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Speaker 1: Joining me live on the line is the Member for Namajira,

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Speaker 1: Bill Yan. Good morning to you, Bill.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Katie, and good morning everybody.

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Speaker 1: Now, Bill, before I get into the questions or notice

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Speaker 1: that you put to the government around those rapid antigen tests,

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Speaker 1: can I just ask how did things go in Alice

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Speaker 1: Springs last night? We are told that a number of

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Speaker 1: vehicles got stolen and yeah, there's been a few issues

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Speaker 1: out there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well reports I got this morning with the vehicles

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Speaker 2: stolen overnight. I know that territory families got hit as well.

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Speaker 2: They lost a couple of vehicles. So this is off

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Speaker 2: the back of what happened the night before. Vehicle stylem

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Speaker 2: from McDonough Regional Council and driven around Mayhem and the

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Speaker 2: CBD for about four or five hours. I think that was.

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Speaker 2: That was Wednesday night Thursday morning, and I was spending

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Speaker 2: repeat a game last night. It's just really hard to

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Speaker 2: say them, Katie, and the government needs to get on

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Speaker 2: top of it. But our cry restrictions have sort of

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Speaker 2: reduced issues in the CBT during the day that we're

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Speaker 2: still doing all sorts of issues at night and round down.

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Speaker 1: So do you have any idea, you know, like Obviously

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Speaker 1: we've not seen anything yet from the Northern Territory Police.

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Speaker 1: But do you have any idea whether it's kids involved

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Speaker 1: or exactly what the situation was.

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Speaker 3: Well, I know that from the Wednesday night incident, Katie,

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Speaker 3: that was kids involved in that, and he could sort

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Speaker 3: of see some of the stuff from the CCTV out

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Speaker 3: of my office where they stopping and picking up different

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Speaker 3: kids outside that office here.

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Speaker 2: And in my well, my office and of course the

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Speaker 2: Cole's complex. I'm not sure about last night, Katie. We

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Speaker 2: haven't had any reports on who was involved in those

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Speaker 2: eight deaths last night, but he said, we've got to

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Speaker 2: get on top of this, the governments to get on

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Speaker 2: top We can't keep going down this road people like

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Speaker 2: we had an elderly lady in a world scare assaultiers

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Speaker 2: in home just the other night. Viciousness of this crime

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Speaker 2: is just getting out of control.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I had actually read that pressure lease on a

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Speaker 1: couple of days ago and was mortified to see that

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Speaker 1: that had happened to an elderly woman inside her home.

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Speaker 1: My understanding is that the alleged defender had knocked on

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Speaker 1: the door, she'd opened that door, then she was knocked

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Speaker 1: out of her wheelchair.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and that's absolutely horrendous types of crime and

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Speaker 2: viciousness of these attacks on people in their own homes.

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Speaker 2: He's only escalating and Ronner a bit of a downhill

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Speaker 2: spiral here. There's something sadly, something bad is going to happen,

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Speaker 2: and it's going to be again, will be national international

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Speaker 2: news yet again somewhere we don't want to be. But

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Speaker 2: until government get really well and truly on top of this,

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Speaker 2: we're going to be facing that well.

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Speaker 1: And Bill just on that note, because I do know

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Speaker 1: that there's been certainly some national reporting and even some

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Speaker 1: local reporting over the last couple of days that those

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Speaker 1: crime rates have have dropped to some degree in Alice Springs,

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Speaker 1: just reading from a story by the ABC Online that

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Speaker 1: said new internal figures from Northern Territory Police shows significant

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Speaker 1: dropping crime in Alice Springs since the reintroduction of alcohol restrictions,

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Speaker 1: but experts are divided on whether those bands have been effective.

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Speaker 1: So in late January, a suite of measures, obviously restricting

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Speaker 1: alcohol sales was launched and the data has shown that

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Speaker 1: a month on, break ins are down forty five percent

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Speaker 1: and there's been a thirty percent decrease in domestic violence

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Speaker 1: and a thirty six percent decrease in youth disturbances. Is

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Speaker 1: that in line with how locals are feeling.

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Speaker 2: Well, you've got to take it into context. Took any

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Speaker 2: make stack stay anything, and I was one manolo job

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Speaker 2: that makes that so what I want to But you've

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Speaker 2: got to take into acount and base level of crime.

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Speaker 2: We've seen a huge increase in January of what was happening,

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Speaker 2: So of course we've seen those introduction of alcohol measures

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Speaker 2: at the end of January, I mean into February, and

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Speaker 2: of course we've seen a reduction from January figures, but

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Speaker 2: when we're talking figures at five, six seven, up to

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Speaker 2: ten times high and anywhere in the nation, So you've

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Speaker 2: had a reduction on your January figures, which you're already high.

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Speaker 2: So I welcome the reduction. I certainly welcome the rest

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Speaker 2: spite that the town's getting, but you've got to look

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Speaker 2: at those baseline figures and that saves those incidents per

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Speaker 2: one hundred thousand population, and our springs and ten creeks

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Speaker 2: worse than our us and Catherine's now getting up there

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Speaker 2: as well. We're seeing crime rates, like I said, five

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Speaker 2: to ten times higher than the national average per hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand populations. So that's the key thing we need to

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Speaker 2: take away from this is that this was as great.

