[caption id="attachment_34242" align="aligncenter" width="2304"] I really love this design by Casey Finley, who was kind enough to allow me to publish it here. He has a very distinctive style which is really coming into its own as he works on it. For instance, see here and her...
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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="649"] Hong Kong actor Eric Tsang Chi-wa, NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner, Donghai Airlines chairman Mr.Wong Cho-Bau and Donghai Airlines Chief Executive Officer Yang Jianhong following the arrival of the first Donghai airlines flight fr...
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Long-ish article but a must-read in my humble opinion for Territorians interested in NT economic development (especially tourism). The Gunner government isn't keen to disclose the terms of its "partnering" agreement with Donghai Airlines that resulted in the airline's inaugura...
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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB6V7XU5H6A] It seems like time to review progress on the Gunner government’s quest to create a vibrant Darwin CBD. They actually appointed an assistant Minister for that noble quest (Paul Kirby) on achieving government in 2016. In term...
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This article is a follow-up to my recent long piece titled Northern Territory development, debt and deficit - the long and winding road . Urban development ideas are invariably bedevilled by community dissension, much of it uninformed and anything but constructive. However, pa...
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The media debate about last Monday’s NT Budget sure could do with some context and perspective. The Australian ’s Amos Aikman was an honourable exception: Everyone could see this mess coming. You can’t have a mining boom, two new gas plants, a whole lot of federal indigenous s...
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The Gunner Labor government came to office last August promising to restore the trust of Territorians in government, after it had been shattered by four years of chaos, division and dubious or worse ethical behaviour by various members of the Giles CLP regime. Enacting and boo...
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The NT News’ front page on Saturday is a vintage piece of Murdoch tabloid journalism – aggressively funny but without any meaningful regard for fact or fairness. Of course portraying any politicians as “bastards” is bound to meet with general public approval, especially when M...
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Experienced Troppo readers will be aware that I fairly frequently post articles about topics relating to crime and punishment, especially crime statistics and patterns. Quite often those articles consist partly of impassioned diatribes against sensationalist tabloid crime “sho...
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Here is a link to a companion article to Treaty: Yeah, Nah, Maybe which I cross-posted here at Troppo from The Summit a week ago: What might a treaty look like? Another article published there a couple of days ago ( The hidden karma of Aboriginal affairs policy … ) is also rel...
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Cross-posted from The Summit . It was surprising (at least to me) that there wasn't more discussion at the NT Governance Summit surrounding the question of a possible treaty between Aboriginal Territorians and the Northern Territory Government. It seemed as if most of the curr...
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An article in today’s Northern Territory News (online version marked “premium” – I read the paper version while sipping coffee at the Roma Bar) gives what the newspaper describes as a six month report card on the Gunner Labor government. It’s a peculiar article. Its principal...
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Sky News' Matt Cunningham is unimpressed by the actions of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory, in restricting cross-examination of detainees, failing to proceed with hearings before Christmas, and obtaining a five month...
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[caption id="attachment_29556" align="alignright" width="300"] Yingiya Mark Guyula and other newly elected Independent NT MLAs[/caption] In contrast to the almost continual chaos and dysfunction that marked the former unlamented Giles CLP government, the period of almost 2 mon...
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Like quite a few other despairing commentators, I have on occasions referred to the Northern Territory as a "failed state", most recently here : Until now, although holding grave fears about the quality of Northern Territory political governance under both the previous Labor g...
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It appears that the newly dominant Labor Party in the Northern Territory may be contemplating a legal challenge to the validity of the election of former CLP Chief Minister Terry Mills as an Independent MLA in his former seat of Blain. Labor will likely hold 18 of the 25 Legis...
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It's not often that I agree with hyper-ventilating Murdoch columnist Andrew Bolt, but his column this week on the Don Dale Centre juvenile detention controversy is a useful antidote to the equally hyperbolic reactions of most commentators to ABC journalist Caro Meldrum-Hanna's...
