Residents from the remote Central Australian community of Santa Teresa (Ltyentye Apurte) have expressed concern over the removal of their only two police officers, as debate continues over the adequacy of police staffing in Alice Springs this summer.
Key points:
- There are concerns the remote Aboriginal community will be left vulnerable at a time when crime traditionally spikes
- The police union says NT Police is struggling to fill the roster for Operation Drina, which aims to tackle summer crime in Alice Springs
- NT Police denies the Santa Teresa officers have returned to Alice Springs to supplement Operation Drina
Three weeks into the NT government’s so-called summer crime plan, the Northern Territory Police Association (NTPA) has flagged shortcomings in the Alice Springs force’s capacity to manage the uptick in crime.
As part of the announcement, the NT government said 50 police officers would be rostered on to Operation Drina this summer, which it later clarified would involve drawing on police from the existing workforce in Alice Springs.
But in Santa Teresa, an Aboriginal community about 80 kilometres south-east of Alice Springs, residents say the two positions covering the region have been redeployed elsewhere in Central Australia for the next six weeks.
“The two police officers … they are our protection, we rely on them all the time for the grog [issues] … coming into the community,” said Raymond Palmer, chairman of the Atyenhenge Atherre Aboriginal Corporation in Santa Teresa.
“During Christmas it’ll be worse … domestic violence and fights.
“All the children won’t be happy during Christmas holidays.”
Officers work overtime to fill Drina roster
NT Police has denied the officers have returned to Alice Springs to supplement Operation Drina and pointed out the officers based in Santa Teresa were in fact “Alice Springs officers” because “there is no suitable housing” for them in the community.
NTPA president Nathan Finn said NT Police was already struggling to fill the roster for Operation Drina, which was set up to target alcohol-related offending and other anti-social behaviour in the town.
“They are relying on overtime to fill these positions and to fill that demand,” he said.
“They cannot keep this up … It’s simple — the model will fail and as a result of that the police will be held responsible.”
Mr Finn said last week “up to eight officers were required on overtime” to fill Operation Drina and other shifts in Alice Springs.
“I was aware that they had two crews to cover the whole of Alice Springs and that was including [Operation] Drina activities,” he said.
“They should have in excess of 12 [crews].”
Police working to recruit
It comes after a chaotic weekend for Alice Springs police, which included family groups brawling with “blunt and edged weapons” across town and the arrest of a 12-year-old boy who allegedly attempted to ram a police vehicle using a stolen Toyota Prado.
Almost a year after the prime minister’s crisis visit to the town — and a pledge made to fund 30 additional officers — Mr Finn said there were now three less officers in Alice Springs than when Anthony Albanese visited.
But Police Minister Brent Potter has rejected that figure, saying his department informed him there were in fact 11 additional officers on the ground since Mr Albanese’s visit.
Mr Potter said he understood the community’s frustration and was ensuring new constables were being trained up as quickly as possible.
“People need to understand it takes six to seven months to train a fully-sworn constable,” Mr Potter said.
“The college is pushing through constables at maximum capacity. If were to push more constables through the college, that would require frontline police officers to go and become trainers.
“The important point is that money has been allocated, those positions are available, and we will fill them.”
Mr Potter said some additional officers would graduate before Christmas and join the ranks in Alice Springs.
Claims Santa Teresa is ‘well-supported’
Last month, Mr Potter told the ABC there would be no officers taken from Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek or remote communities to resource Operation Drina.
On Monday, he said despite the redeployment of police officers from Santa Teresa, he believed the community was “well-supported”.
“We do obviously have a hub-and-spoke model out of Alice Springs and we have a relief pool that will go out,” he said.
“When we see people coming from community, and we’ve got large groups of people from particular communities coming in, it is reasonable to expect that some of those locally based police officers may need to come in as well at certain times.”
Mr Finn said it was obvious the Alice Springs force needed additional resources to bolster community safety in Alice Springs.
“The government is limited because of their failed policies and [the failure to] actually listen to police about our resources and how lacking they are over many, many years,” he said.
He said while the NTPA was an apolitical organisation that would not be supporting political parties at next year’s territory election, he was enthused by the Country Liberal opposition’s support of the union’s recommendations in parliament last week.