Federal government announces $14.2 million for Alice Springs police, community safety
As another $14.2m is pledged to NT Police, the Prime Minister has defended his government’s $250m lifeline for Central Australia – while the Opposition says ‘nothing has changed’ in Alice Springs.
Northern Territory
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Update, April 30: More police and community safety supports will be delivered to Alice Springs through an additional $14.2 million in funding from the federal government.
It comes after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese touched down in the embattled town on Monday for less than 24 hours, to visit local leaders, advocates and businesses, and to “see the progress” from the government’s $250m Central Australia lifeline last year.
Mr Albanese first pledged $14.2m for frontline Territory policing during his stopover visit to Alice Springs last January, but said this week’s announcement was “new money” to allow for the extension of 51 jobs, including 35 police officers, to the end of 2025.
“The feedback that we’ve had is that’s been a very effective measure,” Mr Albanese told ABC Radio Alice Springs.
Mr Albanese said his government was looking at areas of success and how they could be replicated – pointing to improved school retention rates at Centralian Senior College, which received a visit from the Prime Minister on Tuesday morning.
During his time in Alice Springs Mr Albanese – joined by NT Deputy Chief Minister Chansey Paech, Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour, and Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney – also met with the NT Chamber of Commerce, Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, Alice Springs Council, representatives from the tourism sector, and anti-crime advocate Darren Clark.
Mr Albanese said stakeholders had identified promising initiatives including the roll out of CCTV, hiring security with local Aboriginal language skills, and broadening health providers’ capacity to offer full diagnostic services for young people.
The 20-day youth curfew was also praised, with Mr Albanese saying: “It worked here, it was a good thing here, I supported it being done here”.
Braitling MLA Josh Burgoyne said Alice Springs was no better off than when the $250m was pledged in 2023, repeating calls for an audit of social services in the area.
“One year on from the Prime Minister’s fly-in-fly out visit, Alice Springs continues to call out for change.
“In just the last month we have seen riots on our streets, which resulted in the youth curfew.
“Anyone that invested $300 million dollars a year ago should have been ensuring that the money was being effectively spent and outcomes were achieved.
“Unfortunately, to date, that is simply not the case.”
Mr Albanese shut down calls for an audit, saying government spending was scrutinised “all the time”.
“There’s an Australian National Audit Office that goes through federal programs and does regular audits,” he said.
“Obviously we can always look at improvements and you would be surprised if, (in) any state or territory government, you could not find improvements to be made.”
Prime Minister to return to Alice Springs amid crime crisis
Initial, April 29: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrived in Alice Springs on Monday afternoon, in his first visit to the crime-ridden town since his four hour stopover more than a year ago.
It comes after several high profile incidents in recent months, including a riot through the CBD which triggered a three week youth curfew.
The NT News understands Mr Albanese was meeting with Alice Springs Town Council mayor Matt Paterson and council representatives on Monday evening and was also set to visit a health centre being funded by the federal government.
He is also expected to meet with local businesses in the town.
Northern Territory Chief Minister Eva Lawler will not make the trip south from Darwin to meet with Mr Albanese.
“I won’t be heading to Alice Springs. I pretty much have been in Alice Springs every week for the last few weeks around the curfew and the work that we’re doing on the ground to address the issue of crime in Alice Springs,” Ms Lawler said.
“What I want from the federal government is continuing to support the Northern Territory – it isn’t always financially by the way. It is about working together in the Northern Territory.
“So that issue around anti social behaviour, the issue around crime in Alice Springs is one that we have been able to work together on. But, of course, we won’t ever let a chance go by around asking for more money, but it is about that partnership and working together.”
Mr Albanese last visited Alice Springs in January last year, pledging $250 million to help address the social challenges facing the region.
Alice Springs business owner Darren Clark said there had been an elevated police presence in the town in the days leading up to the Prime Minister’s visit, and that visitors from communities had been bussed out of town.
He called on Mr Albanese to meet with vulnerable young people from the area, saying that some of the conditions in which children were forced to live would “bring a tear” to the Prime Minister’s eye.
“We cannot solve any of these underlying problems unless we give these kids a safe place to live and a fair shot at life,” Mr Clark told Sky News.
Mr Clark said the curfew had worked to keep the CBD relatively peaceful since the nightly lockdown ended two weeks ago.
“We had to start somewhere, that was our circuit breaker … but it’s not sustainable because we’re not going to have that level of policing, so we’ve got to get into the underlying issues.”
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