LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Sir – Further to our discussions, I arrived at work this morning at 7.45am and there was a group of young people already drunk and had a full bottle of Jim Beam.
And here is the letter the licensees in Tennant Creek received from Director-General of Licensing, Cindy Bravos.
Further to this, here is some information that was not brought to their attention.
In the week the alleged assault occurred on the baby, nearly 300 people from Ali Curung were in Tennant Creek to attend a funeral. Hence the extraordinary sales of alcohol in Tennant Creek.
The police in their wisdom chose not to man the bottle shops that week, even though they had an extra 11 police down from Katherine performing an operation!
Also in Ali Curung, there have been family feuds, which carried on to Tennant Creek, where one young man has died from injuries.
The restrictions to the bottle shops in Tennant Creek means that nearly 30 families will not earn enough for the week to pay their mortgage or rent, and the money that would have been earned will not flow on to the local businesses in Tennant.
It appears the licensees are going to be the scapegoats for the inadequate efficiencies of the NT Police and no accountabilities for the people who have the problem.
Kay Eade
Executive Officer
Chamber of Commerce Northern Territory
[ED – We are asking the police to comment.]
Friday, April 19, 2024
The freedom of the press still furnishes that check upon government which no constitution has ever been able to provide – Chicago Tribune.
Just ya typical lame police work as per usual as for the bottle shops – disgraceful.
Only comment police would have to say was “we were too busy”.
The less paperwork the better. It’s obviously too much responsibility to man the bottleshops liqour outlets or just actual police work – all a disgrace but that’s typical.
As indicated, an extra 300 people were visiting Tennant Creek and a child had already allegedly been raped.
You have criticised police for not being on the bottle shops, so you must feel that police manning bottle shops is more important than dealing with an alleged child rape. They were already responding to an already publicised high level of crime during that week.
How do you think the public would have reacted, if the police had been unable to respond to these incidents because “bottle shops” are more important?
Good God, have some common sense!
I wonder if we are asking the NT Police to be all things to all people while the NT government departments dealing with families and child welfare are being let off the hook.
How many times was the alarm raised concerning the family at the centre of the current horrific news coming out of Tennant Creek? And what was the response from the ministers responsible for families and child welfare? Where were the NGOs also responsible for families and child welfare?
And what part does the touted inviolable sanctity of the Aboriginal family come into this?
From what I have read, they were all too busy contemplating perhaps politically correct but manifestly inadequate postures to get off their backsides and actually DO something.
To enable the ministers, the NGOs and the families involved to hide behind the curtain of the “stolen generations” and deny that intervention is needed now, never mind whether that intervention is from an Aboriginal agency or a mainstream agency, is fundamentally racist.
And while the agencies dither and the police are being asked to carry the can, the damage to that child will be permanent.