‘Policies impacting everyday life we’re reading about in the newspaper’: Council to meet with cabinet on policy changes

A Territory council is demanding more consultation with the government after decisions impacting its local residents were made without any say from the community.

Alice Springs town councillors will meet with the Northern Territory cabinet to commence “collaborative discussions” after a lack of consultation on recent policy changes including the continuation of liquor restrictions and the age of criminal responsibility.

Councillor Mark Coffey raised the motion in order to get a better understanding of the government’s decision making process following the policy changes.

“The liquor restrictions is one of those where my understanding is that there was limited discussion with us and other key stakeholders in Alice Springs when that decision was made to extend those restrictions,” he said.

“Similarly they just announced this week that the age of criminal responsibility, which they legislated for a while back, was going to take effect from August 1.

Mark Coffey raised the motion to meet with cabinet after council was not consulted on several recent policy changes.

“Personally I agree, I don’t think kids should be imprisoned, but there needs to be programs and policies in place to deal with individuals that are still committing offences.

“That example, the Northern Territory government announced that about eight months ago, I would have thought they would have engaged with us as a local government as they’re developing their policies and programs to implement.”

Councillor Gavin Morris agreed with Mr Coffey’s statements, particularly around plans for the upcoming summer period where crime routinely rises.

“Given the importance of the next six to eight months of being proactive with programming … what can we be doing now to signal to the Northern Territory government that we want to be collaborated with in a proactive way?” he said.

“With this top down approach, policies that are impacting everyday life we are reading about in the newspaper.”

Councillors discussed wanting to work collaboratively with the Territory government around plans for the upcoming summer, following a horror period of youth crime last year. Picture Mark Brake

The council resolved to invite the government cabinet to meet and “commence collaborative discussions” over recent policy discussions.

Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said she met with Alice Springs mayor Matt Paterson regularly, and was “always open to having a council and cabinet meeting”.

She said Mr Paterson was told of the alcohol restriction extension before the announcement, but did not answer questions around how council was consulted.

“The mayor of Alice Springs has been on the journey with us when it comes to the current alcohol restrictions,” she said.

Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said alcohol restrictions were having a “positive impact” in Alice Springs. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

“We know that these alcohol restrictions are having a positive impact in the town of Alice Springs and are providing some much needed respite especially to our frontline police.”

The latter point was disputed by deputy mayor Eli Melky later in the meeting, who encouraged elected members to form a position on the issue.

“We need a long term sustainable solution,” he said.

“Really this is an emergency measure that has now been extended indefinitely.

“I think we as a collective have enough individual and collective experience in our community, we should be able to say to the Northern Territory government and indeed the federal government ‘thankyou, but we need … whatever we agree to say’.

“The response from government, and I’ve read many of them, they have lots of good responses about how much they’ve invested in this area, and this area, and this area, yet here we are and still people are being hurt as a result of alcohol abuse and domestic violence.”

Councillor Steve Brown agreed with Mr Melky’s statement.

“Nothing constructive has been done as of yet to address the issue that’s been plaguing our community for the past dozen years, and until we do something constructive the issue will continue,” he said.

“It’s a fortunate combination for the Territory government that we’ve had a blast of cold winter and the reinstatement of alcohol restrictions (which) have led to some nice rosy statistics that will make them look good for five minutes, but it won’t make a difference when the weather warms up again.”

“We should have been consulted (on alcohol restrictions) and we should be continually consulted about our thoughts on them.”