Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / The Week That Was – 24th March 2023

Transcript

The Week That Was – 24th March 2023 · 360 with Katie Woolf

0:00
Speaker 1: It is time for the week that was in the
0:01
Speaker 1: studio with us. Today we have got Kate Warden, who's
0:04
Speaker 1: the Minister for Police and Families, Good morning to you,
0:07
Speaker 1: Good morning Katie. We've also got the independent member for
0:10
Speaker 1: goid Kizi Apuric. Good morning to Eukezier.
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Speaker 2: Morning Katie, Morning bush people.
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Speaker 1: And from Alice Springs we have got Bill Yan, the
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Speaker 1: colp's member Foranamajira.
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Speaker 3: Good morning to you back Katie, and morning to everybody
0:20
Speaker 3: here in Darwen.
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Speaker 1: Now, unfortunately we start this morning on some pretty ordinary news.
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Speaker 1: It's going to take me a little while to get
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Speaker 1: through because police have arrested a man over a spate
0:29
Speaker 1: of violent robberies.
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Speaker 4: Overnight.
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Speaker 1: So a man entered the BWS Palmerston, allegedly threatening staff
0:36
Speaker 1: that he would slit their throats. That was at about
0:39
Speaker 1: two forty yesterday afternoon. He then took a credit card
0:42
Speaker 1: from an employee and left the bottle of the same
0:45
Speaker 1: man then returned again at three point fifteen in the afternoon,
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Speaker 1: allegedly threatening staff that he was going to hurt them
0:50
Speaker 1: with a knife before stealing alcohol and leaving. The man
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Speaker 1: returned once again later that afternoon with a kitchen knife
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Speaker 1: in his pocket, allegedly threatening to stab staff before stealing
1:01
Speaker 1: more alcohol.
1:02
Speaker 2: Now.
1:02
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, later that evening, two other men visited the same
1:07
Speaker 1: store in Palmerston, allegedly threatening staff members with an axe.
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Speaker 1: One of the men proceeded to steal alcohol. Police said
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Speaker 1: that the axe was not sighted, but the offender gave
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Speaker 1: the impression to staff that it was in their possession.
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Speaker 1: The two men were located shortly after and were arrested.
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Speaker 4: Now, following that.
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Speaker 1: Incident, a man went into the BWS Palmerston store with
1:30
Speaker 1: a twenty five centimeter steak knife. Police alleged the man
1:33
Speaker 1: attacked a security guard who was at the bottle shop
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Speaker 1: at nine point thirty that night. The man then disarmed
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Speaker 1: and fled the scene. He's yet to be located. Police
1:43
Speaker 1: are currently investigating. Then a separate incident where three men
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Speaker 1: had broken into the same store after hours. The group
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Speaker 1: of men were allegedly forcing the shop's roller doors up,
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Speaker 1: with some members then entering the shop to steal alcohol
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Speaker 1: while the other held the door open. While this was happening,
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Speaker 1: another group of men attended the bottle shop and allegedly
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Speaker 1: proceeded to steal alcohol. Now Then, early this morning, a
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Speaker 1: BWS Palmerston employee had witnessed a man walking inside of
2:13
Speaker 1: the premises. The employee reported this to police, where they
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Speaker 1: then attended the scene at about three twelve this morning,
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Speaker 1: but the man had already disappeared and investigations into that matter,
2:25
Speaker 1: as I understand it, are ongoing now. That information there
2:28
Speaker 1: thanks to Tanney Maxwell, who is our journalist in the mornings,
2:32
Speaker 1: who'd spoken to the Watch commander much earlier today.
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Speaker 4: However, you look at it, that's.
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Speaker 1: I don't think anybody in this room would disagree that
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Speaker 1: that is a horrendous night.
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Speaker 5: You won't get any disagreement, I don't think from the
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Speaker 5: three of us today, Katie. There is no place for
2:50
Speaker 5: violence in our community, absolutely no place for it at all,
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Speaker 5: and it has been an incredibly sad week and to
2:57
Speaker 5: hear that happening overnight again is just absolutely not good enough.
3:03
Speaker 2: And I would also make comment that we can see.
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Speaker 5: The real effects of alcohol that has on our community
3:09
Speaker 5: through those crimes as well, so there's no place for it.
3:12
Speaker 5: You won't get any disagreement for me, I don't think
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Speaker 5: you'll get it from any of our panel members this morning.
3:18
Speaker 2: Katie.
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Speaker 6: What the biggest concern I have is for the well
3:25
Speaker 6: being of the staff. It's sort of the living pissed
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Speaker 6: out of me if someone came into my business here
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Speaker 6: twenty five centimeter night, I'm just messing. That's roughly the
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Speaker 6: length of a ruler, you know, the old foot ruler,
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Speaker 6: and you know those stuff.
3:36
Speaker 5: I'll be.
3:36
Speaker 6: I go that bottleshop quite regularly because it's convenient and
3:39
Speaker 6: they have a particular wine that I like. But and
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Speaker 6: I sort of know the staff a little bit, and
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Speaker 6: they're young people.
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Speaker 2: They're all young people.
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Speaker 6: Predominantly male, but there's a few females too, and they're
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Speaker 6: just trying to do their job.
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Speaker 2: They're trying. They're do the job like.
3:51
Speaker 6: You and I do our jobs. And yet you know
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Speaker 6: they're being terrorized. That's no other word for it. It's
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Speaker 6: urban terrorism. And you know, I wouldn't be surprised if
4:00
Speaker 6: the poor buggers, you know, if they're full time, they'll
4:02
Speaker 6: be on sick leave for some time or you know,
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Speaker 6: sit here. And I know the Endeavored Drinks who own
4:06
Speaker 6: that establishment have been very good and they seem to
4:09
Speaker 6: be a very excellent well.
4:10
Speaker 1: My understanding is that they are closed today. They're going
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Speaker 1: to remain closed today, is my understanding.
4:17
Speaker 4: Look, My question though, is.
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Speaker 1: After and I understand that they go through these situations
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Speaker 1: quite often, but after those first couple of incidents did occur,
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Speaker 1: I do question why they didn't close. But then you know,
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Speaker 1: even once they did close, there's further incidents occurring.
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Speaker 2: They just we can't blame them.
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Speaker 5: We can't blame the venue. Sorry, Bill, but we can't
4:37
Speaker 5: blame the venue. And I get your point, and I
4:39
Speaker 5: guess there are decisions that a business makes along the way,
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Speaker 5: and I do think that we can't sit here and
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Speaker 5: blame the venue. We have to know, Look, I'm not
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Speaker 5: we have to blame the perpetrated and the police have
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Speaker 5: done a superb job overnight and picked up a number
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Speaker 5: of one of those offenders through that chain of events
4:56
Speaker 5: that you've talked about.
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Speaker 7: So yeah, it's it's to be a picture here, though,
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Speaker 7: is this culture that has now been allowed to exist
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Speaker 7: where people can come into bottle shops, threatened staff with knives,
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Speaker 7: with blood instruments, not even that just walking and steal
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Speaker 7: our whole from our bottle shops, but not just bottle
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Speaker 7: oows either from other retail outlets.
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Speaker 3: This has been shop out at my life.
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Speaker 7: This has been happening in Central Australia for a long time.
5:23
Speaker 7: It's now moved here to Darwin. I'm really sad to
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Speaker 7: have to say that, but it's now here in Darwin.
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Speaker 7: But it's a crime culture that's been allowed to grow
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Speaker 7: under Labor. We've seen soft policies from Labor on crime
5:35
Speaker 7: and crime and anti social behavior and that the threatening
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Speaker 7: behavior has increased across the board and it.
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Speaker 3: Needs to be dealt with.
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Speaker 7: We need to address this otherwise it's going to continue
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Speaker 7: and it's going to get work.
