Chief Minister flags option of extending youth curfew outside of Alice Springs

Chief Minister Eva Lawler says she is “more than happy” to consider implementing a youth curfew to other towns having seen “how positive it’s been” in Alice Springs.

Chief Minister Eva Lawler says she is “more than happy” to consider implementing a youth curfew to other Northern Territory towns impacted by crime having seen “how positive it’s been” in Alice Springs.

Ms Lawler will fly to Alice Springs on Thursday afternoon to give serious consideration to extending the town’s nightly CBD curfew beyond 14 days.

The emergency measure implemented last week is due to end on Wednesday, in the middle of the school holidays.

“We’re working through that decision,” she said.

“I’m flying out today to have more discussions on the ground, to talk to people, to talk to the agency heads, to talk to the NGOs.”

Police patrols during the Alice Springs curfew. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Asked whether a curfew could be considered for towns such as Katherine or Tennant Creek dealing with similar issues of youth crime and anti-social behaviour, Ms Lawler said she would continue to look at those options.

“There’s always options now around that – that’s the good thing about the decision (to implement a curfew in Alice Springs), we’ve seen how positive it’s been, how well received it’s been, the impact of that.”

“So absolutely I’m more than happy to continue to look at those options.”

Braitling MLA Josh Burgoyne supported the Alice Springs curfew being continued beyond two weeks, but said resourcing and consultation was an issue.

“If we don’t have the resources in place to enforce the curfew, it’s essentially null and void,” he said.

“No one was consulted in the community of Alice Springs around the curfew and this is something that the Labor government ruled out for years and years and have all of a sudden decided is the right path to go down.”

The Acting Police Commissioner said it was wrong to characterise the riots that led to the Alice Springs curfew as ‘payback’.

Early reports characterised the violent riots which sparked Alice Springs’ curfew as the result of a retaliatory feud between family groups after an 18-year-old was tragically killed in a car rollover last month.

Acting Police Commissioner Martin Dole said it was wrong to characterise the unrest as “payback”.

“‘Payback’ is thrown about as an excuse for gratuitous violence regularly in our community, it’s used as an excuse for revenge attacks,” he said.

“What I understand led to this disturbance in Alice Springs was some youth that decided to act outside of the realms of traditional culture, against the advice of the senior traditional Elders that were there,” Commissioner Dole said.

“They decided to act and display wanton violence and vandalism against another premises and attack members of an opposing family, without authority from the leaders that were conducting their traditional cultural ceremonies.

“Using payback as an excuse for wanton violence is overdone in the Territory, and I think everybody’s sick of it.”

Originally published as Chief Minister flags option of extending youth curfew outside of Alice Springs