The RFDS Cafe

An Alice Springs business operator has described a town under siege from uncontrolled petty crime after one of the town’s landmark cafes was trashed last weekend.

Lisa Perry was on her way to Alice Springs to spend a fortnight working with her staff at the Royal Flying Doctor Service Cafe when she received a call from the manager of the cafe informing her of the damage, which she estimated to be between $15000 and $20000.

Vandals had broken into the heritage-listed site, thrown enamel paint over windows and fridges, broken bottles of soft drink and thrown ice-creams around the cafe. They’d also turned off the power, causing the cafe to loose thousands of dollars worth of refrigerated stock.

Ms Perry told ABC Radio she and her manager and staff were “surprised and hurt”  that people could cause such malicious damage to a beautiful old building.

“They were obviously there to create havoc and to cost us money,” Ms Perry said.

Ms Perry, whose home has also been broken into,  said no town in Australia was immune from petty crime. “But the level of it, the malice and the disrespect for authority is real eye-opener,” she said.

“We need the opportunity to talk to our Chief Minister. We’re screaming but he doesn’t make the time to meet with us.

“It’s a really horrible thing. I think people are scared in their homes. People aren’t sleeping well at night. You wake up and go ‘What’s happened last night?’ —  (because) every night of the week something has happened.

“How many houses were broken into last night? How many cars were stolen? We’re constantly getting slammed.

“We should be getting extra help. I know (Chief Minister Michael Gunner)  saying he’s throwing all the help that he can get but it’s just not enough. He needs to talk to the business owners, he needs to talk to the residents who are scared.”

Mr Gunner had told Darwin media the government was doing everything it could to fight crime in Alice Springs, but there was “no silver bullet”.

 “I actually get that there are people out there who’re scared,” he said on ABC Radio Darwin.

“They’re worried about crime. We’re doing a lot, and I get it that if you’re a victim of crime then what we’re doing hasn’t been enough for you. So we’ve always got to keep doing more.”

Police have reported several more incidents of criminal damage since the RFDS incident.

Offenders had rammed and damaged the outside wall of a supermarket on Milner Road in an attempt to break in.

In another incident revealed by CCTV footage on Monday night, two men broke into a supermarket in Braitling, causing some damage and leaving with an empty cash till.

In the town’s industrial area, offenders broke into a truck yard and started up a prime mover, striking and damaging two other vehicles parked at the yard. They drove a truck from the yard before crashing it on Brown Street and fleeing the scene. Police said the truck was extensively damaged.

Strike Force Viper has asked anyone with information which may assist in identifying persons involved in this incident, to contact them on 131 44 or report it anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

(Supplied by NT Police)

Additional police resources will be present in the Alice Springs CBD area on a rolling 24 hour period following a spate of unlawful entries in Alice Springs at the weekend.

From 6am Friday 22 January to 6am this morning, police received reports of 25 unlawful entries on businesses and residential properties.

Fifteen of these unlawful entries occurred at business in the Alice Springs central business district, where offenders targeted cash and food, and five of the businesses were repeat victims.

A 13-year-old male has been taken into custody this morning by members of Strike Force Viper in relation to an unlawful entry of a beauty salon in the Todd Mall on Saturday night.

Strike Force Viper have carriage of these investigations and are working to identify and locate offenders.

Two female youth were apprehended at the scene of an unlawful entry of a business in the Todd Mall by members from Strike Force Viper. The pair aged 12 and 14-years-old will be dealt with under the Youth Justice Act.

Acting Superintendent Alex Brennan said it was a shocking weekend of crime for the community.

“I feel for everyone who was a victim of this senseless type of behaviour, which impacts so many aspects of our community,” said A/Supt Brennan

“We understand the feeling of either coming home or waking up to learn you’ve been a victim of crime, and it’s a feeling that sits uneasy with all of us. No one is immune to this type of offending.

“Our members work tirelessly every day to make our community a safer one for everyone, unfortunately there is a minority who continue to conduct this type of activity.”

“As of today the mobile police station will be placed in the Todd Mall providing a 24/7 police presence for that area, and additional foot patrols will be conducted in locations recently targeted by offenders. We will continue to engage with the other government and non-government agencies to identify at-risk and high-risk youth and refer them to the relevant agencies to prevent future offending.”

Police urge community members to ensure offenders do not have easy access to car keys, which appear to be the primary target of offenders.

“Offenders clearly unlawfully entered nine properties targeting car keys. We cannot stress enough that securing and hiding cars keys actively prevents further offending.”

