Alice Springs curfew is a question of legality

Heavy-handed, authoritarian measures undertaken by authorities in the name of a purported broader good should never be taken lightly.

If and when they are, the issue of legality is bound to peer around the corner, reining in ill-advised uses of power against the citizenry, whatever the claimed benefits.

On March 27, Brent Potter, the Northern Territory’s police minister, acting on advice from the Territory Emergency Council, declared an emergency pursuant to powers available under the Emergency Management Act 2013 (NT). The emergency in question was confined to a designated “High Risk Area – Alice Springs Precinct” — the CBD, for short.