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Speaker 1: Well, unfortunately, it's not just threatening behavior anymore. And we
5:51
Speaker 1: know that on Sunday Night this week well, and on
5:54
Speaker 1: Sunday Night this week, we're in a situation where a
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Speaker 1: young Territorian's life was lost. I spoke to that young
6:02
Speaker 1: man's father, Damien Crooks, on the show on Monday, and
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Speaker 1: I think that the whole of the Northern Territory felt
6:08
Speaker 1: pretty heartbroken hearing from that dad, you know, and hearing
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Speaker 1: that young life has been lost as a result of
6:17
Speaker 1: extreme violence, extreme violence.
6:21
Speaker 5: You know.
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Speaker 4: Knife Like.
6:24
Speaker 1: The thing that I feel so upset about is thinking
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Speaker 1: about the volume of people that seem to be getting
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Speaker 1: around with bloody.
6:30
Speaker 4: Knives, and that's available too that's exactly.
6:33
Speaker 2: That's one of the things that is just so saying,
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Speaker 2: so available.
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Speaker 6: You can just go into any any supermarket anywhere and
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Speaker 6: by knives or some dis So those are.
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Speaker 5: The considerations we're making at the moment, Kadie. It is
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Speaker 5: something that's happened all over Australia and it has emerged
6:47
Speaker 5: that violence but also that use of weapons. So we
6:50
Speaker 5: do need to modernize and contemporize the sort of penalties.
6:54
Speaker 2: Will that make a difference. We have to look at that.
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Speaker 5: We'll be working with police very closely to make sure
7:01
Speaker 5: that the changes can be made.
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Speaker 2: But it is a phenomenon that has occurred. We saw
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Speaker 2: it here.
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Speaker 5: And I think the Police Commissioner was on the other
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Speaker 5: day talking about.
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Speaker 2: The rise in this sort of crime and the national changes.
7:17
Speaker 5: So I think there's things that we need to keep
7:19
Speaker 5: and you know we need to put our foot down
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Speaker 5: on And you know politicians are no different. Kesier, myself
7:26
Speaker 5: and Bill, we all live in the same community as
7:29
Speaker 5: other people and we all as affected. You know, this
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Speaker 5: is heartbreaking. We've got our own kids going out. I've
7:36
Speaker 5: certainly got a daughter working in a license venue and
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Speaker 5: it is that we do need to get on top
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Speaker 5: of this.
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Speaker 2: Now, and we need to make sure that we do
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Speaker 2: it properly.
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Speaker 7: This has been building like. This is not something that's
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Speaker 7: just happened. This has been building for quite some time.
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Speaker 7: If you look at Camart next to my office in
7:54
Speaker 7: Ella Sprint, go and ask him how many state nives
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Speaker 7: I have style On the week the kids walk into
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Speaker 7: Kmart and steal packets of steak knives and run straight
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Speaker 7: out the front door. Now the security guards have been told,
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Speaker 7: don't intercept, don't deal with them, just let them go.
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Speaker 7: Came out, are happy to deal with that theft sadly,
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Speaker 7: but this is happening.
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Speaker 3: It's been happening every day for months and months.
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Speaker 4: And the scary part about it is that ye came up.
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Speaker 1: It might be okay with dealing with that theft, but
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Speaker 1: then what it means is that somebody is armed on the.
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Speaker 4: Streets exactly and with a package.
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Speaker 2: This is a phenomenon, Katie.
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Speaker 5: We have seen it in bottle shops where you know,
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Speaker 5: the biggest chains, et cetera, have made a determination that
8:32
Speaker 5: they'd rather wear the loss than stop people stealing. And
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Speaker 5: we've certainly seen that over the last couple of years
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Speaker 5: emerge as a trend now where people know that they're
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Speaker 5: not going to be challenged. That doesn't mean that they're
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Speaker 5: not being caught, because a lot of them are being
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Speaker 5: caught because of the CCTV now that's around and the.
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Speaker 2: Connections that we've got. But that doesn't deter people.
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Speaker 5: But the thing is, but it all comes back to
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Speaker 5: why are people trying to so desperately access alcohol?
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Speaker 4: That's part of it. That's part of a big ques.
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Speaker 1: There is a big question about alcohol and the way
9:05
Speaker 1: in which we're dealing with alcohol. But there is a
9:07
Speaker 1: big question as well about the issues that we've got
9:10
Speaker 1: still around you doing the wrong thing. And I don't
9:13
Speaker 1: think we can sugarcoat it because Monday, that was overnight.
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Speaker 4: No I get that.
9:18
Speaker 1: But earlier this week, earlier this week, we've had a
9:21
Speaker 1: situation where teenagers have stolen a vehicle, they've ram rated
9:26
Speaker 1: another location. Earlier in the week, we have also had
9:30
Speaker 1: a situation, as we all know from Sunday night, where
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Speaker 1: three people were arrested following on from the terribly tragic
9:37
Speaker 1: incident that that's a curb. One of those obviously in
9:41
Speaker 1: relation to the murder of Declan Lavity. The other two
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Speaker 1: in relation to separate incidents that were teenagers.
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Speaker 2: Katie.
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Speaker 5: I take my role as police manister very very seriously
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Speaker 5: and it would be improper to talk about the details
9:56
Speaker 5: of any of those matters. So if we could just
9:58
Speaker 5: know one's asking you, so just saying you're you're now.
10:01
Speaker 4: Talking, we're talking. I think you can get away with
10:04
Speaker 4: that in parliament. I think you can get away with
10:06
Speaker 4: that in parliament.
10:07
Speaker 1: In the studio, you actually need to address the fact
10:10
Speaker 1: that we've got a youth crime issue. We've got a
10:12
Speaker 1: youth crime issue, and we've got an alcohol issue.
10:14
Speaker 4: So let's we've got a sort of am out.
10:16
Speaker 5: Let's park the issue that you've just raised, because I'd
10:18
Speaker 5: rather not talk about it because we don't none of
10:20
Speaker 5: us in this room, we don't know what's.
10:22
Speaker 4: Going on, don't want to get ourselves in any kind
10:24
Speaker 4: of trouble. We are interested because.
10:26
Speaker 2: There's a judicial process.
10:27
Speaker 1: None of us want to get in trouble or jepindize
10:30
Speaker 1: any kind of any kind of investigation.
10:33
Speaker 4: But what I'm saying to you is we've got an
10:35
Speaker 4: issue with you.
10:35
Speaker 5: So as of yesterday, because I haven't looked today, we
10:39
Speaker 5: had sixty eight young people in youth detention. So there
10:42
Speaker 5: are more young people offending. This is not you know,
10:45
Speaker 5: we made legislative change to pixte that.
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Speaker 4: Young people are in there because they've done the wrong thing. Absolutely,
10:52
Speaker 4: they've done their bloody wrong for.
10:53
Speaker 5: Absolutely, But last year we also had over five hundred
10:57
Speaker 5: young people go through diversion and sixty over sixty five
10:59
Speaker 5: percent and we will never see again so.
11:02
Speaker 4: Asence they've completed that and they've done well with us.
11:05
Speaker 5: And they don't ever come back into touch with the
11:07
Speaker 5: youth justice system. So we know that there's a recidivis
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Speaker 5: number of young people.
11:11
Speaker 2: We know that there are.
11:12
Speaker 5: We try to get them in programs, we've got them
11:14
Speaker 5: out on camps, so the whole range of things that
11:16
Speaker 5: we do. But when they do do the wrong thing
11:17
Speaker 5: they do. What I want to say is they do
11:19
Speaker 5: end up in youth detention. At one point we had
11:22
Speaker 5: the number as low as eighteen. We made the bowl
11:25
Speaker 5: law changes that they keep saying that are no good.
11:27
Speaker 5: We're now up to sixty eight. That is catching those
11:30
Speaker 5: recidivius offenders. But what we're seeing again in the youth
11:34
Speaker 5: space and the adult space, absolutely no question about it,
11:38
Speaker 5: is an escalation of that behavior to serving weapons and
11:42
Speaker 5: it's terrible, but we have to work in every space and.
11:45
Speaker 1: To do whatever part of this is the thing and
11:48
Speaker 1: the thing that makes me feel really cross is that
11:50
Speaker 1: you know then in Parliament to hear yesterday these kind
11:53
Speaker 1: of discussions, not every kid in the Northern Territory is bad.