“We also encourage people to keep reporting suspicious behaviour to police first.

“This information is integral in helping police identify trends and behaviour so we can act and put preventative crime measures in place.”

]]> http://aliceonline.com.au/shocking-weekend-of-break-ins-car-keys-targeted-police/feed/ 0 http://aliceonline.com.au/11495-2/ http://aliceonline.com.au/11495-2/#respond Wed, 13 Jan 2021 05:31:10 +0000 http://aliceonline.com.au/?p=11495

CCTV photo released by police

Source: NT Police, Fire and Emergency Services

Northern Territory Police are calling for two people who were in the area prior to a woman’s death in Alice Springs last week to come forward.

Detectives from the Alice Springs Criminal Investigation Branch have released images from CCTV in which a man and a woman can be seen in the area out the front of the Alice Springs Hospital Emergency entrance on Thursday January 7 around 9:23pm.

Detective Sergeant Glenn Bolger said police were calling for public assistance to identify the two people, as it is believed they have information which would assist with investigations.

“As part of our investigation it is integral for us to speak with anyone who witnessed the interactions between the victim and the offender.

“CCTV footage shows these people were in the area and possibly heard and saw the interactions between the man and woman, prior to the woman’s death.”

“We must stress, these people are not considered suspects in any way. We would greatly appreciate their cooperation and urge them to contact police at the Alice Springs Police Station in regards to this case.”

Anyone with information which may assist police in this investigation can call police on 131 444 or report it anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

The government says the Jervois Base Metal Project could create 350 jobs.

The mine would include on-site processing and production of a copper concentrate and lead-zinc concentrate, according to a media release from Mining minister Nicole Manison.

Photos and map, KGL website

But it appears prospective miner KGL, which has been investigating the site since 2011, is still looking for financial backers for the project.

KGL Chairman Denis Wood said a  “pre-feasibility study” (PFS) showed the high-grade Jervois deposit would support a “robust” initial 7.5-year mining operation.

“We are confident the drilling about to start in the new year will improve the quality and size of the resource,” Mr Wood said.

The chairman said the new information would be fed into a full feasibility study.

“Work is already well advanced on the FS which we expect will improve the economics of Jervois even further,” he said on the KGS website.

“With the PFS completed and the authority to mine now in place, discussions have begun on project financing and the marketing of the mine’s concentrate.”

Wood said: “Jervois is exceptionally well placed to enter the world copper market as a supplier.

“It is a high-grade deposit 9.4 million tonnes at 2.41% copper reserve at a time of declining copper grades among the major copper mines and constrained copper production generally.

“At the same time demand is expected to increase strongly for copper in both emerging green energy and electric vehicles uses as well as traditional construction, electricity transmission, communication and consumer goods applications.”

View from the top of the climb looking north.

Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife will close the popular climb of Mt Gillen after consulting with traditional custodians of the site, with climbers reportedly facing fines of up to $31,000.

From today, people wishing to make the climb, which runs from Flynn’s Grave, will be required to get a permit from the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority, but from 20th March 2021, the path will be fenced off.

Parks and Wildlife’s Chris Day told ABC Radio today the walk had never been “official”, but had developed from a track created by hikers over decades.

Mr Day said Parks and Wildlife had been contacted in 2013  by members got the public concerned about the deterioration of the track and had been looking at how it could rectify the damage and make the walk safer.

But in seven years of discussion, the Aboriginal custodians decided that, based on the cultural values of the site, they were not happy to have the remedial work done. Parks and Wildlife had then decided to close the walk.

He said it had been clear from early in the discussion custodians were not happy with people climbing to the summit “because of its cultural values.”

“In its current condition, it does often present issues around safety, and for first responders it’s an absolute nightmare getting people off that slope,” Mr Day said.

He said there were “plenty of other places around the Alice Springs landscape that we are so lucky to be able to access and enjoy.”

Alice Springs custodian Doris Stuart told presenter Stewart Brash she was happy with the closure of the climb but “very hurt it had taken such a long time.”

She said some family members had died during their struggle to close the walk .

Ms Stuart said the site was part of the thylacine or dog dreaming.

Regarding the track up to the summit, Ms Stuart said she could bear to look at the scar on the hillside created by the track.

“It’s like I’ve been scarred,” she said. “My ribcage had the knife run across it. That’s what it means to be connected to this place.”

ABC Radio reported people faced fines of up to $31,000 for making the climb.

Track to Boggy Hole

A man has apparently died of thirst in 43 degree heat after his car became bogged on a sandy track near a popular Central Australian waterhole.

