Natasha Fyles and Police Commissioner deny Alice Springs empty shelves
Chief Minister Natasha Fyles and Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker have denied Alice Springs empty shelves are the result of rail disruption despite Woolworths stating otherwise.
Northern Territory
Don't miss out on the headlines from Northern Territory. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The Chief Minister and Police Commissioner have denied empty shelves in Alice Springs are the result of a section of the Adelaide to Darwin railway being washed out in northern NT floods.
However, fruit and vegetable shelves at Alice Springs Woolworths were bare on Monday and Tuesday afternoon, with a spokeswoman confirming train derailment south of Tennant Creek was the cause.
Chief Minister Natasha Fyles on Monday said a section of the railway had been washed away near Tennant Creek in the floods, stating a team was working as quickly as possible to get it back online.
“We’ve seen part of the railway washed away near Tennant Creek, so we will have to shift the goods from the railway trains onto trucks to get them around that section,” she said.
“We don’t anticipate issues in terms of food supply, but we will see certain items becoming unavailable, Territorians are well used to that.”
NT Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker said on Tuesday there were ample supplies of food to all major centres.
“Certainly Alice Springs shouldn’t have any bare shelves at all - the railway hasn’t been impacted between Adelaide and Alice Springs,” he said.
“What we’ve had is contingency for the last week or so is the freight is being offloaded from the train onto the road transport, and bar a couple of hours where the road has been impacted on the Stuart Highway, that supply chain has continued.
“If you hear stories that the supply chain has been detrimentally impacted it’s simply not true.
“Panic buying is what’s contributing to the empty shelves.
“People don’t need to panic buy, the supply chains are well and truly in place.”
However, on Tuesday afternoon shelves at Alice Springs Woolworths remained bare, with signs stating that “due to Tennant Creek train derailment today’s fruit and veg load was not received. We won’t be getting any new load until further notice.”
A Woolworths spokeswoman confirmed some of the regularly scheduled deliveries for Northern Territory stores had been impacted due to a train derailment south of Tennant Creek.
A Coles spokeswoman said its Alice Springs stores had not been impacted, but there had been temporary disruptions in Darwin.
“Poor weather and flooding at Tennant Creek have caused temporary disruption of freight into the Northern Territory,” she said.
“While there may be some delays into Darwin, we thank our customers for their patience while we work with our supply chain to continue to deliver stock into our stores.”
Ms Fyles said on Tuesday that they were not anticipating towns would see bare shelves for any period of time.
“We’ve been speaking to both Woolworths and Coles - they have supplies and they’re coming through so there shouldn’t be any significant impact.”
Mr Chalker said repairs to the railway should be complete by Wednesday.
About 700 people were evacuated from remote communities in the northern NT due to the severe flooding.
Ms Fyles said she had spent time with evacuees at the Howard Springs at the weekend.
“We have been providing as much support as we can. Meals, clothing, we’ve been working through the arrangements for some payments so they can go out and buy some more personal belongings.
“We’re working as quickly as we can to get to some assessment teams out.”
Palmerston teen’s murderers condemned to total 67 years in prison
The family of a teenager hunted down on the streets of Palmerston yelled out ‘Enjoy the 20 years you dogs’ as his killers were sentenced over his murder.
NT Health look to ‘display’ Pride flags in Top End hospital
Doctors have criticised the NT Government for embarking on ‘culture wars around symbols’ rather than safe healthcare for all following a snap decision to remove pride flags.