11:57
Speaker 1: Do you know? That upsets me so much because I
11:59
Speaker 1: think to myself, the people that I'm most worried about
12:02
Speaker 1: at the moment are the good kids in the Northern
12:05
Speaker 1: Territory that actually have no protection at this point, because
12:09
Speaker 1: if someone goes out and does the wrong thing, if
12:10
Speaker 1: someone belts them, what happens.
12:12
Speaker 7: Well, we've seen it Alla Springs with Fon's young boy
12:16
Speaker 7: Eck three times he's been attacked now by the same
12:19
Speaker 7: kids and he's a good kid. To the point now
12:22
Speaker 7: where that family of leaving Alice Springs because he's not
12:25
Speaker 7: safe in that community anymore. So the governor had really
12:28
Speaker 7: dropped the ball and really failed on protecting territory and safar.
12:32
Speaker 7: And what I found most interesting this week in parliament, Catie,
12:35
Speaker 7: every one of us, every one of us have recognized
12:38
Speaker 7: and accepted that Declan Lavity was killed on Sunday. Not
12:42
Speaker 7: one person from the Labor government has mentioned Declan Lavity's name.
12:46
Speaker 7: They're too scared to say it.
12:47
Speaker 5: Absolutely incorrect. It was in my first speech department. You're
12:50
Speaker 5: a liar, Bill, do not come on here, don't say that.
12:54
Speaker 5: Don't have a look at hand side. I absolutely said
12:57
Speaker 5: Declan's name. That is abhorrent for you to say that
13:00
Speaker 5: and utilize that as a political point score. Go back
13:03
Speaker 5: to hands, i'd mate, you'll find it. Google Warden and Decklan.
13:06
Speaker 5: You'll find it a lot absolutely.
13:10
Speaker 3: Heard, and look about it.
13:14
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the one thing that people have listened
13:16
Speaker 1: to this week on this show and have really been,
13:19
Speaker 1: I think incredibly sad and by is hearing from his
13:22
Speaker 1: dad and Kate. I take your point that obviously we're
13:24
Speaker 1: not wanting, you know, we don't want to jeopardize any
13:26
Speaker 1: kind of investigation in any way, shape or form. But
13:30
Speaker 1: to hear the sadness in that man's voice, I've got
13:33
Speaker 1: to tell you that is the hardest interview I've ever
13:35
Speaker 1: done to I've got no idea how that man must
13:40
Speaker 1: be feeling at this point in time, but for your
13:43
Speaker 1: son to go to work on a Sunday night and
13:46
Speaker 1: to never come home is something that no parent should
13:49
Speaker 1: ever feel.
13:49
Speaker 2: Make you feel sick, Katie.
13:51
Speaker 5: I've got kids, I've got a twenty one year old
13:53
Speaker 5: working in that sector. I've got older kids, I've got grandkids.
13:56
Speaker 5: The thought of losing any of them actually gives me.
13:59
Speaker 5: It's it makes me feel physically unwell. Like we are parents,
14:03
Speaker 5: we're grandparents. Absolutely, it's not good enough. And you know,
14:08
Speaker 5: we have to make sure we get on top of
14:09
Speaker 5: this of crime using weapons. We were doing a lot
14:14
Speaker 5: of work already into crossbows and that work will be
14:18
Speaker 5: finalized quickly because we saw that trend emerge particularly.
14:22
Speaker 2: And a condomct.
14:23
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and we've been working with the businesses and result
14:26
Speaker 5: in death as well. But how can you can I
14:28
Speaker 5: just say this. I think it's a point that we
14:30
Speaker 5: need to think about. And we've made this point. It's
14:32
Speaker 5: and it's hard, but you do at the moment you
14:35
Speaker 5: walk into a supermarket and a chief minister makes this point,
14:38
Speaker 5: you push a buzzer to get deodorant. Like, I think
14:40
Speaker 5: we have to do something about knives, and you made
14:42
Speaker 5: that point.
14:43
Speaker 2: They're easier.
14:44
Speaker 5: I'm not pre emptying anything, but weapons are readily like
14:47
Speaker 5: knives are readily available in Coles and Wilworths. You know
14:50
Speaker 5: where where do we need to go to as a
14:52
Speaker 5: society and as a community to keep people safe.
14:55
Speaker 2: That's what we're currently.
14:56
Speaker 4: Looking at, and we will not make we need.
14:59
Speaker 5: To, But what I'm saying is we need to have
15:02
Speaker 5: I'm just making that analogy to make my point, but
15:04
Speaker 5: we need to leave no stone unturned. We know the
15:07
Speaker 5: urgency of it, and we know that we need to
15:09
Speaker 5: address this issue of violent crime, particularly around weapons in
15:14
Speaker 5: our community. And we're currently underway. And I met with
15:16
Speaker 5: a group of people yesterday on two occasions of the
15:19
Speaker 5: work that's already very very much underway, Katie.
15:23
Speaker 6: I think it was the Chief Minister on your show
15:26
Speaker 6: one day this week talking about this and lots of
15:28
Speaker 6: other things to do with, you know, the current dilemma
15:29
Speaker 6: in our society, and she's used the words I'll quote them,
15:33
Speaker 6: we want to stop this before it takes hold.
15:35
Speaker 2: Well bloody late it's taken hold.
15:38
Speaker 6: So my concern, and this has been the concern about
15:40
Speaker 6: the issues in our of Springs when the government had
15:42
Speaker 6: to backflip and bring the legislation into stop our caho
15:45
Speaker 6: in town camps and elsewhere, I don't believe and I
15:49
Speaker 6: don't feel that the government really is acknowledging fulsomely that
15:53
Speaker 6: there is a big problem in our community at this
15:54
Speaker 6: point in time. If you've got the Chief Minister saying
15:56
Speaker 6: words like that before it takes hold, it has taken hold.
16:00
Speaker 6: It's got roots as deep as you can possibly think.
16:02
Speaker 7: Go back that not that long ago, the Berry Springs
16:04
Speaker 7: tabn break into inside the tavern, those forced to hide
16:09
Speaker 7: in an office while people ransacked the place, stole the
16:12
Speaker 7: money in Stolar. They said, this is not new. Government
16:17
Speaker 7: really should have stumped up ages ago and started strengthening.
16:20
Speaker 3: Laws way back then, even before that.
16:23
Speaker 1: Well, look, we might take a very short break because
16:25
Speaker 1: I do want to go through the announcement that the
16:27
Speaker 1: Northern Territory Government made with the Deputy Police Commissioner and
16:31
Speaker 1: also Hospitality earlier in the week, have a bit of
16:33
Speaker 1: a closer look at exactly what's been announced and where
16:37
Speaker 1: we go to from here as a territory. I think
16:40
Speaker 1: all of us, well, there has been so much to
16:43
Speaker 1: cover off already this morning, and obviously we know that
16:46
Speaker 1: the Northern Territory Government on Wednesday announced a raft of
16:50
Speaker 1: changes that will be implemented following on from what has
16:55
Speaker 1: occurred over the last last week and the fatal incident.
16:59
Speaker 1: That's that sparked really a wave of community grief and
17:03
Speaker 1: indeed anger about alcohol related property crime and violence in Darwin.
17:07
Speaker 4: So at the.
17:08
Speaker 1: Press conference earlier in the week, the Chief Minister announced
17:11
Speaker 1: there will be a review of bail laws for offenses
17:14
Speaker 1: involving edged weapons, a review of penalties for people carrying
17:17
Speaker 1: weapons in public, a review of police powers for people
17:21
Speaker 1: carrying weapons, workplace safety audit of late night venues, government
17:26
Speaker 1: funded crowd controllers at bottle shops for three months, as
17:29
Speaker 1: well as high visibility police patrols to target known hotspots.
17:34
Speaker 1: So they are you know, there's some of those changes
17:37
Speaker 1: that are going to be flowing through.
17:39
Speaker 4: I guess what a lot of people are.
