Case Explained: Chief Minister says Mparntwe crime drop proves toug… – Legal Perspective

The Northern Territory Government says falling crime rates in Alice Springs demonstrate its controversial justice policies are delivering results, as the federal government considers using funding pressure to push the Territory to better align with the Closing the Gap agreement.

On Friday, the NT government released data showing offences in Alice Springs/Mparntwe fell 43 per cent between December 2024 and 2025, with house break-ins down 79 per cent.

Domestic violence offences in Alice Springs were down 28 per cent, according to figures from the Attorney-General’s Department.

“In our year of growth, certainty and security, we are investing in infrastructure that ensures women are accommodated in environments designed around their needs,” Corrections Minister Gerard Maley said, “with better access to education, training and meaningful work opportunities – helping to break the cycle of reoffending and reduce crime across the Territory”.

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has introduced a suite of laws she says reflect the government’s ‘tough on crime’ electoral mandate, despite drawing criticism from human rights, legal and Indigenous groups. She told The Australian she made no apologies for prioritising community safety, even if it meant more people were jailed.

“When you drive down crime you make everyone’s life better, that’s just a fact. I’ll put the rights of people to be safe above the rights of an offender every day of the week,” she said.

The comments come as the CLP government opened the town’s first dedicated women’s prison, a new 95-bed facility designed to cope with the skyrocketing number of people held in detention in the NT.

Corrections data shows the average prison population has increased by more than 15 per cent over the past year, with 2,939 adults incarcerated this week, along with 50 juveniles. With the age of criminal responsibility lowered to 10 and bail laws tightened, more than 1 per cent of Territorians are now imprisoned on any given day.

Nearly 90 per cent of detainees are Aboriginal.

Bail laws, significantly strengthened in January 2025, have resulted in more than 5,800 people being refused bail and prompted a High Court challenge from the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA), which argues the measures are unlawful and undermine fundamental principles of the criminal justice system.

“These new laws mean more and more Aboriginal people in the NT are being locked up when they haven’t been convicted of any crime,” Chairperson Theresa Roe said in December.

“NAAJA sees many people who have been sent to prison because of these laws who have later had their charges withdrawn, essentially serving time for crimes they have not committed.”

Ms Finocchiaro argued Aboriginal women and Aboriginal people are “the most victimised people in this nation,” with the CLP’s current policies meaning they are “less likely to be victims of crime…”

“Activist groups want to condemn us but the reality is that there has been a drop in domestic violence under this government. Someone please explain to me how we’re being condemned for that,” she told The Australian.

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The federal government has also faced calls to compel the NT to comply more closely with the Closing the Gap agreement, signed by all states and territories in 2020. In August, the family of former NT Supreme Court Justice James Muirhead urged federal intervention, describing the government’s approach as “regressive actions”.

The NT is currently the worst-performing jurisdiction nationally. Last year, Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby said while the agreement was important, it “could not come at the expense of community safety”.

Last week, Senator Lidia Thorpe labelled the agreement a “failure” while arguing, “without enforceable accountability, it has become little more than a reporting exercise, documenting state violence while our children are stolen and our people are caged and killed in custody at rising rates”.

Speaking on ABC, Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, signalled the Commonwealth could use funding mechanisms to increase pressure on the Territory.

“We have levers that we can pull,” she said, “and I know that through the Northern Territory Remote Aboriginal Investment…that is certainly an agreement between the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory where I have pushed for those levers to be looked at”.