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Speaker 2: We're seeing a quick reduction with the introduction of these

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Speaker 2: alcohol restrictions. I get that, and I like it, but overall,

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Speaker 2: we're still seeing huge high rates of crime in Central

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Speaker 2: Australia and all of our other regions. Now it's the

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Speaker 2: ten Creek and it's starting to increase and day on too.

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Speaker 1: Bill. Let's move along and talk about these rapid antigen

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Speaker 1: test costs and also the storage. Now, this is something

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Speaker 1: that had really been raised. I guess last year. It

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Speaker 1: must have been when we learned that the Northern Territory

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Speaker 1: government had purchased a huge volume of those rapid antigen tests. Bill,

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Speaker 1: talk us through exactly what questions you put to the

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Speaker 1: Northern Territory government.

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Speaker 2: So we sort of we asked the government how many

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Speaker 2: rapid engine tests they had in storage, what was the

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Speaker 2: cost of storage, have any gone out of date, if

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Speaker 2: any had to be disposed of. Some of the figures

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Speaker 2: we got back were like, like pretty high. So it

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Speaker 2: turns out we've got, oh, we say, we've got over

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Speaker 2: four million rapid engine tests in storage. At the moment,

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Speaker 2: and the cost for storage of those rapid engine tests

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Speaker 2: per year is four hundred thousand bucks a year. That's

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Speaker 2: a lot of money in anyone's books. So wow, life

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Speaker 2: for those tests. It's going to take us four years

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Speaker 2: to get through all those tests. The bigger question is

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Speaker 2: are only those tests going to go out of date

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Speaker 2: before we actually use them over those four years, because

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Speaker 2: based on the numbers we got back from the government,

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Speaker 2: we're using about five hundred thousand a year, So it's

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Speaker 2: going to take four years to get through what we've

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Speaker 2: got in stock. But we lost two point eight million

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Speaker 2: dollars worth of rapid engine tests in that warehouse fire

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Speaker 2: up in Darwin just recently, and that equates about two

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand tests gone up in smoke.

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Speaker 1: Wow. So, Bill, based on the info that you've been given,

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Speaker 1: are any of those rapid antigen tests due to expire?

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Speaker 2: Well, no, that we didn't get that data from government,

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Speaker 2: They didn't give it to us. All we got from

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Speaker 2: them that they've only lost, So we've only had sixty

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Speaker 2: one single rapid engine tests will expire by June twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty three, So we'll be asking some follow up message

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Speaker 2: of government is to based on that four year estimated

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Speaker 2: period to use up everything that we can having stop.

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Speaker 2: Are we going to be losing anything to expire before then?

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Speaker 2: And if so, our government's starting to do deals with

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Speaker 2: other places to try and move them on so that

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Speaker 2: they don't get waste. And then of course there's then

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Speaker 2: not a loss of money to the territory taxpayer at

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Speaker 2: the end of the day.

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Speaker 1: So why exactly, Bill did the LP decide to go

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Speaker 1: down the path of asking these questions to the Northern

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Speaker 1: Territory government. What was the main reason for us?

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Speaker 2: Well, we just wanted to know how many we had,

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Speaker 2: have any expired? Are they going to expire? Of course

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Speaker 2: this comes down to cost to the territory taxpayer. So

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Speaker 2: we've seen COVID sort of dropping away in certain respects

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Speaker 2: at case loads are way down where we're living with

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Speaker 2: COVID Now at the end of the day, if you've

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Speaker 2: got it, you can still go to work. You don't

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Speaker 2: have to ask, So you just have to be a

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Speaker 2: little bit sens a litle about how you go meet

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Speaker 2: the daily live. So we're looking at how we're going

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Speaker 2: to manage and look at COVID into the future and

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Speaker 2: of course there there was a reaction to buy all

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Speaker 2: these tests last year and the year before, and now

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Speaker 2: we're sitting on them and we're seeing it reduction in

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Speaker 2: our COVID numbers. So, yeah, what are we going to

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Speaker 2: do with all those tests and we're just going to

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Speaker 2: its awesome in the bin, or we're going to get

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Speaker 2: smart about getting about other people to use them so

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Speaker 2: they don't get wasted.

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Speaker 1: Well, and that's I guess the big question, particularly when

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Speaker 1: you look at the fact that that costs per month

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Speaker 1: for storage, by the look of things, is thirty five

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars a month.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, four hundred and twenty thousand dollars in the UK.

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Speaker 2: That's not small change in anybody's books.

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Speaker 1: No, it's really not. Well, Bill Yan, good on you

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Speaker 1: for putting those questions. Obviously to the Northern Territory government.

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Speaker 1: I think it's always good to try and get the

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Speaker 1: answers to some of those questions that territorians do really

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Speaker 1: care about, and one of those things is wanting to

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Speaker 1: know sort of how the taxpayer dollar is being spent.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, certainly, Katie, we've got to keep them honest and

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Speaker 2: keep finding out where our money's going and how it's

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Speaker 2: being used because it's not a bottomless pit, and he

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Speaker 2: said with nine billion dollars and good at the moment.

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Speaker 2: Definitely need to see that come back down because otherwise

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Speaker 2: our kids and our grandkids are going to be paying

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Speaker 2: that they're off for us. Got to keep them honest.

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Speaker 1: Well, Bill Yan, always appreciate your time. Thank you very

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Speaker 1: much for having a chat with us this morning.

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Speaker 2: Jeez, Katy, have a great weekend.

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Speaker 1: Thank you you too,