17:41
Speaker 1: Going to be sort of saying to themselves this morning, though,
17:43
Speaker 1: is you know that announcement was made on Wednesday. We
17:46
Speaker 1: all understand that, you know, there is time that it's
17:49
Speaker 1: going to take for these changes to come into play.
17:52
Speaker 1: But we're literally Thursday night last you know, last night
17:56
Speaker 1: we've seen what's.
17:57
Speaker 5: Gone on so again, bottle shops being hit. But I
18:00
Speaker 5: think that does reinforce that bit of work that we've
18:02
Speaker 5: got to do. Katie with them and Alex Bruce has
18:05
Speaker 5: been very clear with us about what needs to be
18:08
Speaker 5: done and the help that they're seeking. I guess that
18:11
Speaker 5: it is a role where you are denying people access
18:14
Speaker 5: to a substance, and if people are addicted, you know
18:17
Speaker 5: that we've seen what has now happened sadly, But there's
18:21
Speaker 5: a whole heap of other things in there. I mean,
18:23
Speaker 5: I think we've done a lot of work already on
18:26
Speaker 5: the capsicm spray, and whilst it says we're rolling them
18:29
Speaker 5: out initially for transit workers, that's because we'd already done
18:32
Speaker 5: that work. We are only weeks away from that happening.
18:34
Speaker 5: There's a lot of stuff that had to go into
18:36
Speaker 5: the guidelines and all of the safe storage of capsicom spray,
18:40
Speaker 5: a whole range of things. It's not as straightforward is
18:43
Speaker 5: just say here's a can and away you go, because
18:45
Speaker 5: there needs to be after care as well.
18:47
Speaker 2: And if there's over spray, you know there has been
18:49
Speaker 2: training around it.
18:51
Speaker 5: But we'll be able to roll that out and that's
18:53
Speaker 5: something that has been asked for that we've been working on.
18:56
Speaker 5: So there's a lot of work that's going ahead. As
18:57
Speaker 5: I said, I had a couple of meetings yesterday the work.
19:00
Speaker 5: The reviews as already well and truly underway on the
19:02
Speaker 5: Bail Act. On the bail Act that started, the attorney
19:06
Speaker 5: generals are leading that work, but obviously working with police
19:11
Speaker 5: in that area.
19:12
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of stuff that's happening.
19:13
Speaker 5: I know the police have already started to do the
19:17
Speaker 5: change in the way that they're going to be patrolling
19:20
Speaker 5: and getting.
19:21
Speaker 2: In those hot spots.
19:22
Speaker 5: They can use heat sinc Maps to sort of show
19:24
Speaker 5: where those hot spots are about where crime occurs the
19:27
Speaker 5: most frequently, and they use that in other ways, but
19:30
Speaker 5: they're really going to target and help out at those
19:32
Speaker 5: bottle shops.
19:33
Speaker 4: I've got a few questions.
19:34
Speaker 1: Is the presumption for bail currently if somebody does commit
19:40
Speaker 1: a violent offense with a knife.
19:42
Speaker 2: My understanding is it's neutral. So what happens?
19:45
Speaker 4: Does that be the case?
19:46
Speaker 5: Truly the decision makers are so can I say, I
19:50
Speaker 5: think what there is is there's three positions that can
19:53
Speaker 5: be done. There are some offenses that there's a presumption against.
19:55
Speaker 5: There's some like murder, there are others that are there's
20:00
Speaker 5: a presumption for a much lesser crime, and there's some
20:04
Speaker 5: that are neutral. And what happens it's then gets informed
20:07
Speaker 5: by police, so police make the assessment about risk risk
20:11
Speaker 5: to the community and they will make so. Initially there
20:13
Speaker 5: can be police bail and police will determine whether that
20:16
Speaker 5: person is a risk to the community or not. That
20:19
Speaker 5: then will go before the court and the court will
20:21
Speaker 5: then take some guidance from the police, but they then
20:24
Speaker 5: will make a decision of their own about whether bail
20:26
Speaker 5: is given.
20:26
Speaker 1: Do you think it's in line with community expectations if
20:29
Speaker 1: somebody commits a violent crime with a knife, that they
20:32
Speaker 1: have a neutral stat like that it's neutral when it
20:35
Speaker 1: comes to bail, because I don't think they do.
20:38
Speaker 4: I think that people know.
20:39
Speaker 1: Inspect that they're going to It should be neutral, Katie,
20:43
Speaker 1: it should be they don't get that presumption in favor
20:47
Speaker 1: of bilet, should not have that presumption.
20:49
Speaker 7: It then should be up to presumption. It should be
20:51
Speaker 7: then up to the legal people to argue that that
20:55
Speaker 7: person should get bailed, because I think the community certainly
20:58
Speaker 7: expects more than what they're getting for someone who commits
21:00
Speaker 7: the all on offense. Our repeat offender to have that
21:04
Speaker 7: immediate position in favor of bail does not commit not
21:08
Speaker 7: what I said, It certainly doesn't meet the.
21:13
Speaker 2: Safety but you're misleading there. So what I said is
21:16
Speaker 2: that it's.
21:16
Speaker 4: Not in favor of bail, so it's neutral.
21:19
Speaker 1: So the parolice, So let's not pretend form police it's not.
21:24
Speaker 5: Again, but Katie, the police would make that decision, and
21:27
Speaker 5: they are the ones that know more about the particular
21:31
Speaker 5: crime than others, so they then make that decision about
21:35
Speaker 5: and it is the police commissioners said to me yesterday,
21:38
Speaker 5: it's all about risk to the community. So they consider
21:41
Speaker 5: that in terms of what the person has done. So
21:44
Speaker 5: do you there is not going risk to the community?
21:46
Speaker 5: Ask you this, you're the matter.
21:48
Speaker 2: We're reviewing it because we need to make sure because
21:51
Speaker 2: at the end of.
21:51
Speaker 1: The day, our politicians are employed to listen to the community.
21:56
Speaker 1: You guys have voted to listen to the community. The
21:59
Speaker 1: police or the commissioner for you know, for public employment
22:04
Speaker 1: or any other department is not employed by the community
22:08
Speaker 1: and not voted in by the community to listen to them.
22:10
Speaker 1: But you guys are, and at the moment the community
22:14
Speaker 1: is screaming out and they have been for some time.
22:16
Speaker 5: I would feel that a violent offense, including a weapon,
22:20
Speaker 5: in my own personal opinion, should have some sort of
22:25
Speaker 5: presumption against Baal, but I cannot.
22:28
Speaker 2: I do not want to influence the work.
22:31
Speaker 5: That's going ahead right now, because it's important that it
22:33
Speaker 5: gets reviewed properly, that police get a say, and that
22:38
Speaker 5: everybody working in this place has a say.
22:41
Speaker 1: I think I think a lot of people are worried
22:43
Speaker 1: that what's going to happen, though, is that you know,
22:45
Speaker 1: we're going to have you know, we're going to have
22:48
Speaker 1: other groups try to influence our politicians to not do that.
22:54
Speaker 4: And you know, and while the communities.
22:56
Speaker 5: We often get influenced from both sides, Katie, but we
22:59
Speaker 5: do listen to our community and we know right now
23:03
Speaker 5: that the community is hurting. We are hurting as individuals
23:07
Speaker 5: as part of our community. So what we need to
23:09
Speaker 5: do is let this work happen and make sure that
23:13
Speaker 5: what we've got in law reflects what the community expects,
23:18
Speaker 5: and that work is afoot.
23:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
23:19
Speaker 6: I've got two things to say, Kyle. One about the
23:22
Speaker 6: capsican spray. They don't need to do too much work.
23:25
Speaker 6: All I've got to do is go to anty police
23:27
Speaker 6: who already have the guidelines in place for the use
23:29
Speaker 6: of capskin strayed by police officers. So you just look
23:31
Speaker 6: at those guidelines, pass them on refine them a livunit training.
23:35
Speaker 2: Yeah that's fine, but.
