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“The freedom of the press still furnishes that check upon government which no constitution has ever been able to provide.” – Chicago Tribune
“The freedom of the press still furnishes that check upon government which no constitution has ever been able to provide.” – Chicago Tribune
By ERWIN CHLANDA
The NT Government is refusing to give details about its 70 tribunals, statutory, governing and management boards known as nifty devices for Chief Ministers to funnel cash to buddies.
The IMAGE is from the website of the AustralAsia Railway Corporation, set up to represent the interests of South Australia and the Northern Territory. It is one of the NT Government's 70 statutory bodies about which it is declining to make public significant information.
The debate about buffel needs to be extended to take account of the weed's broad current and future commercial and social consequences. The pastoral industry, in love with the irresponsibly introduced plant, is being leased half of the NT, land that is owned by the people of the Northern Territory. From tomorrow they will have just 43 days to comment on how the government should be dealing with the scourge. COMMENT by ERWIN CHLANDA.
The number of nights spent by human visitors to Alice Springs has slumped to well below 2001 levels, but local student of nature ALEX NELSON, over decades, has tracked a multitude of creatures who enjoy The Centre, living and breeding in our majestic River Red Gums.
The annual number of visitors nights in Alice Springs has dropped by more than one third since 2001 despite millions spent by Tourism NT and its predecessors. ERWIN CHLANDA reports.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The Arid Lands Environment Centre condemns Minister Joshua Burgoyne's catastrophic buffel grass decision that caves to industry lobbying and puts his own community at risk, by continuing to permit the sale, trade and planting of buffel grass across the Northern Territory’s pastoral leases.
Alex Vaughan, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, Arid Lands Environment Centre.
Hopes that growth in tourism will lift Alice Springs out of its economic slump in 2026 look like wishful thinking. The West MacDonnells (painting above by Edwin Pareroultja) remain a desperately underdeveloped "jewel on the crown" of our assets. ERWIN CHLANDA reports.
A long-time advocate of applying science to the management of sand mining around Alice Springs, Rod Cramer, recommends a World Wide Fund for Nature report on the subject as mining of Roe Creek ignites a clash between ecologists and the industry’s lobby.
Note UPDATE 18/12/25
By ERWIN CHLANDA
In August this year, just three months before his death this week aged 93, Ted Egan was still supporting a life-saving initiative that is blithely ignored by the police: The creation of a panel of trackers who can be deployed at moment's notice when someone gets lost.
Nerys, we are sending our heartfelt condolences.
Erwin Chlanda and Kieran Finnane.
Readers, search for "Ted Egan" in our pages, and celebrate with us Ted's immense knowledge of the Territory and its people, his kindness and humour.
We can beat the buffel weed around the town, including restoring the Todd River as a major asset for Alice Springs, writes hands-on historian and botanist ALEX NELSON.
