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The Northern Territory government has announced a suite of measures in response to the stabbing death of a young worker at a bottle shop in Darwin, including a review of bail laws and potential new police powers.
- The NT chief minister has announced a review of bail laws for offences involving edged weapons
- Police may soon be given more powers to search people suspected of carrying weapons
- Transit officers and crowd controllers could soon be able to use capsicum spray
Declan Laverty, 20, was killed at the BWS drive-through at the Airport Tavern in Jingili on Sunday night.
Nineteen-year-old Keith Kerinauia — who was on bail for a previous alleged aggravated assault — faced the Darwin Local Court yesterday charged with Mr Laverty's murder, as well as aggravated robbery and breach of bail.
The fatal incident has sparked a wave of community grief and anger about alcohol-related property crime and violence in Darwin.
At a press conference at Parliament House on Wednesday morning, Chief Minister Natasha Fyles acknowledged the impact on Mr Laverty's family and the broader community.
"It is an absolute tragedy in our community and it must not happen again," Ms Fyles said.
She said the government was putting in place a range of initiatives, including:
- Review of bail laws for offences involving edged weapons;
- Review of penalties for people carrying weapons in public;
- Review of police powers for people carrying weapons;
- Workplace safety audit of late-night venues;
- Government-funded crowd controllers at bottle shops for three months;
- High-visibility police patrols to target known hotspots.
"Our safety is paramount. Enough is enough. This behaviour has to stop," Ms Fyles said.
The review of bail laws will focus on the presumption for and against bail when edged weapons are involved in alleged offences.
Ms Fyles said the review would commence immediately but did not put a timeframe on any potential changes.
"It will take some time," she said.
"But I think it's really important when we've seen this change in behaviour [with edged weapons], we need to make sure that we have both the [appropriate] processes, which is around bail, and the penalties as well."
NT Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Murphy said bail changes could result in more alleged offenders remaining on remand while their cases went through the court system.
"If you have got prior offences, or antecedents involving violent crime types or edged weapons, that's probably going to sway it to probably an 'against bail' position, but that's a body of work we need to work through," he said.
Deputy Commissioner Murphy welcomed a potential increase in police powers.
"It will allow police to stop, search, detain and seize anyone suspected of carrying edged weapons, or [any] weapons for that matter," he said.
The Deputy Commissioner said the public would notice an immediate increase in officers at retail outlets, bottle shops and service stations in Darwin and Palmerston, "to reassure the people that go to work every day [that they] are safe and free from harm".
He also warned members of the public not to become involved in violent vigilantism.
"I'd urge people not to take matters into your own hands," he said.
"If you see a matter that's suspicious or concerning, please contact police."
Ms Fyles also outlined several other new measures, including:
- Ability for capsicum spray to be carried by transit officers, and potentially crowd controllers;
- Development of a training guide for retail workers dealing with confronting situations;
- The relaunch of a program designed to help alcohol retailers secure products.
"This is a balanced, measured but strong response to keeping our community safe [and] keeping our retail workers safe, particularly in those venues that trade late at night," Ms Fyles said.
Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro accused the NT government of ignoring the Country Liberal Party's (CLP) previous push in 2021 for bail changes, including a presumption against bail for repeat and violent offenders.
"For years we have been calling to stop the revolving door of bail," she said.
"Sadly it took Declan's loss of life to a violent offender out on bail for Natasha Fyles to listen.
"His death was avoidable but it cannot be in vain"
"Our legislation is written and could be implemented this week by the parliament. It is important Natasha Fyles does not pick and choose parts of bail to be reviewed."
Alex Bruce from Hospitality NT said his industry was reeling from the death of one of its own.
"There's still a lot of hurt out there, a lot of anger and a lot of frustration, he said.
"We are here to support and play our role.
"We can never let this happen again."
Mr Bruce described the government's measures as a "reasonable first step".
"There's no one silver bullet to any of this. We are well aware of that," he said.
"But if we can equip our staff better to verbally get … out of difficult situations, that's a no-brainer."