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Preselecting Nova Peris as a "Captain's Pick" for Labor senator for the Northern Territory must have seemed like a good idea at the time in early 2013 to then Prime Minister Julia Gillard. The election of Ken Wyatt as a Liberal federal MHR from Western Australia in 2010 had sp...
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It looks like we may be getting a six star hotel across the road from our place at Cullen Bay. A proposal by Paspaley the Pearl King has been shortlisted by the Giles government along with two others. Apparently the winner will receive unspecified government largesse to kickst...
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The starter’s gun has almost been fired on the forthcoming Federal election which will almost certainly now be held on 2 July. However, there is also another Australian election due to take place soon after that: the Northern Territory election due on 27 August under the fixed...
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This week's announcement by Pangaea Resources that it is suspending its NT onshore gas exploration drilling program and laying off 140 workers, following the Labor Opposition's indication that it will impose an indefinite moratorium on fracking, has provoked predictable respon...
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The Giles Country Liberal NT government managed to ram through legislation this week which not only implements optional preferential voting for Territory elections but also prohibits handing out of "how to vote" and other candidate materials to voters on polling day within 100...
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Here for my sins is the text of another letter I have just submitted to the local Northern Territory News: Dear Editor The statement in your editorial of 2 December 2015 that "neither of the major political parties is in a position we would consider as ready to govern beyond 2...
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If next Tuesday's Labor "no confidence" motion against the minority Giles Country Liberal government succeeds in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, it will mark the first real test of the 4 year fixed term election arrangements that have become increasingly common in...
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This article was published at UNSW's Gilbert & Tobin Centre for Public Law site Australian Public Law. However they seem to be having some virus/accessibility issues so I am parking the article here for the moment. Statehood for the Northern Territory is on the national politi...
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I've written a few Northern Territory posts recently. This is another one, but it has some significant national implications (I think). Tuesday's announcement of Asian conglomerate Jemena as the preferred bidder to construct a gas pipeline connecting the Northern Territory to...
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There has been yet another failed political coup in Darwin overnight, with the minority CLP government failing to carry a motion to sack Independent (and erstwhile CLP) Speaker Kezia Purick. Keen watchers of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera known as Territory politics will...
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The effective sacking of NT Corrective Services Commissioner Ken Middlebrook is sad but politically inevitable. It came in the wake of the escape and subsequent voluntary surrender of axe murder and rapist Edward Horrell from a Sentenced to a Job work gang near Nhulunbuy. Mini...
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Further to my post on Tuesday , the result in yesterday's High Court decision in NAAJA v NT [2015] HCA 41 will not have made either side completely happy. The Court upheld the validity of the NT government's "paperless arrest" law by a 6:1 majority i.e. the NT government won....
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There are just over 9 months until the 2016 Territory election next August, unless there’s a successful “no confidence” motion in the Legislative Assembly in the meantime, or next May’s Budget is rejected. Both those possibilities presently look fairly unlikely despite endless...
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Sentenced to a Job is a prison-based program in the NT first planned under Labor but implemented and developed under the current Country Liberal government. It seems like a good idea but is it working? Crime and punishment are subjects that have fascinated me ever since I move...
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NT Chief Minister Adam Giles announced yesterday that his government had signed a deal to lease the Darwin Port to the Chinese-owned Landbridge Group for 99 years for $506 million. The deal involves the NTG/Australian interests retaining a 20% interest in the ongoing port busi...
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Statehood for the Northern Territory is in the air again, with COAG having recently voted to support a statehood process (albeit with no assurances as to the outcome). Whether it was any more than a distraction tactic for both then PM Tony Abbott and the equally beleaguered NT...
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The Northern Territory Country Liberals’ early start to election campaigning looks to be just as chaotic as the rest of its term of government. The last month of taxpayer-funded blatantly party political advertising doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact on voters, except...
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Delia Lawrie's announcement today that she was resigning as NT Labor Opposition Leader isn't really surprising in light of yesterday's news that Attorney-General John Elferink had referred her conduct over the Stella Maris controversy to both NT Police and the Director of Publ...
