Alice Springs mayor vows to shirtfront Anthony Albanese in Canberra if PM ignores riot-mob town

EXCLUSIVE

The mayor of Alice Springs says he will fly 2,550 kilometers to Canberra to tell the Prime Minister he is abandoning desperate residents if Anthony Albanese refuses to visit the riot-hit city.

Mayor Matt Paterson spoke to Daily Mail Australia on Thursday after the first emergency curfew for young people in the outback city.

It followed terrifying images of locals barricaded inside the Todd Tavern and ‘fearing for their lives’ as an angry mob of around 70 rioters attacked the pub.

The terrifying crowd desperately tried to force their way through glass doors and windows with bricks, stones and flying steps, carrying crowbars and axes.

Mr Patterson said Mr Albanese’s fly-in-fly-out visit to the city a year ago – where he spent about four hours in meetings – was never enough to understand the underlying problems and witness the end result of decisions made far away.

“I would welcome anyone from any political party to come to Alice Springs,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

“Before they make decisions in Canberra or Darwin, they need to come here and look at the unintended consequences.

“And if the Prime Minister doesn’t want to come here, I’ll be happy to go to Canberra and speak to the Prime Minister.”

Extra police continue to arrive in Alice Springs to enforce the newly imposed curfew on young people and ensure there is no repeat of Tuesday’s terrifying scenes.

“What happened in Alice Springs on Tuesday is completely unacceptable,” Patterson said.

“If you look at the people who were barricaded, they were scared for their lives.

‘The building that was attacked is 300 meters from a nursery and primary school.

‘It happened during school pick-up. That is frightening and unacceptable.

‘That behavior has to stop.’

Mr Patterson said the latest outbreak of anarchy was not far from everyday life in Alice Springs.

“It was the worst thing we have ever seen on Tuesday, but we are no longer surprised or shocked by it,” he said.

“A lot of the community is so desensitized to what’s happening here because it’s been happening here for so long.”

Northern Territory Chief Minister Eva Lawler announced an emergency curfew for Alice Springs after the horrific images from both inside and outside

Every day between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., all young people must stay at home and off the streets for the next 14 days, while another 58 police officers are deployed to restore public order.

Mr Patterson welcomed Ms Lawler for “making some pretty big calls”, especially as she was new to the job, but said there was “no guarantee” that things would improve once the 14-day emergency measures were over.

Mr Patterson also admitted there were concerns the curfew could only push bad behavior out of the CBD and into the city’s outskirts.

“The situation needs to be assessed,” he said of the curfew’s effectiveness.

‘Hopefully with the extra police we can also see proactive policing in the suburbs.

Mr Patterson has now backed away from previous calls for the federal government to take over the Northern Territory in the wake of the new emergency measures.

But he said he didn’t want to take that option off the table if it were needed later.

“What I said is that if the Northern Territory government can’t keep us safe, they need to remove themselves and the federal government from stepping in,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

“We’re not the only place in the area where crime exists, and that’s why I said we need external resources.”

The additional officers who came to Alice were pulled away from other duties, he said.

“Ultimately, that’s not my decision,” he added. “That is a decision for the Prime Minister and the Police Commissioner.”

Mr Albanese has resisted calls to revisit Alice Springs to tackle the crisis after a whirlwind trip in January 2023.

He has made no commitment to return to the city after opposition leader Peter Dutton asked him in parliament whether he would return following Tuesday’s riot, which made headlines around the world.

Instead, he said he took the entire Cabinet to the Northern Territory “last week”.

“We had ministers in Alice Springs, in Catherine, and also in the remote Northern Territory, and I visited a remote community to mobilize $4 billion to fix housing in remote communities,” he said.

But Nationals NT Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price accused the Prime Minister and Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney of making a cursory visit as a PR stunt.

“The Prime Minister had gone to their community to make a funding announcement,” Senator Price told Sky News on Wednesday evening.

“But the community wanted to speak to the minister and the prime minister about their problems. They were promised that they would have that conversation

“They (Mr Albanese and Ms Burney) flew in, did the media conference and left and that community is reeling from that.

“They need to spend real time and listen to people on the ground, but they’re just not doing that.”