be done,” he said.
Police Minister Brent Potter came to the conference bearing a gift: in line with other jurisdictions across the nation, first responders would now receive a presumption that any diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder was caused by their employment in matters of worker’s compensation and other schemes.
He said Labor was continuing to develop a policy around retention bonuses, but that it was unlikely to be a bulk sum disbursed at milestone years.
This stands in contrast to the CLP, with Ms Finocchiaro committing specifically to a bonus scheme that would see $10,000 paid after 10 years of service, $15,000 after 15 years, and so forth.
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