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( NB See my previous post on this important NT Supreme Court decision ). News that CLP Attorney-General John Elferink has referred the Delia Lawrie matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions is hardly a surprise, given adverse comments about her behaviour in a Supreme Court...
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[caption id="attachment_27165" align="alignright" width="300"] The old, heritage-listed Stella Maris Seamen's Mission in Darwin's CBD[/caption] Northern Territory Labor Opposition Leader Delia Lawrie is a fearsome political warrior, a divisive figure who seldom compromises or...
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Amidst all the depressing events of last week's failed leadership coup in the Northern Territory, there was at least one redeeming feature, at least for constitutional lawyers. Adam Giles' refusal to resign as Chief Minister, despite losing the confidence of the majority of hi...
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*First published as "Abolish NT self-government". Last section now significantly rewritten. Political chaos continues in the Northern Territory in the wake of last Monday’s failed leadership coup against incumbent Chief Minister Adam Giles. Today’s Northern Territory News repo...
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I don't have a particularly high opinion of Senator Nova Peris. I certainly don't think Prime Minister Julia Gillard should have effectively sacked long-standing and well regarded Senator Trish Crossin to get her into Parliament. Moreover, even if it was reasonable to aim at g...
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Kevin Rudd's announcement yesterday of a Special Economic Zone in the Northern Territory surely comes very close to the silliest election promise of the last decade, matched only by Tony Abbott's almost identical promise a couple of months ago. The only positive aspect of eith...
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Nobody knows exactly how much it costs to administer Income Management. But government estimates suggest that it could be as high as $150 a week per person in remote areas. According a recent report from the Australian National Audit Office : ... departments were aware that pr...
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My post on the Territory's recent mini-budget has resulted in an interesting comment box discussion about Darwin property prices. At first blush general Troppo readers might not find it all that absorbing, but in fact the dynamics of Darwin's property market provide an instruc...
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I haven't been posting on Troppo much lately, mostly because I'm pretty fully occupied establishing with partners a new private legal practice in Darwin, Melbourne and Adelaide by early January. However I haven't been able to restrain myself from indulging in the first sign of...
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[ This was written on Sunday. An edited version was published at the G8 universities site The Conversation late this afternoon. ] The Northern Territory's Labor government led by Chief Minister Paul Henderson was swept from power at yesterday's election by Terry Mills' Country...
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By sheer chance, on Sunday I found myself listening on ABC Classic FM to part of the 18th century opera ' The Good-Hearted Curmudgeon '. In her inimitable way, Jen couldn't help suggesting that the opera might have been named after me. Little did I know that within an hour or...
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I wrote recently about the prevalence of personal smear tactics by both major parties in the current NT election campaign. It is one of the more repugnant aspects of modern politics, exemplified at federal level by the current Ashby v Slipper shenanigans. Last week the tactics...
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One of the more fascinating aspects of the current NT election campaign from an afficionado's viewpoint is the phenomenon of intersecting and overlapping fear campaigns by the two major parties. Spin doctors take exactly the same set of facts (in this case NT net debt and defi...
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"One punch" or "king hit" homicides have been in the news recently, especially since the killing of young Thomas Kelly in Kings Cross in Sydney a couple of weeks ago. In the Northern Territory dreadful events of that sort have been frequently discussed ever since the killing o...
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Law and order themes are always popular in NT election campaigns, even more so than other parts of Australia. It's hardly surprising given that violent crime rates are more than twice as high as the Australian average. Almost 6% of Territorians experience a violent crime every...
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[caption id="attachment_21086" align="alignright" width="300"] Debt was a very popular theme with Malcolm as well ...[/caption] Like Tony Abbott at a federal level, NT Country Liberals leader Terry Mills has been trying to fan the flames of a shock-horror theme on government d...
