00:00 The same faces making the same walk into Darwin Local Court.
00:06 Despite nearly a year passing since the beginning of a joint inquest into the domestic violence
00:11 deaths of four Aboriginal women, little has changed.
00:15 For police, it's getting worse.
00:17 Today, the court heard between 2022 and 2023, the number of hours spent on domestic violence
00:24 by police has increased to 882,000.
00:28 Based on those statistics, the cost of domestic and family violence to NT Police is projected
00:33 to reach $156 million by 2027 and $209 million by 2030.
00:41 That's more than a third of the entire operating budget allocated to police this year.
00:47 The NT's police commissioner attributing the worrying trends to an increasing number of
00:51 priority one calls and overwhelming demand on an under-resourced frontline.
00:56 What we need to do is actually do better about the prevention and the early intervention
01:01 identifying victims of crime.
01:02 The focus of the inquest turned quickly to racism within the NT Police Force when the
01:08 commissioner was asked a question about a specific incident involving an officer in
01:12 Alice Springs in 2022.
01:15 The sergeant who has no connection to the deaths being investigated by the inquest was
01:20 reported after circulating images of an Aboriginal woman topless in a social media chat with
01:26 fellow officers.
01:27 Mr Murphy revealed at the time the officer was demoted and transferred to Catherine,
01:33 but following requests from the police union to have the punishment reviewed, the demotion
01:37 was rescinded.
01:39 He is now an active member of the force in Darwin.
01:42 When asked why he reversed the demotion, the commissioner admitted he should have taken
01:46 a tougher stance.
01:47 Learning a lot since that time and I've got to really take a hard position on stamping
01:54 out any racism and making sure it's really clear that it's totally not acceptable.
01:59 More challenges for a force already bearing the brunt of a national shame.
02:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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