A helicopter search located the dead man not far from his vehicle, eight km from Boggy Hole, in the Finke Gorge National Park, 140 kilometres west of Alice Springs.

The body is believed to be that of 37-year-old Korean, Yun-Seob Shin, who had told friends he was going camping on Thursday and expected to be back for work at a local cafe on Saturday,

Police had begun an air and land search on Saturday after his colleagues in Alice Springs raised concerns that he had not shown up to work.

Alice Springs police sergeant Phil Emmett told the ABC’s Stewart Brash he had launched the search on Saturday afternoon. The helicopter search had found nothing before the light faded, and was resumed on Sunday morning, when searchers saw the car and the body nearby.

The man had been working in Alice Springs for about a month and had been enjoying weekend camping trips to nearby destinations.

Residents and visitors arriving at the Alice Springs Airport from South Australia

The shamozzle caused by a sudden influx of arrivals in Alice Springs from Adelaide this week exposed the problems involved in quarantining people in “medi-hotels”, according to a leading figure in the NT’s hospitality industry.

Hospitality NT CEO Alex Bruce said Australian governments might have to consider either military-run facilities or keeping staff of “medi-hotels” on site to prevent them mixing with the broader community in case they had COVID-19.

Chaos erupted on Tuesday as travellers tried to meet the deadline issued by the Government for residents returning from South Australia  not to have to pay $2500 per person for compulsory two-weeks quarantine. (The Government has earlier decided that all visitors and Territorians returning from the state would have to be quarantined for two weeks.)

When hotels already providing quarantine quickly filled up with the new arrivals, officials had to find alternative arrangements. Some residents were put on a plane to the quarantine facility at Howard Springs, but the plane had to return home because of a bird strike. Some of those residents were then told to go to their own homes.

Travellers also reported they had been threatened with physical removal and large fines unless they agreed to catch a plane to the Howard Springs facility within five minutes.

Health Minister Natasha Fyles appeared to back down on her initial claims that hotels in Alice Springs had reneged on an agreement with the Government to put up quarantines guests in the advent of  a sudden influx.

Hospitality NT’s Alex Bruce told ABC Radio the government had created a “bubble” by putting a deadline on when people could return without having to pay for their own quarantine. He said “conversations” between the Government and hospitality operators had “gone on even months prior” in which the government had asked the operators if they could “come and discuss things” with them in the advent of their needing more facilities, but no firm arrangements had been made.

“The government had been looking at using hotels that are being used for tourists and they had other guests there, they had all of their workforce,” Mr Bruce said.

“You’ve got to think about the safety of those workers. their families and ultimately the Alice Springs community, because if these protocols aren’t done right you’re ending up putting some quarantining people in blended properties, you’ve really got to be careful to make sure it doesn’t unfortunately break out.

“Going forward, we wonder why we don’t see completely self-contained live-in facilities, where all those essential workers including hospitality cleaners, housekeepers, security all live on-site and can’t be released into the community without them facing quarantine.

“Short of that, we’re wondering why they’re not military-run facilities.

“It would all come at a horrendous cost because you are displacing that policeman or hospitality worker from their families for six or eight weeks. It’s quite onerous.I think you would need to duly support them financially for that impact. But have a look at Adelaide when this gets out and it goes wrong.”

Photo from The Australian.

The director of the body representing native title holders of Alice Springs says we have to “fix the bush” as part of addressing the problem of youth crime in Alice Springs.

Speaking on ABC Radio, Graham Smith called for a meeting of the combined Aboriginal Organisations of Alice Springs to discuss the apparently escalating volume of theft, vandalism, dangerous driving and other crimes by young people.

Mr Smith told presenter Stewart Brash Alice Springs was a “pull factor’ that attracted many people from remote communities because of the services that were available in the town.

“But you’ve got to understand that when you come into town, this is and always has been Arrernte country, and we do have rules that govern our living,” he said.

“There’s no way us Arrernte people would go to someone else’s town and run amok in their community. We just don’t do that, but it’s happening here in Alice Springs.’’

Mr Smith said youth misbehaviour could not be attributed to a single cause, such as lack of housing, poor parenting or lack of education.

“We would like to try, if we can, to convene a combined Aboriginal organisations meeting made up of all the key Aboriginal organisations in town , some key stakeholders, like the NT Government … and figure out what the problems are and make a collective effort to address them,” he said.