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[caption id="attachment_21050" align="alignright" width="300"] Gerry Wood[/caption] On the surface at least, nothing much has changed since my first two reports on the forthcoming Northern Territory election. The mainstream media campaign is very quiet indeed, even though it's...
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Amidst all the kerfuffle about asylum seeker policy over the last week, it probably escaped most people's attention that the Gillard government's Orwellian Newspeak-rebadged version of the Northern Territory Emergency Intervention, called " Stronger Futures ", passed through P...
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[caption id="attachment_20414" align="alignright" width="316" caption="NT government croc catcher Tommy Nichols"] [/caption] News Ltd polling guru Peter "Mumble" Brent disagrees with my assessment of the likely state of play in the run-up to the NT election on 25 August: I don...
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[caption id="attachment_20275" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Hendo"] [/caption] The Northern Territory is facing an imminent general election, on 25 August to be precise. We know this because the Henderson Labor government introduced fixed four year terms after rushi...
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[caption id="attachment_19919" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Bob Collins"] [/caption] I had a bit of a cyber-chinwag on Twitter this morning with a couple of other legal academics about the rather obscure topic of the torts of maintenance and champerty. Melissa Casta...
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New post by me at CDU Law and Business Online .
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVGcfqj04Qk&feature=related Last night Jen prevailed on me to watch an episode of the doco series The First Australians . Such programs tend towards the irritatingly sanctimonious and question-begging in my experience, and that may well be true o...
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Traditional Culture and the Wellbeing of Indigenous Australians: An analysis of the 2008 NATSISS (pdf) Dr A.M. Dockery Centre for Labour Market Research, Curtin University Research based on data from the 2002 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey found e...
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I have distinctly ambivalent views about Statehood for the Northern Territory, as long-time readers will have noted. I even mused not so long ago about whether the existing grant of self-government should be revoked and other governance models explored instead. More recently I...
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This year is the centenary of the handover of control of the Northern Territory to the Commonwealth by South Australia in 1911. It's a fascinating but not very well known story with many dimensions. I was recently asked to deliver a paper to the Northern Territory Historical S...
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I am hoping one or more of the economics and public policy gurus who read and write for Troppo might be be able to help me with the following question: Does the Commonwealth Grants Commission analyse and report on the way States and Territories actually spend their untied gran...
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The Hatfield clan circa 1897 I had a long chat recently with an old mate from my politics days who I hadn't seen for some time. The conversation turned to Aboriginal affairs issues, as it does when you've both worked with and for Indigenous groups for the best part of thirty y...
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I admire SA independent senator Nick Xenophon hugely. He's a rare combination of brains, enterprise and principle. I knew him at Adelaide University; he had all those qualities then, and he seems to have kept them intact over the quarter-century since. But I have wondered for...
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I should concede that the analogy drawn in this post between Dave Tollner and Tony Abbott is an imperfect one (image from NT News ) Northern Territory politics is nearly always very silly but equally unfailingly highly entertaining. It was the inspiration for the "Troppo" in t...
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Recent NT News discussion on the perennial topic of crime and punishment seems to have generated more heat than light. Chief Justice Trevor Riley wrote an excellent piece pointing out basic facts about the NT criminal justice system, not least the fact that NT judges and magis...
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Letter to the Editor NT News: I don’t hold any brief for the CLP, or Labor for that matter (although I did a long time ago). However I have strong moral objections when I see someone’s reputation trashed unfairly. That especially includes politicians, a human sub-species about...
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I couldn't agree more with FOI expert Peter Timmins about the latest Wikileaks "disclosures". I have no idea whether Assange is a rapist or not, but he's certainly succeeded in setting the cause of public sector whistleblowing back by a decade or more. The documents so far dis...
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The release in federal Parliament yesterday of the report into last year's Montara oil spill off Australia's north-west coast is just the latest chapter in a saga of NT government incompetence: "Industry, government and regulators must be absolutely committed to a culture of h...
