The Northern Territory Government has today launched a new “whole-of-government website – nt.gov.au – making it quicker and easier for Territorians to find government information on-line”.
Of course, that all depends what you’re looking for.
We decided to give it a fly, based on the things that the Northern Territory Government is most famous for.
Like jailing Aboriginal people.
Alas, the search returned no results.
That’s despite the fact that the Northern territory has one of the highest black jailing rates on earth (second only to WA), and almost 90 per cent of its adult prison population is Aboriginal, and 96 per cent of its juvenile population.
The term ‘crocodiles’, however, returns 106 results.
Remarkably, while the ‘jailing of blacks’ appears to spark no interest, aliens and UFOs do rate a mention.
Disappointingly, The Northern Territory’s other great export – racism – returns a measly two results.
The phrase ‘beer’ does quite a bit better.
Also unsurprisingly, the phrase ‘homelessness’ only does half as well as beer.
The phrase ‘Adam Giles’ – the current Chief Minister – is much better catered for, with twice as many results as ‘homelessness’.
One of the most striking search results is on the phrase ‘Aboriginal housing’, which returns a whopping 79 results. This is what’s known in the media spin business as ‘frenetic activity, which we hope the punters will mistake for actual progress’.
In case you hadn’t worked it out, the NT Country Liberal Party is off to an election later this year (August). That explains why a search on ‘Country Liberals’ returns twice as many results as ‘Labor Party’.