23:36
Speaker 5: So we've saw them about our corrections are providing the
23:39
Speaker 5: training for our transit officers. So we've got that well
23:43
Speaker 5: and truly downpack. But the difference being the's transit officers
23:47
Speaker 5: are members of a government employee whereas security officers and.
23:52
Speaker 2: But what I'm saying control are not ready.
23:55
Speaker 5: At least they've been done and the training package for
23:59
Speaker 5: transit offices has been developed.
24:01
Speaker 2: It's just a matter of now getting that.
24:03
Speaker 4: Soon will it be implemented, So the transit offices.
24:06
Speaker 5: Will be done with them with great urgency within weeks.
24:10
Speaker 5: And already workers started on how that can be rolled
24:14
Speaker 5: out for.
24:14
Speaker 1: And how with that review? How quickly is that going
24:17
Speaker 1: to happen? The review of the bail it's already underway.
24:19
Speaker 1: But how soon will it be complete?
24:21
Speaker 2: No one, No one's giving, noone's giving week.
24:24
Speaker 7: On Thursday, we went to Parliamentary Council first and Thursday
24:26
Speaker 7: morning and we gave them instructions as to what we'd
24:30
Speaker 7: like to see as far as the Bible changes go.
24:32
Speaker 7: And it's quite simple. And what we put to Parliamentary
24:34
Speaker 7: Council to draft for us, which was for a person
24:37
Speaker 7: who has committed a violent crime or is a repeat effective.
24:40
Speaker 7: The weapon is The starting point is no bile and
24:44
Speaker 7: and that's quite simple.
24:44
Speaker 3: The starting point is that's.
24:46
Speaker 2: What community expects.
24:47
Speaker 6: Community that the resumption against is what you're saying, that's deicide.
24:50
Speaker 6: Second point I wanted to make because we talk about
24:53
Speaker 6: community expectations and sometimes you know, and that's appropriate. You know,
24:56
Speaker 6: that's how governments get elected and unelected. So an alleged
25:01
Speaker 6: perpetrator on bail for a criminal serious offense of assault
25:05
Speaker 6: with a weapon and harming someone is put on bail.
25:09
Speaker 6: That doesn't meet it doesn't in the community whatsoever. I
25:12
Speaker 6: don't care what anyone in the legal world says. That
25:14
Speaker 6: person should not have been let out on bail.
25:16
Speaker 2: That's what people are saying.
25:18
Speaker 5: Presumption about particulars there that I'm not going to talk about.
25:21
Speaker 2: I don't know them, but that's what the people.
25:23
Speaker 6: Once that information came out into the public domain, people
25:25
Speaker 6: are going, are you serious?
25:27
Speaker 4: That does not meet the community's expectations.
25:29
Speaker 2: We are looking at that with urgency.
25:32
Speaker 5: Everybody that I've met over the last couple of days
25:35
Speaker 5: understands that this needs to be done urgently.
25:38
Speaker 2: We don't come back into Parliament.
25:40
Speaker 5: We're into Parliament next week, but the Parliamentary Council, we're
25:44
Speaker 5: not going to put on them an outcome. We're not
25:47
Speaker 5: going to just tell them what to do. We need
25:48
Speaker 5: to work through it to take sure.
25:50
Speaker 1: Not I understand that there is certainly you know that
25:57
Speaker 1: you want to be showing that level of respect to
25:59
Speaker 1: everybody involved, but why not.
26:01
Speaker 5: But we've committed to just look at bail and penalties
26:04
Speaker 5: and we need to make sure that we get it
26:06
Speaker 5: right the first time and that we don't have to
26:07
Speaker 5: then come back and tinker at.
26:09
Speaker 2: The engines edges because we didn't in parliament.
26:12
Speaker 5: That's right, because we did something without actually thinking it through.
26:16
Speaker 2: So it's all very well to walk into Parliamentary Council, Katie.
26:18
Speaker 1: It's just at this point now the hear it's being
26:22
Speaker 1: reviewed like because the community has been screaming out about
26:25
Speaker 1: this for a lot longer than just this week.
26:28
Speaker 7: We brought this in two years ago, Katie. Effectly, what
26:31
Speaker 7: we're talking about now is that starting point of nobail
26:34
Speaker 7: or the presumption against bif a violent repeat offenders, and
26:37
Speaker 7: Labor voted it down and bought in new bail laws
26:40
Speaker 7: which are weaker than what was there before so and
26:43
Speaker 7: now look at the position that we're in and look
26:45
Speaker 7: at the community expectations right now today after what's taken
26:49
Speaker 7: place this week. The time for reviews over, Kate, I'm
26:52
Speaker 7: sorry to say that the time for review was long
26:55
Speaker 7: gone and passed. That the time is now for action
26:57
Speaker 7: and the community.
26:58
Speaker 2: Expects doing it, and we're doing it.
27:00
Speaker 5: So there's no one into key consequences of legislation. It's actually,
27:04
Speaker 5: as a legislator, you have to do it right. Keysy's
27:07
Speaker 5: got plenty of experience in this space as a legislator,
27:10
Speaker 5: you have to make sure and to make you want
27:13
Speaker 5: to come back and tinker around the st.
27:16
Speaker 1: Because I want to talk about some of the issues
27:19
Speaker 1: that you know, obviously we've spoken about those the bail
27:23
Speaker 1: and spoken about the Capsicum spay and a few of
27:25
Speaker 1: those different things. But we've also now got a situation
27:28
Speaker 1: obviously where we're looking at having increased security.
27:30
Speaker 4: On bottle shops.
27:31
Speaker 1: You know, are we in a situation here where we
27:34
Speaker 1: actually need to look at the opening hours, the opening days,
27:38
Speaker 1: some restrictions on bottle shops as well. I mean, I
27:42
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm just thinking out loud here whether that
27:44
Speaker 1: needs to be part of the distuss.
27:45
Speaker 2: To quite a lot of things.
27:46
Speaker 5: Obviously, it's a workplace now that we can very clearly
27:51
Speaker 5: see is not as straightforward as you know, perhaps working
27:54
Speaker 5: as a checkout those sorts of work. So we do
27:57
Speaker 5: need to work with the industry, and I know that
28:00
Speaker 5: we have been today as mentioned earlier, Devor have been
28:03
Speaker 5: amazing in this space.
28:05
Speaker 2: We need to work with them to make sure if
28:07
Speaker 2: you can improve.
28:08
Speaker 5: I know that in my local bottle store, what they've
28:11
Speaker 5: done is they've actually taken all of the the spirits
28:15
Speaker 5: and locked them all back at the back of the
28:17
Speaker 5: shop to improve that. They've stopped putting things right out
28:22
Speaker 5: the front. I known our springs. They've been incredibly proactive.
28:25
Speaker 5: They're recognizing this. But you know, people getting alcohol and
28:29
Speaker 5: being this desperate for alcohol means that we do need
28:32
Speaker 5: to look at those those settings around alcohol, Cadie, And
28:36
Speaker 5: you know, you sort of got to get this balance
28:39
Speaker 5: because we all know, and we say it regularly, prohibition
28:42
Speaker 5: doesn't work in itself, but you still need to have
28:45
Speaker 5: levers to pull, and we need to get people that
28:48
Speaker 5: have got an alcohol addiction treated.
28:51
Speaker 4: Then have we got enough spaces for all that we do?
28:54
Speaker 4: And so what's happening. They're just not going so you can't.
28:57
Speaker 2: So you can't absolutely.
28:58
Speaker 3: Get forces anybody.
29:00
Speaker 5: I'm not going to This isn't said badly, but the
29:02
Speaker 5: CLP had mandatory alcohol treatment and I think they had
29:05
Speaker 5: one person go through.
29:06
Speaker 2: We've had a much much.
29:08
Speaker 5: I can't give you the number today, but that's quite
29:10
Speaker 5: high figures comparatively. Mandatory doesn't work either. It's a bit
29:14
Speaker 5: like prohibition. So you've got to really work through that
29:16
Speaker 5: health And if people don't want to help, get the help, Katie,
29:19
Speaker 5: you can't force them because they just won't get we got.
