Erwin Chlanda

By ERWIN CHLANDA The new buzzword “minoritarian governing” describes minorities getting their way by making a lot of noise or grasping media attention, disproportionate to their place in the community. Right now it's firing up the pseudo debate about the alcohol floor price, a measure assuming that people will drink less if they have to

By ERWIN CHLANDA The new government has inherited a conundrum from its Labor predecessor which made a deal for 72 units with the latest intending residential developers of the Melanka block. The project depends on the Planning Minister lifting the height limit from three storeys to six. The question may arise whether the Minister, in

By ERWIN CHLANDA Action against Finke Desert Race Inc by the NT Motor Accident Commission over the death of a spectator has been stopped. A Notice of Discontinuance has been filed on November 18. The case had been before the Supreme Court under the file number 2024/02067/SC. A spokesman for the commission says the terns

By ERWIN CHLANDA To get a handle on the town’s catastrophic crime wave the NT Government is putting its money on more police, which for years has failed to get under control what can fairly be described as a bunch of naughty kids, and secondly, on the Federal Government, over which the NT has no

By ALEX NELSON As 2024 winds down unsurprisingly much attention is directed to the 50th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy which destroyed Darwin in the early hours of Christmas Day 1974. After months of work, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) recently unveiled its renewed, highly popular Cyclone Tracy exhibition. The original exhibition

By ERWIN CHLANDA Take out the hype and Beetaloo gas is a pretty thin project. The sub-basin, 900 km north of Alice Springs, is “estimated” to contain 500 trillion cubic feet of gas. The NT Government refers to this estimate as being “by industry”. Studies and "industry analysis" projecting that development "could" produce 13,000+ jobs

By ERWIN CHLANDA Check the thermometer and smile, if you are a glider pilot, that is: Central Australia in summer is the world’s best place for flying without an engine. It’s Alice where world distance and speed records have been set for decades. A launch via a tow plane takes you to 3000 feet above

By ERWIN CHLANDA Without people like Dave Hancock, media produced by Australian news persons who infrequently venture beyond the limits of big cities would have yawning and embarrassing cavities. The photo journalist, writer and publisher of six books, fixer and go-to across the vast outback, fills in these gaps, for customers in Oz and around

By ERWIN CHLANDA How many troubled children in Central Astralia fall under the umbrella of the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA)? Surely that was a known number upon which Anthony Albanese’s $250m “special grant” was based. Apparently not. His Minister for Indigenous Australians, the Territory’s own Malarndirri McCarthy, doesn’t know, or won’t say. And neither

A chapter from the latest book by Territory photo journalist DAVE HANCOCK, Decades in Darwin. “Ladies and gentlemen, start your solar panels,” blares the PA. An Australian flag drops and the world’s quietest car race is underway. That was in Darwin, five-and-a-half days and 3,004km earlier. On Friday, the gaily painted Swatch-backed Swiss entrant, The