Marion Scrymgour, the federal Labor MP for Lingiari in the Northern Territory, has spoken about the youth curfew put in place for Alice Springs last night, after a spate of violent incidents in the community.
The two-week curfew is designed to stop people aged under 18 gathering in the town’s CBD between 6pm and 6am.
“I think for some weeks [there’s] been a lot of unrest in the town and particularly amongst young people,” Scrymgour said this morning on ABC’s RN Breakfast.
Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour in federal parliament.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The MP said the violence has been increasingly steadily over a number of weeks, and the government had to do something.
She was asked if the Australian Defence Force should be called in to help tackle the issue in the community, a move NT senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price had called for.
Scrymgour said she believed the 53 extra police who will be sent to the town would help.
“I think it’s time for all sides to stop playing politics with this issue, it’s too important,” she said.
The MP said they needed to make sure resources were in place to ensure people can feel safe, and one step was making sure alcohol licences were being checked.
“I think it will be assisted by the curfew, it’s a pretty desperate situation,” she said.
According to NT police, the violence began when a large group of people from the Utopia district north of Alice Springs arrived in town to commemorate the death of an 18-year-old man who was killed on March 8 when the stolen car he was travelling in rolled over.
The group attacked other family members in the pub, which sustained $30,000 of damage after being pelted with rocks and bricks. Another brawl broke out nearby later that evening.