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At last count eight people had been seriously injured and seven arrested after an extended family group returned to the Central Australian remote Indigenous community of Yuendumu, having earlier fled to Adelaide to escape "payback violence" after a stabbing murder in Alice Spr...
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High profile constitutional law academic George Williams argues in today's SMH that the federal laws prohibiting self-governing Commonwealth territories (NT, ACT and Norfolk Island) from legalising voluntary euthanasia should be repealed. As a Territorian and public law academ...
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Bob Durnan is an old ALP colleague who has worked in Indigenous communities in central Australia for the best part of 30 years. Like me, he has witnessed the tragic deterioration of living conditions in many if not most remote communities and town camps in the Northern Territo...
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It won't get published because it's too long, but worth saying just the same: Dear Sir, Peter Murphy's always entertaining pro-CLP spin doctoring column sometimes obscures issues that really warrant more serious reflection. This week's column (12 September) blaming Warren Snow...
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As part of my duties as CDU's designated political analyst/commentator for NT electoral purposes, I've been delving into the interstices of the booth by booth results in the NT seats of Solomon and Lingiari . The results are quite fascinating, especially in Lingiari. Starting...
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Dear editor I wonder how many of the 84% of NT News respondents who think NT courts are too soft on criminals are aware of any of the following indisputable facts: NT judges and magistrates are tougher on crime than other states and territories. The NT has an imprisonment rate...
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Independent MLA and "kingmaker" Gerry Wood has just about made up his mind how he'll vote on Friday's Legislative Assembly no confidence motion, and is delivering tantalising cryptic hints: Mr Wood says he has almost made up his mind and will tell the leaders of his decision b...
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Friday's NT Legislative Assembly debate will probably be more peaceful than proceedings in Taiwan's parliament, but you never know ... This Friday 14 August will witness the NT Legislative Assembly debating a "no confidence" motion in the current Henderson Labor government (se...
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As Charles Darwin University's designated "expert" political commentator, I've been doing lots of media interviews in the last week or so for both national and local media. As many Troppo readers will have noticed, the Henderson Labor government seems to be in the process of s...
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Ken: G'day Tab. Tab: G'day Ken. What are ya doin'? Ken: Just sitting here reading the Sunday paper and eating these squid satays ... Tab: Mind if I join you? Ken: Not at all. Pull up a chair ... Tab: What are you doing these days? (I represented him at one stage in one of his...
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East Point beach, pretty much where the channel and lock would go through for "Arafura Harbour" according to the concept plan. I suspect this aspect of the plan will change to force the channel to emerge on the north side of East Point, which would make a lot more sense. I've...
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A few weeks ago, on the 30th of Sept to be precise, I gave a speech to 'science leaders' in CSIRO. Science leaders are early mid career scientists from around the world whom CSIRO have recruited. As the speech explains, Jim Peacock, the Chief Scientist whom I met when on the I...
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[ republished from today's Northern Territory News ] The political wash-up from the recent coronial inquest into the death of Margaret Winter at Royal Darwin Hospital in December 2006 is proving messy indeed. Claims this week by Health Minister Chris Burns that he was lied to...
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The recent resignation of former Labor MLA John Bailey and two other members from the Darwin Harbour Advisory Committee raises some important issues. The previous CLP government always had a gung ho attitude towards Darwin development, along with a seeming disregard for indepe...
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Help! My insanity level is increasing. I've just written another letter to the editor of the Northern Territory News : Its understandable when political flacks and criminal lawyer advocates exaggerate the extent of crime in the Territory. Its both disappointing and puzzling wh...
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Last week the mainstream media devoted tens of thousands of words to "analysing" the effects of the Brough/Howard NT Indigenous Intervention. Today the NT Department of Justice published its March quarter 2008 crime statistics (also see my previous post on NT crime figures ove...
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I've long regarded writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper as a rather sad and futile exercise. Far better to post on your own blog, where at least you're only inflicting your opinions on genuinely consenting adults with similar obsessions. However, I couldn't resist sen...