29:22
Speaker 4: We have to do something.
29:24
Speaker 1: So this is the thing we have to, like, we've
29:27
Speaker 1: got to change this tact of you know, we're reviewing stuff,
29:30
Speaker 1: we're looking at these different things. It's going to take time.
29:33
Speaker 1: We don't want to get it wrong. We all understand
29:35
Speaker 1: it's going to take time.
29:36
Speaker 4: I'm not going to but we all understand that.
29:39
Speaker 1: But the fact is this is not the first week
29:42
Speaker 1: that we've been worried about these issues.
29:44
Speaker 4: We've talked how.
29:44
Speaker 1: Many times have we been talking about these issues on
29:47
Speaker 1: the week that was.
29:48
Speaker 6: For example, and getting more brazen and it has and
29:51
Speaker 6: ever since I've been coming on week that was now okay.
29:53
Speaker 3: For two years that we're here.
29:54
Speaker 7: Talking about talking about it again, it's like I call
29:57
Speaker 7: it grand hole days.
29:58
Speaker 4: The time for review is over.
30:00
Speaker 7: The same discussions every time without any change, and.
30:03
Speaker 4: When the community is frustrating.
30:05
Speaker 6: I think the businesses themselves obviously will be doing their
30:08
Speaker 6: own risk assessment, their own we're working with procedures where
30:12
Speaker 6: they change them. And you know, it's not just the
30:15
Speaker 6: drive through bottle shops. It's the bottle shops to stand alone,
30:18
Speaker 6: like the one next to my officers, so just to
30:20
Speaker 6: walk in one. It may be that the businesses have
30:23
Speaker 6: to look at doing something similar to what happens in
30:25
Speaker 6: Bunnings when they have those with the spray paints. You know,
30:27
Speaker 6: you have your have your cages, and you might it's
30:30
Speaker 6: going to cost money. It's going to cost businesses more money.
30:33
Speaker 1: This problem the thing I worried about, though, Even if
30:35
Speaker 1: you end up with those cages and things up.
30:37
Speaker 2: You'll still get people threatening stuff.
30:39
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, and so then you worry about the
30:42
Speaker 1: danger that is sort of That's like these.
30:46
Speaker 6: These dumb asses have to soon realize that if they
30:49
Speaker 6: do this and get caught by police, the consequences will
30:51
Speaker 6: be severe.
30:52
Speaker 2: I get it. They're addicted to alcohol and that's a
30:54
Speaker 2: health issue.
30:55
Speaker 4: That doesn't give you a right to break the law.
30:59
Speaker 1: To break them absolutely, and that's where we're at as
31:02
Speaker 1: a community.
31:03
Speaker 4: I think right now where I'm glad.
31:05
Speaker 1: That we can all agree on this because I tell
31:07
Speaker 1: you what, it didn't sound like it during Parliament this week.
31:09
Speaker 1: It sounded like a shit show and it made me
31:12
Speaker 1: feel really quite upset thinking what direction is the Northern
31:15
Speaker 1: Territory going in, you know, when we're still yelling out
31:17
Speaker 1: things like don't talk the territory down and yeah at
31:21
Speaker 1: each other.
31:21
Speaker 4: We have from this, and.
31:23
Speaker 2: I agree they have.
31:24
Speaker 6: A couple of the ministers did that and I won't
31:26
Speaker 6: name them because I think it was.
31:27
Speaker 1: Just I will it was the Chief Minister and the
31:29
Speaker 1: Attorney General and it was disgraceful behavior.
31:31
Speaker 3: You know, it was embarrassing at this I was embarrassed.
31:34
Speaker 7: About a member of our Legislative Assembly at a number
31:37
Speaker 7: of times.
31:38
Speaker 1: Point for me is that I understand that you guys
31:41
Speaker 1: are all on different sides of the fence when it
31:43
Speaker 1: comes to politics, but the Northern Territory is a wonderful
31:47
Speaker 1: place and it should be a wonderful place.
31:49
Speaker 4: But at the moment it's not well. The way that
31:51
Speaker 4: things are going, it is not a great place.
31:54
Speaker 2: Both there's only two such the fence by the way.
31:58
Speaker 4: Too, and you're in the middle. There a sort of.
32:04
Speaker 3: There's two sides of the fence and is on top.
32:06
Speaker 5: Though she only ever votes with the CLP so and
32:09
Speaker 5: she actually is louder than the CLP at times.
32:11
Speaker 2: So some of their policies he.
32:13
Speaker 5: Warks up quicker and if we have to go to
32:15
Speaker 5: the CLP, you guarantee that.
32:16
Speaker 3: Keys is.
32:19
Speaker 6: That's because you keep picking on the poor poniest parliament, Katie.
32:25
Speaker 2: I know you've been around it long enough.
32:26
Speaker 5: There's a lot of back and forth, but I tell
32:28
Speaker 5: you this week it's long hours and we've done three
32:31
Speaker 5: long days and there was a really somber tone about it. Yes,
32:36
Speaker 5: Question Time has an element of theater to it. There
32:38
Speaker 5: is a back and forth that's been that's been like
32:41
Speaker 5: that forever.
32:43
Speaker 1: Tuesday morning when it opened, okay, after what had going on,
32:47
Speaker 1: it was it didn't seem like there was not even
32:49
Speaker 1: use didn't seem very nice.
32:51
Speaker 2: It's not even useful back and forth.
32:52
Speaker 7: It was time for some humility and time for some
32:54
Speaker 7: understanding and we and we did not see that from.
32:57
Speaker 2: I disagree with you.
32:58
Speaker 5: There was not one member of our government that was
33:01
Speaker 5: not absolutely shaken to the core about what had happened.
33:05
Speaker 2: The time was somber.
33:06
Speaker 6: Well, no, that's analogy smart us and saying about you know,
33:11
Speaker 6: three presents of seal.
33:12
Speaker 3: That is so boring, That is so boring.
33:15
Speaker 4: And look, I.
33:15
Speaker 1: Guess my point is I'm not trying to be I'm
33:19
Speaker 1: not the judge, jury and executor of everything. But what
33:21
Speaker 1: i will tell you all is that you know, from
33:24
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing on the phone lines, and from what
33:26
Speaker 1: I'm hearing on the text line, and from what I'm
33:27
Speaker 1: getting in really extensive emails from territorians right now, is
33:31
Speaker 1: that people just.
33:33
Speaker 4: We just want the place to thrive.
33:35
Speaker 1: We just want the place to be the wonderful, you know,
33:37
Speaker 1: wonderful place to live. Would have seen day community Safety
33:44
Speaker 1: early power amount.
33:46
Speaker 5: Yesterday I passed the trespass law and that's something the
33:49
Speaker 5: community had been asking for and it will help shop
33:51
Speaker 5: owners make sure that people can't you know, the point
33:55
Speaker 5: was made by the Member for Maki yesterday, what about
33:58
Speaker 5: people sheltering? And you know, we're not demonizing people that
34:02
Speaker 5: are homeless and are genuinely sheltering under shops. It's where
34:05
Speaker 5: behavior is poor. And I made this point to him yesterday.
34:09
Speaker 5: If you're just sheltering under a shop, I don't think
34:11
Speaker 5: shopkeepers at no time would worry about that.
34:13
Speaker 1: They have been at the shopping center and seeing people
34:16
Speaker 1: with bucket balls of my children, my children, well I
34:20
Speaker 1: won't say because it's terrible. Well it is bloody terrible.
34:24
Speaker 1: But the point is that stuff that your children are.
34:27
Speaker 5: Correct soul and the Trespus Act is streamlined and it
34:33
Speaker 5: will help shop owners because they've been We've been talking
34:36
Speaker 5: to them.
34:36
Speaker 3: The police have juris that look.
34:39
Speaker 5: Anyway, any legislation we bring in, and this comes back
34:42
Speaker 5: to sittings, any legislation we bring in, the oppositions not happy.
34:45
Speaker 5: That's just the nature of them. That's the nature of Parliament.
