Government breaks law-and-order election promise

Locals have spoken out about a police station that has failed to deliver on huge election promises in a Top End suburb.

PROMISED a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week police station, Nightcliff and northern suburbs businesses and residents are being seriously short-changed, locals say.

Business owners say the Progress Drive facility is failing to live up to the exaggerated promises politicians made when they announced the station would be built at John Stokes Square.

The facility reached a farcical new low last month when a resident snapped the building locked and shuttered – at 3.53pm on a Tuesday.

This is a far cry from the then Labor opposition’s 2016 election promise to build a 24/7 police station with general duties officers.

Senior government minister and Nightcliff MLA Natasha Fyles actively championed the 24/7 general duties facility after the CLP broke a 2012 election promise to build a new police station.

Retailers in Nightcliff village shopping centre are disappointed.

One, who asked not to be identified, said anti-social behaviour had actually increased since the station opened in December.

“I expected a greater police presence in the shopping centre but that just hasn’t happened,” she said.

“It’s as if the station had never been built and the police are invisible.”

Instead of 24/7, the station is open 8am to 4pm weekdays. There are no general duties police who can respond to crimes. Its operations instead lean heavily towards youth engagement, school-based policing and youth diversion.

Instead of the 70 officers who were intended to operate out of Nightcliff, there are only 34 – one fewer than when the NT News checked late last year.

An NT Police spokeswoman said officers from Casuarina Station still serviced Nightcliff and its surrounding suburbs, similar to what occurred before the $11m station was built.

Opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro said the station was a broken election promise.

“It’s nothing more than glorified office space with an oversized ‘police station’ sign out the front,” Ms Finocchiaro said.

Ms Fyles was contacted for comment.