Leader of the Opposition – Lia Finocchiaro
In less than 24 hours the CLP has been briefed by Vince Kelly for the very first time on the Police Review, read and considered the recommendations, and provided a decisive response.
Let me say very clearly – we don’t have a broken police force – we have a broken government.
The Review was deliberately constrained by Labor so that it did not consider the role that other departments should play in supporting a safe community or failed laws and policies impacting our police.
This process has highlighted the hypocrisy of a government whose Chief Minister has been responsible as Treasurer for underfunding our police, whose Deputy Chief Minister is responsible for removing police powers and weakening the law, and the disgraced police Minister holding himself to a lower standard than what he holds our police.
We must never lose sight of the fact that our police make an oath to serve the community above all else, to pull on the blue uniform every single day and leave their family to protect ours. They do this without fear or favour and they put themselves in the line of danger to protect Territorians. The CLP thank them for their service.
Seven times the CLP has called for a Parliamentary Inquiry into the police crisis to address retention, morale, health and wellbeing, and on every occasion was shut down by Labor. Instead, Labor conducted a behind-closed-doors review which they sat on for six weeks and failed to make public until now.
The review is a damning report card on Labor’s failures to support our police:
- 000 calls have more than doubled since the CLP left government in 2016. 9528 calls were abandoned in 2022/23 reinforcing the community’s fear that there might not be help there to respond when they need it most
- Since 2020, the proportion of 000 calls being answered within 10 seconds has plummeted from 92.7% down to 76.4%
- The NT has more than double the National average of crime and assaults rising by 44.5% in the last six years
- In the last three years, the police attrition rate is more than double the long-term average with 472 police officers leaving the force, and most of those members are from senior constable through to Senior Sergeant
- Police response times are taking nearly twice as long for a priority 1 call, and triple for priority 2 calls over the last five years.
The CLPs response to the Police Review goes well above the recommendations with significant strengthening of police powers, stronger bail laws, lowering the age of criminal responsibility and minimum mandatory sentencing for assaults on police. The buck will stop with me as Chief and Police Minister, and every government and non-government agency will know that community safety is the number one priority of my government.
The CLP:
- Accepts recommendations 1-9
- Accepts in part recommendation 10 which requires further careful analysis
- Does not accept recommendation 11 under any circumstances
- Cannot accept recommendation 12 at this time
- Accepts recommendations 13 through to 18.
The CLP will always back police, we will give police the powers and resources they need to do their job safely and effectively. Working together with them we will reduce crime and rebuild the Territory.
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