34:47
Speaker 5: And I'm sure if we were in opposition we would
34:49
Speaker 5: behave the same way.
34:50
Speaker 7: Yesterday the judge came out and said the laws that
34:54
Speaker 7: are created and being implemented.
34:57
Speaker 3: Are allowing a crime culture.
34:59
Speaker 4: To I degree with that.
35:01
Speaker 7: In section eighteen of the Trespassed Act, it says if
35:03
Speaker 7: someone's got hardship, if they come in and effectively take
35:07
Speaker 7: something because of hardship.
35:09
Speaker 2: So what it says it does the tress bus is
35:12
Speaker 2: not about taking that fieving. That's theft bills and your.
35:17
Speaker 3: Can use that note, they can use that position. It
35:19
Speaker 3: says a legislation that if it's for hardship, if someone's
35:23
Speaker 3: hungry they come in and take food.
35:25
Speaker 2: That doesn't say that.
35:26
Speaker 5: What it says is if you're trespassed from the Social
35:28
Speaker 5: Security office, which is where you get your Center Link payments,
35:32
Speaker 5: and you have to go in, then that might be
35:34
Speaker 5: considered hardship. It doesn't say anything about walking in and
35:37
Speaker 5: stealing food around the hardship you are.
35:40
Speaker 2: It's leading look as usual.
35:42
Speaker 1: Look, we will take a very short break when we
35:44
Speaker 1: come back. I do want to just talk about the
35:46
Speaker 1: police resourcing side of things, because we have obviously discussed
35:49
Speaker 1: earlier in the week about overt and covert operations happening.
35:54
Speaker 1: So we'll talk a little bit more about that and
35:55
Speaker 1: what exactly it means. In just a couple of moments,
35:58
Speaker 1: you are listening to Mix one oh four mines three sixty,
36:01
Speaker 1: you are listening to Mix one oh four nine the
36:03
Speaker 1: hour is absolutely flying by and joining me in the
36:07
Speaker 1: studio is of course, Kate Worden, Keesy Epuric and Bill Yan. Now,
36:12
Speaker 1: part of the announcement that was made throughout the week
36:15
Speaker 1: was the fact that there will be an increased police presence,
36:19
Speaker 1: overt and covert operations to try to deal with what
36:23
Speaker 1: we have been seeing when it comes to not only
36:25
Speaker 1: I guess the incidents at the bottle shops.
36:27
Speaker 4: But also that knife crime. I'm assuming, but.
36:32
Speaker 1: Look, the big question has been where exactly are those
36:36
Speaker 1: police going to come from? And we did speak to
36:38
Speaker 1: the Police Commissioner, Jamie Chalker on the show yesterday and
36:41
Speaker 1: he said, Katie, there will be a situation where he
36:43
Speaker 1: will be talking to his.
36:44
Speaker 4: Supervisors and they will be getting moved from different areas.
36:48
Speaker 1: Now, one of the areas that I did here was
36:50
Speaker 1: flagged with Strikeforce Trident and I thought to myself, goodness,
36:53
Speaker 1: may they do such a phenomenal job with the property
36:56
Speaker 1: crime and with some of the youth crime and offending
36:59
Speaker 1: that we see. Can we afford to have, you know,
37:01
Speaker 1: police officers like that taken off those jobs and moved.
37:05
Speaker 4: To other areas.
37:06
Speaker 5: This is being I think it's a bit of a
37:08
Speaker 5: football that keeps getting kicked around about numbers for police.
37:11
Speaker 5: But I mean, Alice Springs aren't complaining. They've got extra
37:14
Speaker 5: police down there, and we've continued with that and we've.
37:16
Speaker 2: Rotated through people through.
37:18
Speaker 5: But we've also got new recruits that are going into
37:20
Speaker 5: that have gone into Alice, and I've caught up with
37:22
Speaker 5: a few of them lately. They're just absolutely loving their
37:24
Speaker 5: job down there. So that's a good thing. So from
37:27
Speaker 5: time to time, and this is an operational thing for police.
37:31
Speaker 5: Police don't operate under the same as a public service.
37:34
Speaker 5: They've got their own act which gives the Police Commissioner
37:38
Speaker 5: the autonomy to make those operational moves as it should
37:41
Speaker 5: be because I'm not a police off myself, but what
37:44
Speaker 5: we've committed to and maybe this can put this to
37:47
Speaker 5: better around police numbers and everyone's saying, you know, I mean,
37:49
Speaker 5: I'm not an expert around and people have been saying, oh,
37:52
Speaker 5: you know, we've asked government for three hundred.
37:54
Speaker 2: But I can be really clear.
37:56
Speaker 5: We are working through a submission to the Commonwealth government
38:00
Speaker 5: moment and.
38:00
Speaker 2: That's where those figures are coming from. Around remote.
38:03
Speaker 5: So we've got remote stations that are left over from
38:06
Speaker 5: the intervention, and those leftovers are not good enough. They
38:10
Speaker 5: are like they're shipping containers and we know they've got
38:12
Speaker 5: to be replaced, So the figures being quoted are around
38:15
Speaker 5: making sure they're replaced and we can get a bigger
38:17
Speaker 5: footprint in remote.
38:18
Speaker 1: And so for our remote areas, that's where we're looking
38:20
Speaker 1: at three and we've got a plan for that three
38:24
Speaker 1: and infrastructure for that.
38:25
Speaker 5: I've never seen the figure three hundred, so I've asked
38:28
Speaker 5: a number of times about where that page.
38:30
Speaker 2: That and he's gave them.
38:33
Speaker 5: To the Colonial But those figures around five hundred million,
38:36
Speaker 5: that's around what we're asking the federal government to come
38:38
Speaker 5: in over a number of years.
38:40
Speaker 2: Around staffing.
38:42
Speaker 5: We are instituting electronic rostering hopefully that will be in
38:46
Speaker 5: sort of mid mid to mid later this year, not
38:49
Speaker 5: end of the year, and once that comes in, that
38:52
Speaker 5: will give us a really good data set around where
38:54
Speaker 5: perhaps the holes are in rostering and what numbers we
38:57
Speaker 5: might need.
38:57
Speaker 2: And we have committed through the NTPA.
39:00
Speaker 5: And we've worked this through with them that once we
39:02
Speaker 5: do get that data, we'll have an independent look at
39:06
Speaker 5: the staffing of numbers for.
39:07
Speaker 4: Problems will be an independent look at it.
39:09
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you can't do this internally.
39:11
Speaker 4: Because it needs to do it independent. That was something
39:13
Speaker 4: that I had asked.
39:14
Speaker 5: No, No, I'm giving I'm telling you right now that
39:17
Speaker 5: I've said this publicly earlier this week. It will be
39:20
Speaker 5: an independent review of staffing numbers.
39:22
Speaker 4: So when do you anticipate that, I need to.
39:24
Speaker 5: String to come in and I need the data out
39:26
Speaker 5: of the rostering. So by the end of this year
39:28
Speaker 5: we should start to see some rostering, that roster data
39:32
Speaker 5: coming through and then we'll do it from there and
39:34
Speaker 5: Kate and We've made that commitment as part of the
39:36
Speaker 5: process working with the NTPA this year through the EBA.
39:39
Speaker 5: So I'm really happy that we've landed and they're very
39:43
Speaker 5: supportive of that position.
39:44
Speaker 1: And I have spoken about that before. I have seen
39:48
Speaker 1: some of the paperwork that had indicated that that would
39:50
Speaker 1: be the case. Will you commit, though, to that happening
39:53
Speaker 1: before the next general election?
39:55
Speaker 6: Yes, excellent, because Katie's that it's comforting to hear that
39:59
Speaker 6: it's a independent review, which I take to be independent
40:03
Speaker 6: of the police force, because if you have act, if
40:05
Speaker 6: you have the police hierarchy reviewing it, you'll get a
40:09
Speaker 6: predetermined outcome.
40:10
Speaker 2: We are committed to it. I said it here. So
40:13
Speaker 2: obviously there was a letter that.
40:14
Speaker 5: Came out from the NTPA. I think was taken a
40:16
Speaker 5: little out of context.
