Media Release from Bill Yan Shadow Treasurer and Josh Burgoyne Shadow Minister for Territory Families
In a remarkable backflip this afternoon, despite only this morning defending that she is keeping crime under control in Alice Springs, Chief Minister Eva Lawler is sending back the Police Auxiliary Liquor Inspectors (PALIs) she ripped from Alice Springs bottle shops just weeks ago.
Shadow Territory Families Minister Joshua Burgoyne said, “Alice Springs residents are furious that despite the calls from the CLP, locals, business owners and even Federal Labor, Eva Lawler for weeks could not even admit there was significant fall-out with no PALIs on bottle-shops.
“It literally took a riot and my home town being the lead story of the nation for all the wrong reasons yet again, for Labor to be forced to undo their disastrous decision.’’
“We need more police in Alice. Any additional police are welcomed, but we need them for more than two weeks. I am not concerned about Labor saving face, I’m concerned about saving Alice,” he said.
Shadow Treasurer and fellow local Alice Springs CLP MLA Bill Yan said he was concerned that the curfew also imposed would be severely limited without legislation giving police more powers to deal with youth offenders.
“We see day in day out, a game of cat and mouse where our police are caught up picking up young offenders and taking them home without consequences, all for the cycle to start again.”
“For a Government that is running advertising that there are no quick fixes, they have just announced a band aid. If we want real change, back the curfew and properly empower our police.”
“The ‘payback’ events we saw yesterday were a direct reflection on Labor’s relaxation of the youth justice act, which is seeing youth run riot, and ultimately saw the young man killed when his stolen car rolled over.”
“If Eva Lawler was serious, she would recall Parliament tomorrow to ensure these additional police and this curfew had an impact beyond a short term reprieve.”
