Most recents (6)

Begging people to realise the problems in Alice Springs didn’t start a year ago, or 3 years ago. This is the latest iteration in a conversation that has been front and centre for decades.

Here’s a few things that were going on back in 2011. A thread.

bbc.com/news/world-asi…

Opposition leader Tony Abbott called for an intervention into child abuse in Alice Springs and conservatives used the towns problems as a political tool. Crime was on the rise. Kids in the street.

Sound familiar?

“Action for Alice” was already an established local action group which in 2010 made a bunch of ads targeting NT politicians, which were eventually pulled from air for overt racism. These ads are still up on a YouTube page called “AliceinCrisis” started in February 2011.

Read 20 tweets

Kevin Bonham

@kevinbonham

Arafura by-election count on tonight. A few comments I had about this by-election earlier in thread. #ntpol

https://twitter.com/kevinbonham/status/1605463609487654912

During the campaign it has been revealed the Labor candidate has an old conviction for driving without due care arising from a fatal car accident. Whether that will have any impact who knows.

The ordinary booth count in Arafura for 2020 consisted entirely of two mobile teams. I expect that will be the case again this time ntec.nt.gov.au/elections/curr…

Read 11 tweets

Sophie Trevitt

@SophieTrevitt

@DeniseCahill18

Head of NT News @DeniseCahill18 urges the NT Government to exercise caution when implementing youth justice law reforms that could impact generations of children to come.

It's not every day I agree with the NT News, but here we go.. #ntpol

Thread 👇

For decades, children around the country ~ but particularly First Nations kids ~ have been let down by Labor and Liberal Government's obsession with law-and-order state election campaigns. In fact, everyone has been let down - because our communities are none the safer for it.

This is not a problem unique to the Territory - although the NT Government's backflips when it comes to youth justice reform have been particularly monumental in recent years.

I've written about them here: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Read 11 tweets

Sophie Trevitt

@SophieTrevitt

@4corners

This is terrible. These knee-jerk, highly politicised, dangerous law reforms will take the NT back to pre-Royal Commission days, filling up youth prisons with Aboriginal kids the way they were prior to @4corners expose on the abuse in Don Dale. #ntpol

ntnews.com.au/news/politics/…

I don't know how to be any clearer: what didn't work then, is not going to work now. Making bail tougher, locking more kids up on remand, slapping on GPS devices.. is not going to keep people safe - it's going to criminalise more children and hurt everyone in the long run.

Final thing - youth prisons in the NT are pressure cookers of abuse, unmet physical, mental and emotional needs, overcrowding and harm. They are no place for children - particularly not kids who have tough stuff going on in their lives. These places break kids. I saw it.

Read 4 tweets

NeeWok

@Neewok

Alice Springs has a great Town Councillor, an Indigenous Australian woman, who works hard to represent all of her constituents and has a record of speaking and acting on behalf of the local Aboriginal community. She was just nominated for Deputy Mayor! And lost to Jacinta Price.

Catherine Satour is her name and unlike Price she puts in the work and takes the position seriously. But council works as a partisan block without apparent consideration of merit or commitment, so Price got the numbers. #ntpol alicespringsnews.com.au/2020/09/30/vot…

I’m consistently amazed at how little scrutiny there is of Jacinta Price in our local media. The Alice Springs News, for all its faults, is the only publication willing to even partially hold her feet to the fire. Even then there is a serious lack of scrutiny.

Read 11 tweets

RAIL_BoT_Forum

@railbotforum