Snap overnight curfew in Alice Springs won’t be extended

The Northern Territory Police commissioner has chosen not to extend the snap 72-hour curfew imposed on Alice Springs earlier this week.

Transcript

00:00The police minister Brent Potter spoke a short time ago across the road here in Darwin where

00:06he announced that the police commissioner had not requested an extension to that three

00:11night curfew that we saw declared on Monday.

00:14That followed a series of violent incidents in the Red Centre, in particular the assault

00:19of four off-duty police officers as they were crossing the Todd River at around two o'clock

00:23on Sunday morning.

00:24Now that prompted the police commissioner under recently passed powers to declare that

00:29snap curfew which went into force from 10pm Monday night until six o'clock in the morning.

00:35That ran across three nights, but this morning the police commissioner decided against recommending

00:41that the police minister extend that curfew.

00:44This is what Brent Potter had to say at that press conference a short time ago.

00:47No, I think the curfew played the role that it needed to.

00:50We saw three of the four major incidents that led to the curfew occurring at night time.

00:54Where alcohol was involved, yesterday's event did not involve alcohol.

00:57There's a long-standing inter-family dispute related to the unfortunate fatality of a young

01:02person who stole a motor vehicle in March, reignited out the front of Coles car park.

01:08Now of course the police minister did say that it was unacceptable what he saw yesterday,

01:12a daylight incident outside of curfew hours in which reportedly up to 100 people were

01:17involved in some sort of incident out the front of an Alice Springs shopping centre.

01:22That incident, police arrested five people and confiscated a number of weapons including

01:26a machete.

01:28In the medium to short term, what is going to be done in Alice Springs the next four

01:32days is a multi-organisational response which will see rough sleepers move to either nearby

01:37town camps, to accommodation or back to their communities if they're from further afield.

01:43That will include organisations such as the Central Land Council, such as Luritipa and

01:48Tonganjia Council.

01:49With 60 days left until the next election, obviously the government has said that they

01:53wouldn't hesitate to implement a third curfew if necessary to get on top of any violent

02:00crime.

02:01So this is a continuing situation that is continuing to evolve and today the police

02:05minister Brent Potter and the chief minister said that if there was another incident that

02:09required it in Alice Springs, they would have no hesitation of calling for a third curfew.