40:17
Speaker 1: That sort of indicated that I was the only one
40:20
Speaker 1: who had it, Kate, So is that me taking it
40:21
Speaker 1: out of contact?
40:22
Speaker 2: I think you were taking it out of context.
40:23
Speaker 5: So the agreement has been and there has been correspondence
40:28
Speaker 5: around it as well.
40:28
Speaker 2: It's formal.
40:30
Speaker 5: Paul's very happy, Paul mceue, NTPA. We've made that commitment.
40:33
Speaker 5: And when I did hear that happening, I rang him
40:35
Speaker 5: up and said, hey, that's not quite right.
40:38
Speaker 1: Well I'm never going to reveal my sources, but it
40:40
Speaker 1: wasn't from them.
40:41
Speaker 2: No, But he's very happy now and we've definitely agreed
40:44
Speaker 2: on it. What kind of person's going to do this
40:46
Speaker 2: independent review? Well?
40:47
Speaker 5: Can I get to the electronic roostering and get the
40:49
Speaker 5: data first? And what we'll do is we'll to be
40:51
Speaker 5: thinking of someone to do the review already. You just
40:53
Speaker 5: don't get to there, get to the end of roster. Oh,
40:57
Speaker 5: by the way, we're now we don't.
40:58
Speaker 2: Set that up.
40:59
Speaker 1: No, will it be made public the staffing the independent review?
41:04
Speaker 2: I can't commit to that.
41:05
Speaker 4: I don't know, don't know what this stage the stage
41:09
Speaker 4: step by.
41:10
Speaker 5: Step right now we have committed to it. That's where
41:12
Speaker 5: we're at. I need the electronic rostering to be in
41:15
Speaker 5: place so we've got good data.
41:17
Speaker 1: Was that a sticking point though when it came to
41:19
Speaker 1: the EBA. No, so it wasn't that.
41:21
Speaker 5: It's a very long line of things that we've been
41:23
Speaker 5: working through very slowly and methodically with the NTPA that
41:28
Speaker 5: we've landed on.
41:29
Speaker 2: They are supportive of the offer that will be going out.
41:31
Speaker 1: Do you think though, that it is going to help
41:33
Speaker 1: to get police officers rank and file over the line
41:36
Speaker 1: when it comes to the vote on the e BA,
41:38
Speaker 1: knowing that the Northern Territory government are going to commit
41:40
Speaker 1: to that independent doesn't that's for sure.
41:43
Speaker 2: It doesn't form part of the e BAY.
41:46
Speaker 5: It's in an exchange of it's a communication that I've
41:49
Speaker 5: made formally to the NTPA that that will be happening.
41:52
Speaker 2: And they're very happy with that.
41:53
Speaker 3: Step forward, four or five.
41:54
Speaker 7: Select committees to look into police, police resourcing, police.
41:58
Speaker 5: Management and police do not parliamentary what's going on to
42:02
Speaker 5: try and get some of the root cause of what's
42:05
Speaker 5: wrong in the police force.
42:06
Speaker 7: And every time it's been knocked down and only again
42:09
Speaker 7: knockdown this week and now we're going to see a
42:11
Speaker 7: review on rostering and some other bits.
42:13
Speaker 3: I'd like to go a little bit too little.
42:15
Speaker 6: Too late telling police what to do if an independent
42:19
Speaker 6: reviews conductor. That means they're going to contract someone to
42:22
Speaker 6: undertake this independent room, empty based or elsewhere. I think
42:26
Speaker 6: also it should be made known what the cost will be. Yeah,
42:29
Speaker 6: for this Christmas or business person or academic, you know
42:32
Speaker 6: what's it actually going.
42:32
Speaker 2: To thank you for your advice in front of everything
42:36
Speaker 2: that that's what people want to know.
42:38
Speaker 1: It's obviously looking into staffing, is it looking into is
42:41
Speaker 1: the reason for that?
42:42
Speaker 5: Though?
42:42
Speaker 4: That you know that there is.
42:44
Speaker 2: Some sense looking into the toxic culture and look, I'll
42:47
Speaker 2: get to talk about that already, but I will.
42:50
Speaker 1: I just want to ask is there a like, is
42:52
Speaker 1: there a sense right now because there is from the
42:54
Speaker 1: community that we don't have enough police and that then
42:57
Speaker 1: we saw in that survey that some of those results
43:00
Speaker 1: were that the police felt as though there wasn't enough
43:03
Speaker 1: of them to do what's being asked of.
43:05
Speaker 5: The coming to you, can I say that you can
43:09
Speaker 5: see and it will be clearly evidenced in the statistics
43:13
Speaker 5: that will come out in a month's time that the
43:15
Speaker 5: work that we've done around alcohol in our springs will show.
43:18
Speaker 2: It was very very clear to me that domestic violence took.
43:22
Speaker 5: Police off off the If you go out to a
43:26
Speaker 5: job for DV can tie you up for four to
43:28
Speaker 5: six hours, right so, and I think the police commissioner said,
43:31
Speaker 5: you're never going to have enough when that occurs. We've
43:34
Speaker 5: seen a huge spike in numbers of reporting and that's
43:37
Speaker 5: because people are reporting.
43:39
Speaker 2: There's been a really big.
43:41
Speaker 5: Role out of mobile phones now that has contributed to
43:44
Speaker 5: that recording that that.
43:46
Speaker 2: Jump in numbers.
43:48
Speaker 5: But we know that that if you have take two
43:52
Speaker 5: people out, let's say, to work on a DV matter
43:54
Speaker 5: for four to six hours, that is going to have
43:56
Speaker 5: a significant impact. By taking the alcohol away. In Alice Springs,
43:59
Speaker 5: that has reduce the number of DV incidents that have
44:02
Speaker 5: been reported and police have been freed up. We're hearing
44:05
Speaker 5: that and we're seeing it already and that makes them
44:07
Speaker 5: more able to respond to those other jobs. So additional
44:11
Speaker 5: numbers by itself doesn't necessarily get you the outcome. You
44:15
Speaker 5: have to look at why are police off the road
44:17
Speaker 5: for so long with those.
44:18
Speaker 2: Matters and can we change that? And yes we can.
44:21
Speaker 1: One very quick question because we are going to have
44:23
Speaker 1: to go to break the police that are on sick leave.
44:27
Speaker 4: Is that something that's that's playing a part here as well.
44:29
Speaker 2: We are working on that hard.
44:31
Speaker 7: Yes, that's fine thing to say you've got record police,
44:33
Speaker 7: but it comes down the very very salient family on
44:35
Speaker 7: the how many are available to roster? And I used
44:38
Speaker 7: to roster over two hundred and forty staff. I know
44:41
Speaker 7: exactly how rostering systems work. It's one thing to say
44:44
Speaker 7: I've got this many staff, how many available to come?
44:46
Speaker 5: So we need to make sure that the police force
44:49
Speaker 5: want to come to work and that they're fit and able.
44:52
Speaker 5: I'm very acutely aware of that and it's something that
44:54
Speaker 5: we are working on.
44:55
Speaker 1: We're going to have to take a really quick break.
44:57
Speaker 1: You are listening to Mix one O four nine's three sixty.
45:00
Speaker 1: It is the week that was. That is it for
45:01
Speaker 1: us this morning. It's been a busy morning. Kate Warden,
45:04
Speaker 1: the Minister for Police, Territory, Families and various other portfolios.
45:07
Speaker 4: Thank you for your time this morning. Thank you, and
45:10
Speaker 4: Keisei Epiric, the Independent member for going to Haiti.
45:12
Speaker 1: Thank you as always, pleasure, Bill Yan, thank you so
45:15
Speaker 1: much for.
45:16
Speaker 3: Your time always a pleasure to be here.
45:18
Speaker 1: Wonderful to have you all in this very much.
45:23
Speaker 3: Come up here for a little bit of humidity, No,
45:25
Speaker 3: we know you come for the fishing.
45:26
Speaker 1: Appreciate, appreciate all your time this morning, and are good too,