NT to Establish Armed Public Safety Officers: Pseudo-Police to Patrol Buses, Malls and Housing

Northern Territory chief minister Lia Finocchiaro appears to be drinking the same kool aid as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as last week, the law-and-order, “us against them” campaign launched by her Country Liberal Party last August, will soon see people employed as safety officers at public housing estates and on buses, being provided with quasi-policing powers and packing guns.

The Finocchiaro government announced on 18 June that it is developing laws that will result in the ditching of transit safety and public housing safety officers for new Police Public Safety Officers (PPSOs), who will be armed, operate under the oversight of NT police and will be targeting antisocial behaviour in public places, like buses, public housing estates and shopping centres.

This is only the latest in a long list of extreme tough-on-crime measures the CLP has implemented.

The week prior to the PPSO announcement saw the NT government reveal it will be running a 12 month trial from September that will see the public being permitted to carry Oleoresin Capsicum (pepper) spray to protect themselves, in what increasingly appears to be a heightened law-and-order approach aimed at protecting the population against a domestic threat.

The glaring question this raises is who are these measures targeting? And the disturbing answer becomes apparent when the statistics are considered.

Eighty eight percent of the NT prisoner population are First Nations adults. NT child prisons usually have at least 90 percent of their numbers being made up of Aboriginal kids, while Finocchiaro’s reforms are leading to about 40 First Peoples being taken into custody every day.

However, a 24-year-old Warlpiri man with disabilities was recently killed in a supermarket in Mparntwe-Alice Springs by two plainclothes police, as they were restraining him over shoplifting, and Finocchiaro’s response has since been to announce the arming of the public with crowd control weapons and to turn civilian safety officers into an armed pseudo-police force.

Pretend cops in uniform

After citing statistics revealing decreases in crime rates, Finocchiaro said in a 20 June statement that the Country Liberal plan is working, as “we’re seeing real reductions in robberies, house break-ins and other property crimes, but there’s still more to do”. And the minister added that she’d “promised action, certainty and security”, and this is being delivered via “strong laws and visible policing.”

The reactionary leader then announced her “two significant law-and-order reforms” of the past fortnight, which comprise of the establishment of the Police Public Safety Officers and the introduction of the OC spray trial that will give “Territorians more choice when it comes to personal safety”. 

Finocchiaro doesn’t, however, appear to include Aboriginal people in her suggested safer Territorians.

In an 18 June statement, the CLP government explains that together with the Northern Territory Police Force, it is “developing a new Police Public Safety Officer (PPSO) stream to better deploy frontline resources across key public spaces”. So, various civilian safety officer positions will be turned into one division of officers oversighted and trained by the NT police.

“Transit Safety and Public Housing Safety will cease, and those officers and functions will transition to PPSOs, with police training and powers focused on addressing antisocial behaviour in public housing, on buses, at shopping centres, bottle shops, events and other public places,” the CLP outlined, less than a month after two properly trained cops killed a man they were restraining in a Coles.

Up to 56 PPSOs will be deployed in the NT. They will be dressed in NT police uniforms and operate under an NT police command focusing on antisocial behaviour and high-visibility patrolling. There will be 34 public housing safety officers and 22 transit, or basically bus, safety officers, and existing public safety officers will make this transition and be deployed as PPSOs early next year.

“We are also unapologetic about using the full force of the law when it comes to serious repeat offenders,” the NT chief minister said, just in case people didn’t get it. “Since forming government in August 2024, more than 600 individuals have been taken off the streets, sending a clear message that under a CLP government, we put the rights of victims before offenders.”

A recipe for more custody deaths

“Justice not Jails condemns the NT government’s racist and cruel agenda that has been targeting Indigenous families and communities since the CLP’s election in August 2024,” the grassroot advocacy group said in a statement on Monday.

“The tone that the CLP government has set has enabled the introduction of policies that effectively punish Indigenous people, particularly those who are poor, homeless or otherwise marginalised.”

Justice Not Jails pointed out on 23 June that not only are there going to be armed public safety officers dressed as police patrolling public buses in the NT, but a new set of bus rules have recently been introduced, with the usual banning of eating, drinking or smoking on public transport, however a new stipulation sees a ban on people wearing dirty or stained clothes riding the bus.

The advocacy group outlines that in the current political climate in the Northern Territory, it is not hard to suggest that this new clothing rule has been issued to target First Nations people, who experience “disproportionate levels of housing, economic and health disadvantage and discrimination”.

Justice Not Jails has also raised the point that people who catch public transport aren’t likely to be comfortable with having armed officers riding with them for the express purpose of policing commuters and this too will be the case for housing residents. The PPSOs patrolling public housing will not be there to prevent intruders but to police residents living in the housing.

Armed public safety officers on transport, at public housing sites or even in shopping malls are there to police regular people, and as the incarceration and policing statistics reveal, these new pseudo-cops will be paying most attention to the people whose ancestors have been on the land going back 60,000 years, and not those who arrived more recently, as they’ll be carrying the guns.

The Finocchiaro government kicked off its reign of terror, when it tabled five law-and-order bills on its second parliamentary sitting day last October, which included dropping the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10, toughening bail for both adults and kids, reintroducing public drunkenness laws, mandatory sentences for assault offences and expanding police wanding powers.

Since her socially destructive law-and-order package commenced operating the number of remandees in adult prisons, or those yet to be convicted or sentenced, has risen by 33 percent, with 47 percent of the entire NT adult prisoner population being on remand, while in regards to kiddie inmates, 57 percent of them are yet to be convicted or sentenced.

Two plainclothes NT police officers retrained Kumanjayi Walker, a man with obvious disabilities, on the floor of a supermarket until he stopped breathing over shoplifting last month.

These were the professional cops who couldn’t help but kill a man over food, which begs the question, as to what armed PPSOs might do if they find themselves confronted by “antisocial” behaviour on a bus and they get scared.