HAYLEY SORENSEN

And NT Shelter chief executive Peter McMillan worried about the potential for it to stigmatise and demonise homeless people.

“The vast majority of rough sleepers do not engage in anti-social behaviour nor are they a threat to personal safety,” he said.

McMillan said he dreams of the day the word “itinerants” has disappeared from our vocabulary.

Territorians like to talk a lot about our “freedoms” – the freedom to ride our pushies without encasing our squishy brains in bike helmets, the freedom to drive fast on the highway and to set off explosives with abandon on one day of the year.

In reality, we’re the least free and the most over-policed people in the country.

While we cling to the “freedom” to skipper a boat pissed and unlicensed, we’ve looked away while our important liberties have been slowly eroded in the name of safety or community order.

We can’t buy a bottle of wine without showing our identification. Depending on where we live in the Territory, we might be subject to a barrage of invasive questions as to where we intend to drink it.

Every time the cops install a new CCTV camera, we’re conditioned to cheer.

When the Government announced it would station

“In reality, we’re the least free and the most overpoliced people in the country.”

armed police officers at a number of schools through the reintroduction of the schoolbased constable program, the reaction was largely positive.

In fact, COGSO, which represents government schools, even lobbied for the program to be reinstated.

Some parts of the Government’s $8.9 million “anti-social behaviour action plan” are good. Extra cars for Larrakia Nation and extended hours for the sobering-up shelter will mean more problem drinkers will come into contact with alcohol and drugs counsellors.

Hopefully, some will decide to take the step to longer-term rehabilitation.

Of course, it will also mean there will be fewer homeless people on the footpath for us voters to step over on the way to our offices, but only a cynic would think that was the Government’s primary motivation.