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ABC news story this afternoon: Northern Territory Police believe a woman found dead at Mindil Beach last night may have been assaulted in the hours before her death. Police received a report at 11pm that a woman was lying on the beach unconscious and bleeding from the mouth. P...
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In part 1 of this post I attempted to outline some of the main principles that should underpin good policy in the indigenous affairs area, drawing especially on the work of the Productivity Commission and indigenous academics Toni Bauman and Marcia Langton. In this second part...
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A few years ago, some members of the ALP's Left faction were battling to change the entrenched practice whereby its ministerial nominees were always allocated the federal aboriginal affairs and immigration portfolios. One anonymous Left Caucus member referred to these portfoli...
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Bryan "Ozpolitics" Palmer on the state of play with counting in doubtful seats as at 8:24 this morning: The ABC Computer now has Robertson on the doubtful list (previously a Labor gain) after the pre-poll votes went in the Coalitions favour 53.3 to 46.7. It also has Solomon on...
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I don't have much to add to Rex's overall post-election rant , except to suggest that this is in many respects the result that might well have occurred in 2004 had John Howard's dishonest interest rate scare not been so successful and had Mark Latham not been a victim of his o...
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Former Territory Labor Opposition Leader and Keating government Minister Bob Collins has died in Darwin at the age of 61. Whether from the bowel cancer he had suffered over the last couple of years or from some other cause is yet to be revealed. I knew Bob Collins very well in...
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The Chinatown area of Cavenagh Street, Darwin just before World War II (This is the second in an intended series exploring Australian federalism (the first part is here ). In this part I test the proposals of those who think we would be best advised to abolish the existing Sta...
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That graph is from the 2001 census . One of the problems in Australian politics is that everything is viewed from the national level. From Imagining Australia : If our Indigenous people comprised one tenth rather than one fiftieth of the population there would be widespread ou...
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I've posted over the fold a draft of a speech I'm delivering at a seminar being held tomorrow on indigenous policy in the wake of the recent Howard-Brough intervention in the Northern Territory. In part it's a more reflective version of the angry post I wrote here at Troppo on...
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A friend of mine - Stephen Rimmer has proposed an Aboriginal Rights and Responsibilities Commission. If you're wondering what that might be, you get a clue from the fact that Stephen is an old hand at the Productivity Commission (having spent a great deal of his time in regula...
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Every picture tells a story ... As a former Northern Territory public servant who spent over 20 years dealing with policy development and program management in a range of fields relating to Indigenous people, I wont dwell on my anger at the way the Brough/Howard plan was annou...
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I am prepared to give John Howard the benefit of the doubt on his Northern Territory intervention. If, over time, it reduces alcohol and drugs and child abuse (whether as a direct result of the federal intervention or indirectly by stirring the States into more vigorous action...
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If Noel Pearson is a man of integrity (and I think he is), he will be appalled by John Howard's just announced "plan" for Northern Territory indigenous Australians. Certainly, Pearson's plans also involve breaking the cycle of welfare dependency in Cape York by tying receipt o...
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(another one of the Lost Files following the Great Server Crash) "Exempting any group of people from criticism is not a blessing but a curse. Thomas Sowell " It was reconciliation week once more last week, a good opportunity to debate some of the more thorny issues surrounding...
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Readers with an interest in NT politics might care to tune into the streaming audio version of this morning's ABC Local Radio morning program, where (among others) yours truly discussed a sudden outbreak of ill-discipline in the Martin government backbench. A memo from indigen...
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An apt cartoon from NT News cartoonist and Troppo blogger Colin Wicking As Colin Wicking acutely observes, the debate about responsibility for appalling conditions in remote indigenous communities has degenerated into a predictable federal/NT slanging match A similar divide is...
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Time permitting, I intend writing a post on the current controversy about endemic child sexual abuse and extreme violence in Aboriginal communities. In the meantime, one of the most eloquent testimonies I've yet heard about the virtual civil war situation in the troubled commu...
