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