Watching the footage of mass rioting last week in Alice Springs, I half-expected the Northern Territory government to announce the town had signed a sister city agreement with Juba, South Sudan. Wanton vandalism, vicious assaults, gangs of youths roaming the streets armed with axes, knives and clubs, rampant car theft and burglary, bloody feuds – yes, I thought, Central Australia is ticking all the boxes.But the besieged residents of Alice Springs need not fear. The Prime Minister has heeded your cries for help. Speaking last week from Muswellbrook, NSW, where he had just announced his plan to shower the solar panel industry with a billion dollars in taxpayer-funded subsidies, Anthony Albanese was asked when he would go to Alice Springs. His response?
“We are continuing to
monitor what is happening there,” he said.
There you have it. This is splendid news to distressed locals and testament to the Prime Minister’s hands-on approach.
Monitoring the situation in Alice Springs is a longstanding Albanese project, you see. He began
monitoring this situation in July 2022, when Indigenous leaders wrote to him, warning the impending expiry of federal government alcohol bans in the NT would lead to violence and disorder.
Albanese did absolutely nothing to address this, but the important thing is he continued to
monitor the situation. And when soaring alcohol-fuelled violence and property offences brought chaos to Alice Springs in January last year, he continued to
monitor the situation from Canberra. In fact, following much criticism from political opponents and disquiet from his own party, he even made a marathon four-hour visit to the town, which I am sure all will agree was a stupendous effort.
Make no mistake, Territorians. Even if the entire town is set ablaze, Albanese will continue to monitor the situation.Last year, the NT became the first Australian jurisdiction to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 years. This is progressivism in motion. It means 10-year-old Indigenous youths driving stolen cars through Alice Springs can do so scot-free for another two years.
These laws were championed by Deputy Chief Minister and Attorney-General Chansey Paech, a former LGBT activist who possesses no legal qualifications. Hailing the passing of this legislation in 2022, he declared it was part of a broader strategy to adopt “smarter solutions” that would “break the cycle of reoffending,” and “keep the community safe”. Seriously, this bloke is the Chris Bowen of crime prevention.
Then there is Chief Minister Eva Lawler. Speaking in February at the redeveloped Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre, she bizarrely segued into linking youth crime with Britain’s practice of transporting convicts to Australia. No, for the life of me I cannot work out why the NT criminal justice system is a basket case.
Albanese could talk at random to people in Alice Springs and not exclude the media.
He could tell the locals how a voice to parliament could have prevented last week’s mass rioting. To use a couple of his favourite platitudes, he might tell them they are remiss in not engaging in respectful dialogue with the oldest continuous culture in the world.But above all, Albanese should repeat what he said in January 2023, when it was suggested he send reinforcements from the Australian Federal Police to help their NT colleagues. Dismissing that call, he said the “solution wasn’t just to lock more people up,” he said.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/stay-home-alice-springs-the-prime-mi...
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