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A weekly wrap of what's been happening across the Top End news-wise, which might be handy for former residents who really miss reading about this sort of thing. May contain cane toads and/or crocodiles. DING DONG Darwin military police are hunting for a serial flasher who is t...
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A weekly wrap of what's been happening across the Top End news-wise, which might be handy for former residents who really miss reading about this sort of thing. May contain cane toads and/or crocodiles. SUPER TOAD Cane toads on the rampage across the Top End are evolving rapid...
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I heard this program on PM the other day about the collapse into petrol sniffing of the aboriginal community at Uluru. In some ways a war zone would be better than this. Call it 'disadvantage' if you like, but I think that rather misses what is going on.
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News Online reports that the Howard government has today announced that it is seizing control of approvals for new uranium mines from the Martin Labor NT government: THE Federal Government has taken control over the future of the Northern Territory's rich uranium deposits, dec...
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Just returned from an evening at the central tallyroom in Darwin. I confess that I failed to disguise a quietly malicious joy at the crestfallen pain of all the old CLP apparatchiks who used to gloat without restraint during Labor's many dark nights of the soul through the 198...
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Over the fold you'll find my latest (and possibly last before Saturday's election) obervations on the NT election. I've been lazy (because I'm swamped with exam marking), and have just copied my notes provided to CDU's media people as part of my job as one of the University's...
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John Quiggin has undertaken a more detailed analysis of NT CLP Opposition Leader Denis Burke's bizarre election campaign promise/proposal to build a power line from southern Queensland to Darwin. I discussed the proposal here . JQ's analysis was published in today's Australian...
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This blog isn't called Troppo Armadillo for nothing. There's something about living in Australia's Deep North that generates frequent bouts of bizarre behaviour, not least in our politicians. The phenomenon was strongly underlined in the first days of the current NT election c...
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NT Chief Minister Clare Martin has just announced a Territory election for 18 June, a pleasingly brief campaign of just under 3 weeks. Even this jaded political observer should manage to avoid terminal boredom for that period. Bryan Palmer of Ozpolitics has started posting on...
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Nicholas Gruen reckons the Darwin-Alice Springs railway is a "white elephant". That's certainly long been the prevailing view of a high proportion of southern politicians and bureaucrats. In part it depends on how you define white elephant, I suppose. There would be a multitud...
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We haven't had a good mindless partisan political stoush on Troppo for ages now. A couple of days at least. So I thought I'd draw readers' attention to this NT News story and see if it elicits the expected polarised Pavlovian reaction: A lesbian is pregnant with twins after ha...
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As obergruppenfuhrer of a nominally Northern Territory-based blog, I can't help feeling I should write about the only piece of even slightly significant political news to come out of Darwin in quite some time (except the Bob Collins saga, which we can't talk about anyway). For...
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This story from today's NT News (not online so I've reproduced it myself) gives a flavour of the subtlety and sophistication of political campaigning in Australia's north. It may be of some interest given that the federal seat held by the CLP's David Tollner is Australia's mos...
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The second of theTerritory issues I thought worth mentioning (see post immediately below for the first one) is a minor controversy about whether the NT (presumably somewhere in central Australia) will be the site for a Commonwealth low-medium level nuclear waste dump, in the w...
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A couple of current political controversies in the NT might be of some interest to a wider audience. The first is John Howard's announcement yesterday that park entry fees into Kakadu will be scrapped completely from 1 January 2005. At the moment they're $16.25 per head, as Je...
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They say writing letters to the editor of the local paper is a sure sign of the onset of senility, along with talking to yourself and playing bingo or lawn bowls. However, I just couldn't help myself after today's experience with the Northern Territory's pool fencing regulator...
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TA reader Homer Paxton has been hounding me for news of the outcome of the recent Katherine by-election in the NT, caused by the retirement of long-serving former CLP Deputy Chief Minister Mike Reed. The CLP candidate won, but there was a swing to the ALP of almost 10%, and th...
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