“Water is a big issue, for instance. That lies in the Government’s responsibility. Water in the communities is a major issue. Dialysis is becoming a major problem of out people. You cannot have dialysis out on communities unless you have clean water. So that’s forcing a lot of people into town for dialysis. And when the patient comes in, the family comes in, and there seem to be stuck here. That’s just one problem that seems to be growing. And it’s the responsibility of the government.”

Mr Smith said there was a limit to what could be achieved in Alice Springs.

“The bigger problem to me is we have to look at the bush and fix the bush. We’ve got to fix roads, we’ve got to fix housing, we’ve got to fix water, and we’ve got to find something for the youth to do.

“We can find a way through , but something drastic needs to give and it has to happen in the regions, because Alice Springs is a pull factor. We need to get people back on to communities so they don’t have to come into town and be stuck here… chasing the bright lights.”

Solar farm, Mohave Desert

NT Country Liberal Senator Sam McMahon has attracted widespread media attention for describing a massive solar farm proposed for the Barkly region as “a great hoax”.

Senator McMahon described renewables as “the dole bludgers of the energy mix” on her Facebook page.

“They are a great hoax perpetrated by the industry on the gullible,” she wrote.

“Yet this Gunner Government thinks it is a great idea to take up huge tracts of productive land, build a solar farm of non-recyclable panels, the size of which the world has never seen, in an area that is totally hostile to solar panel efficiency and run a 4500km extension cord to Singapore.

“If you think that is a good idea, I have a small block of land with awesome views on Jupiter I’m prepared to sell you at a great price!”

Ms McMahon was referring to the proposed Sun Cable solar project, which is to be built on 12,000 hectares on Newcastle Waters Station.

The NT Independent reported that Ms McMahon’s comments “conjured” more than 65 comments in 15 hours.

ABC radio announcer Stewart Brash raised the comments with the new CLP member for the Barkly, Steve Edgington, who  supports the Suncorp project.

“I think there’s a real opportunity there not only to run power to Singapore where the proposal is, but I believe in the future there are opportunities to invest further in solar energy, and there’s no reason why we can’t be sending solar power to the east Coast.”

When asked how “useful” he saw Ms MacMahon’s post, he said the Senator was entitled to make her comments.

“But from my prospective and certainly from an economic perspective, if I just speak locally, for example, the  economic development committee and the economic growth and support working group … have been  a very strong supporter of this project right from the very outset, and I share those views.

“Certainly comments like that in my view….  are different from the views we hold here.”

Mr Edgington said people in the Barkly saw its as an opportunity for employment with up to 1000 jobs expected to be created in the construction period and 300 during the operational phase.

“Jobs and investment in the Barkly is really what we’re looking for,” he said.    

]]> http://aliceonline.com.au/renewables-a-hoax-nt-senator/feed/ 0 http://aliceonline.com.au/we-cant-arrest-our-way-out-of-youth-crime-laidler/ http://aliceonline.com.au/we-cant-arrest-our-way-out-of-youth-crime-laidler/#respond Thu, 22 Oct 2020 06:42:57 +0000 http://aliceonline.com.au/?p=11371 Police in Alice Springs are reporting an increase in  prosecutions in the week since the beginning of a crackdown on crime.

Police Commander Craig Laidler said that up until yesterday “Operation Viper”, which has involved an increased concentration of NT police in the town, had netted 30 new prosecution files including 20 young offenders.

He told ABC Radio’s Stewart Brash the operation utilised increased technology and CCTV to ensure that offenders were caught and prosecuted.

But the senior officer conceded the town could not “arrest its way out of these problems.”

Commander Laider, who recently called for the creation of a “safe space” where children could be taken to off the streets, said police were at the pointy end of a social issue.

Solving the problem of youth crime was “something that we need to do together with a number of agencies where everyone needs to get involved.”

“So we need to look at the causes are, what’s putting them on the streets…   what changes need to be made so they are not in those positions,” he said.

“Anything that we can do to as a community that we can have these kids in a normal structure where they’re getting an education, they’re in bed at normal times, they’re involved in sport, involved in community groups — that’s where we need to aim to be.”

Commander Laidler said evidence netted in the operation so far suggested an element of boredom involved in youth crimes, with some indications that police were baiting police to chase them.

He acknowledged community concern over a likely increase in crime over the hotter months, with much of police resources still directed to border control. The Alice Springs police would received 12 new recruits next week to help the situation.

Meanwhile a 48 year old man was still in a critical condition in the Adelaide hospital after he was hit by a car as it ran a red light last Thursday night. Five youths have been arrested and charged over the hit-and-run incident.