Deputy Commissioner Martin Dole appointed as new Commissioner

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The new Commissioner of the Northern Territory police force is Deputy Commissioner Martin Dole. He replaces Michael Murphy who was sacked following an external review into senior appointments made within the Northern Territory police.

Transcript

00:00He might be the newest appointment to the position of Northern Territory Police Commissioner,

00:06but Martin Dole is not a new face to the police force or to the government here in the Northern

00:10Territory.

00:12With nearly 30 years of experience in the Northern Territory Police Force, Martin Dole

00:16has been acting in the role of police commissioner for the past seven months, since the sacking

00:20of former police commissioner Michael Murphy in March this year.

00:23Martin Dole will also be the first commissioner born and raised in Alice Springs.

00:27I'm incredibly honoured and privileged to be asked to continue to take on this role and

00:33lead the Northern Territory Police Force into the future.

00:36Martin Dole will be the third police commissioner to occupy the role in the past three years,

00:40after former police commissioner Jamie Chalker resigned in April 2023 and Michael Murphy was

00:45sacked in March of this year after an anti-corruption body found he helped friends fulfil top roles

00:51within the Northern Territory Police Force.

00:53Following the sacking of Michael Murphy, the government appointed former Tasmanian Chief

00:57Justice Alan Blow to lead a review into appointments in the upper echelons of the Northern Territory

01:02Police Force.

01:03That review was handed down just last week.

01:05And while Alan Blow found that everyone who was appointed during Murphy's tenure was capable

01:09of fulfilling the roles which they were appointed to, he also found there was a significant body

01:14of opinion that the appointments had been made with significant levels of favouritism and bias,

01:19that at the end of the day, he had no way of being sure that the people appointed were the best people for the role.

01:24We want this to be a line in the sand. We know things can be better and they will be better.

01:29And Commissioner Dole has absolutely committed to me that he would deliver those six reforms

01:33and we would do them swiftly and so we will have more to say about that soon.

01:37The appointment has been made ahead of what is typically the pointy end of the year for crime and community safety in the Northern Territory.

01:42Summer comes around every year and with summer we see a traditional spike in activity and demand

01:49on resourcing for police services. And can I just assure you, we're ready and we're prepared

01:54for that.

01:55Halfway through their promised tough on crime crackdown, the CLP government will certainly

01:59be happy to see some stability in this space. However, there's no shortage of challenges facing

02:04Police Commissioner Martin Dole in his new position.

02:06Dr.

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