NT

The Australian alternative Easter emblem, the bilby, is iconic but at risk. Bilbies once occupied much of arid and semi-arid Australia but have disappeared from about three quarters of their historic range.

The Finocchiaro CLP Government is delivering on its commitment of 2025 being a year of action, certainty and security as the first Alice Springs-Cairns direct flight takes off ... In a major boost for the Red Centre, the new Alice Springs to Cairns route offers greater connectivity for international visitors coming into Alice Springs and beyond.

Transparency is a very one-sided proposition for the Central Land Council (CLC): It wants the news media to publish its positions but it won't give answers to questions the media put to them. That's certainly the experience of the Alice Springs News with this secretive organisation which, like other Aboriginal land councils and land trusts, are not subject to freedom of information requests.

The Central Desert Regional Council has sent “to the legal team” questions from the Alice Springs News about car expenses for its President, Adrian Dixon ... What has been the cost to the council of the provision of cars to President Dixon since March 2022? ... What was the President doing in Mt Isa in November last year? ...

The glitz and glamour of drag queens and kings returns to the Red Centre when fabALICE takes over Alice Springs from Thursday 27 to Sunday 30 March. fabALICE is a vibrant four-day festival of colour, creativity, celebration and inclusivity featuring talented drag queens and kings...

For the first time in its more than 100-year history, Australia’s most prestigious portraiture prize, the Archibald Prize, is coming to Alice Springs marking a major cultural milestone for the Northern Territory. Under the CLP Finocchiaro Government, the Archibald Prize 2024 exhibition will take centre stage at the Araluen Arts Centre from 24 April to 15 June 2025...

The debt exceeding $11 billion and growing, costing the taxpayer “a million bucks a day” in interest. The number of people in prison at an all time high. Crime exceeding the courts’ capacity to deal with it … Who would want to be a minister of the current Territory Government?

Dr Fiona Walsh. Why do we continue to allow and accept the deaths of animals on our roads? ... I’ve recently driven more than 6,000 km in a loop from Mparntwe Alice Springs to the east coast and home again. My first holiday in eight years. I saw animals killed on roads in the NT, SA, Victoria and southern NSW.

The entire executive board of the NT Police Association (NTPA) is calling upon Police Commissioner Michael Murphy to tender his resignation. This follows his outing himself as the senior executive public officer found by ICAC to have displayed unsatisfactory conduct in relation to the management of a conflict of interest in a recruitment process.

The Finocchiaro CLP Government will lead a high-powered industry delegation to the Indo-Pacific in March to strengthen defence partnerships and expand economic opportunities for the Northern Territory. This week-long strategic mission, led by DefenceNT, will deepen relationships with US defence and defence contractors while securing new opportunities for the Territory’s industry.

The town’s focus in 2025 will be on a fight for survival of the travel industry and the nearly 400 members of Tourism Central Australia will need to join forces. That was the unanimous view of the 150 people who attended the organisation’s AGM yesterday evening.

Exorbitant prices for groceries in outback stores are often the subject of outrage but are rarely dealt with a great deal of logic ... Why should the public purse kick in $50m over four years from 2025-26 to provide remote stores with low-cost access to about 30 food products?

“We will not spend another dollar on activists and economic vandals and their disruptive agendas.” This is how Joshua Burgoyne, NT Minister for Lands, Planning and Environment, announced that his government has axed its $100,000 annual grant for the Arid Lands Environment Centre (ALEC), Central Australia’s peak environmental organisation for over 40 years and with 400 members.

All Territory Aboriginal persons facing criminal charges since August last year received high quality legal representation unless they chose not to use the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, or it had a conflict of interest. CEO Anthony Beven was responding to allegations made anonymously to the Alice Springs News that “there is more chaos at NAAJA”.

How many troubled children in Central Australia fall under the umbrella of the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA)? Surely that was a known number upon which Anthony Albanese’s $250m “special grant” was based.

Ecologist Tim Henderson has captured incredible photographs in Newhaven, west of Alice Springs, of the endangered Red Goshawk, the first time it’s been confirmed in the region for three decades. It was listed as endangered in 2023 and has gone extinct from most of eastern Australia.

Check the thermometer and smile, if you are a glider pilot, that is: Central Australia in summer is the world’s best place for flying without an engine. It’s Alice where world distance and speed records have been set for decades.

Take out the hype and Beetaloo gas is a pretty thin project. The sub-basin, 900 km north of Alice Springs, is “estimated” to contain 500 trillion cubic feet of gas. The NT Government  refers  to this estimate as being “by industry”.

My journalistic work in the Territory began early on Christmas Day 1974, looking down from the aircraft of Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns onto the Northern Territory capital that had been all but annihilated by Cyclone Tracy.

Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin on Christmas Day 50 years ago. By  dawn, on what is supposed to be a joyous day, at least 50 people were dead, 17 were lost at sea, hundreds injured and about 45,000 people were homeless ... Fifty years on, the night of hell on Earth remains with many survivors still alive. They will never forget their houses exploding into pieces as they tried to shelter from the cyclone. Christmas has never been the same for them.

The public isn’t going to learn much from official channels about the bashing – alleged – with a blunt weapon of a two months old infant, inflicting serious head injuries. Because the accused are under 18 we will not learn their names ... The known facts in this case are limited to the media release by the police ...