Showing posts with label
Northern Territory; Public Housing; Human Rights.
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Showing posts with label
Northern Territory; Public Housing; Human Rights.
Show all posts
Katrina Bolton | PM | 5 May 2011
The Northern Territory Government has proposed giving public housing safety officers the power to arrest and detain people.
Under the plan, 20 officers would be employed to patrol public housing in Darwin and Alice Springs from early next year.
Housing Minister Chris Burns says they would have the power to ban people from public housing for up to 12 months and to confiscate alcohol.
He says they will also act as witnesses in cases where tenants may be evicted from public housing.
When asked what would happen to evicted tenants, Mr Burns said: "Frankly, I don't care."
"If people are acting up, they are living in subsidised accommodation, subsidised by the taxpayer," he said.
"If they are not behaving, if they are making people's lives a misery I don't really care where they go to."
But the Police Association's Territory representative Vince Kelly is incensed.
"I am appalled that the Northern Territory Government is contemplating giving police powers to private security guards," he said.
"Private security guards do not have the same level of accountability or training or oversight as sworn police officers.
