NT Chief Minister Eva Lawler confirms six-day extension to Alice Springs curfew
Chief Minister Eva Lawler has confirmed a six-day extension to the controversial Alice Springs night time ban on young people. See the latest here.
UPDATE, Tuesday April 9: The Alice Springs curfew has been extended for a further six days.
The day before the night time ban on young people was set to expire, Chief Minister Eva Lawler declared that the emergency measure would continue until 6am, Tuesday April 16.
Ms Lawler said the curfew would remain in place for the rest of the school holidays, covering the “high risk area” of the Alice Springs CBD.
She described the controversial measure as a necessary “circuit breaker measure” following unrest in the Central Australian town.
“It is important that we don’t lose the momentum that we have established,” she said.
Ms Lawler said a transition plan was ready for the end of the curfew, to ensure a continuing partnership between police, Territory Families and the Education Department.
NT Police have previously said they were interacting with about 30 young people a night and returning them back to responsible family members — however the safe places promised at the start of the curfew were not operational.
Police Minister Brent Potter said the surge police presence, which included 58 mainly Darwin cops and 10 South Australians, had done an “incredible job” and had worked closely with other services to enforce the curfew.
Namatjira CLP representative Bill Yan called for the curfew to be extended for a further three weeks, to the end of April.
Mr Yan warned about the oncoming “chaos” once the curfew lifts, particularly as bottleshop owners had been told that the police auxiliary liquor inspectors would be returning to constable training.
While calling for a further curfew extension, Mr Yan also raised concerns that the resource intensive operation was merely pushing crime into surrounding suburbs.
On Monday, Police Commissioner Michael Murphy said there had been no arrests in direct response to curfew breaches, however a few young people were charged for property damage and breaches of court orders.
The Alice Springs surge has come at a cost to Darwin police numbers, with the high-intensity policing of fairly low-level offences taking patrol crews from the Top End.
It comes the Police Review reveals that priority 1 jobs — the highest severity which have a ten-minute response time target — took cops an average of 49 minutes to respond to in Darwin and Casuarina in 2022-23.
Mr Yan acknowledged the policing surge may have been to “the detriment of other areas” like Darwin.
Mr Yan also called for curfew breaches to “carry consequences”, but stopped short of suggesting criminal charges against children out at night.
Instead he proposing their families face punitive income management as a result.
“If the police are picking up the same kids over and over again, there must be a trigger that forces Territory Families to go in and hold the parents accountable through income management,” Mr Yan said.
The CLP proposal is a revival of the Intervention-era income management policies of 2007, which punished families based on children not attending school or other anti-social behaviour.
A 2020 Australian National University Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research report found that this income management resulted in negative trend in infant mortality, lower birth-weights, rising child abuse notifications and falling school attendance rates.
It concluded that there was an “absence of evidence of discernible, positive benefits across the wide range of social indicators” as a result of income management.
The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, Anti-Discrimination Commission, Children’s Commissioner, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, Amnesty International and the Justice Reform Initiative have previously come out against the Alice Springs curfew over potential breaches of young people’s human rights.
Following the curfew extension announcement, NAAJA repeated their concerns over the “knee-jerk reactions and Band-Aid policies”.
“The Northern Territory is facing significant challenges when it comes to crime and offending and we need evidence-based solutions with an eye on the longer term – intensive support programs, diversion, education, and related services,” a spokeswoman said.
INITIAL Monday, April 8: An emergency meeting is debating a potential five-day extension to the children’s curfew in Alice Springs, expanding the ban on kids in the desert city until the end of the school holidays.
On Monday Police Commissioner Michael Murphy confirmed a possible extension to the 14-day curfew would be discussed at the Territory Emergency Management Council.
Chief Minister Eva Lawler is expected to make an announcement on Tuesday afternoon concerning the Alice Springs curfew.
With the curfew set to end on Wednesday, Mr Murphy said there were talks of extending it to 6am, Monday April 15, or Tuesday April 16 — to the end of the school holiday break.
The Police Commissioner told ABC Radio the curfew had been “really effective” and claimed it had driven down crime in the embattled desert town.
He said another round table meeting on Monday would also discuss the “transition from curfew to local advocacy, local leadership and also the law and justice groups”.
However he highlighted the policing and curfew response was always intended as a short-term measure, with family engagement, diversion programs and “community owned solutions” key to long-term stability.
Mr Murphy said on an average night cops were interacting with around 30 children, but no arrests had been made in direct response to curfew breaches.
However he said some young people were charged for property damage and breaches of court orders.
Mr Murphy said in the initial days of the curfew there were around 60 engagements a night, but that rate had fallen over the past 12 days.
He said there was not a large number of repeat curfew breakers, with all of the young people taken to a responsible adult.
Mr Murphy revealed the safe place had not been activated during the 14-day curfew.
As part of the emergency measures an additional 58 NT Police were sent to Alice Springs, alongside a team of 10 South Australian cops.
Mr Murphy said the southern cops were mainly working in community engagement, particularly with residents from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands.
On Monday Greater Darwin Assistant Commissioner Matthew Hollamby said the majority of the 58 officers were from the Darwin crime and general duties units.
Mr Hollamby would not quantify the impact on patrol numbers, crews on Darwin roads, or any delays in emergency response times.
“It has reduced our ability to serve as our community and we look forward to them returning,” he said.
Mr Hollamby also said Katherine and Alice Springs police auxiliary liquor inspectors were likely to be pulled off the bottle shops “at some point in time” to continue their recruit constable training in Darwin.
“The Katherine management team will put in place activities to compensate for that,” he said.
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