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SBS Australia
18 minutes ago
- SBS Australia
For the girls who feel too much
An overview of the day's top stories from SBS News Interviews and feature reports from SBS News Your daily ten minute finance and business news wrap with SBS Finance Editor Ricardo Gonçalves. Ease into the English language and Australian culture. We make learning English convenient, fun and practical.
ABC News
18 minutes ago
- ABC News
Nearly 400 Indigenous children and teens held in NT police watch houses over six-month period
Almost 400 Indigenous children and teenagers have been held in the Northern Territory's notorious police watch houses over a six-month period, the ABC can reveal. Exactly how long the children were kept in the watch houses may never been known, however, with NT Police admitting they are recording erroneous time-spent-in-custody information. The ABC has obtained nearly 60 pages of confidential NT Police data under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, tracking youths in custody from August 25, 2024, to March 5, 2025. The Country Liberal Party government was elected on a tough-on-crime platform on August 24. NT Police initially refused to release the data to the ABC, so it had to be sourced through FOI. The data shows there were nearly 870 youth "custody events" in NT police watch houses over the six months. The custody events involved 402 individual youths, some of whom were recidivist offenders. Of the 402 youths, the dataset — which NT Police confirmed was correct — shows 388 were Indigenous. A police spokesperson who confirmed the numbers said all watch houses were "managed through strict policy, procedures and instructions". "The primary consideration in relation to people in police custody is the safety and welfare of the individual," they said. The independent member for Mulka in the NT parliament, Yingiya Guyula, said children in watch houses were being "traumatised in a way that does not encourage rehabilitation". "I have visited the watch house in Palmerston and holding people for days in these conditions is just cruel," he said. The government lowered the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10 in October 2024. As of 2024, there were 27,400 people aged between 10 and 17 in the NT. It means around 1.5 per cent of children in that age bracket spent time in NT watch houses over the six months. The statistics cover six NT watch houses, including the Peter McAuley Centre police headquarters in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs and Palmerston. Some are notoriously overcrowded, with windowless cells and the lights on 24 hours a day. They are meant to be used only as a stopgap place for the youths to be processed after their arrests, before they are delivered to a newly built youth detention centre in Darwin. Last week, the NT's Aboriginal legal aid service NAAJA revealed an 11-year-old girl had been left for a night and two days in the Palmerston watch house. In March, a 15-year-old girl was held in the Palmerston watch house for three nights after the local court ceased after-hours bail reviews for young people. The treatment of children in watch houses in Queensland has also been under scrutiny, with a state police review finding youths were spending an average of 161 hours in the facilities. As part of the ABC's FOI request, NT Police released data logs showing how long each child had spent in custody. The data indicated that, while the vast majority were in custody for less than 24 hours, some had spent up to 25 days at a time inside Palmerston watch house. Others were recorded to have been kept in watch houses for six, seven or eight-day periods. When asked to confirm the accuracy of the data, the NT Police spokesperson said it was erroneous: "The Northern Territory Police Force can confirm that the data provided does not accurately reflect the actual time youths have spent in custody. "While the report you received reflects what was recorded in the system at the time, it does not account for process variations that can affect how custody end times are calculated." The spokesperson said police could not provide an accurate time frame for each of the 870 custody cases, as it would require "a manual analysis of each custody incident". "No youths have been held in police watch houses for 25 days straight," they said. In November 2023, NT Police replaced its decades-old crime data IT software with a new system named SerPro. Initially budgeted at $45 million, the cost of rolling out SerPro increased to $58 million, and it's been plagued with issues since it began operating. Nathan Finn, the president of the NT's police union, said he was not surprised the time-in-custody data was erroneous, considering the issues police faced with the system. "Since the establishment of the SerPro system, we've seen a number of data issues and how that's been calculated," he said. "We've seen this and raised these concerns over a number of periods of time since the implementation of [SerPro]. "[SerPro] probably creates a 25 per cent increase in workload in managing a prisoner … within the custody facility." Mr Finn said it would be unprecedented for youths to be held for weeks at a time in watch houses. "We have youth that are in custody sometimes for two days or three days at maximum, depending on where they're remanded to and the availability of transferring them into a correctional facility," he said. He said the data issues needed to be fixed immediately. "If the police force is receiving this data and it's incorrect, how are they guiding their own policies and procedures?" he said. "How are they managing any risks that are identified, or any concerns that they may have in the custody space?" Mr Guyula agreed that the erroneous data needed to be fixed immediately. "We don't trust the information that we are being given," he said. "The police data shows some children are being held in watch houses for long periods, even weeks. "If the data is not correct, the police need to provide the correct data.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
MoneyTalks: Why Cygnet Capital is backing Heavy Rare Earths and critical minerals
MoneyTalks is Stockhead's drill down into what stocks investors are looking at right now. We tap our list of experts to hear what's hot, their top picks, and what they're looking out for. Today we hear from Cygnet Capital founding director Jonathan Rosham. Cygnet Capital describes itself as a hybrid between a traditional stock broking firm (with a limited number of high-net worth clientele) and a fund manager. The privately owned boutique investment and advisory group has been around for 25 years, focused on two sweet spots of the ASX – tech and resources micro-cap stocks. Within the resources space, Cygnet Capital is particularly bullish on gold, silver, copper and critical minerals, with the latter topical of late following executive orders from US President Donald Trump urging an immediate boost in domestic mineral production. In June, Trump announced a deal with China to resume exports of rare earth minerals and magnets after a two-month period of severe export restrictions that had disrupted critical supply chains across the automotive, robotics and defence industries. Those export restrictions amplified the urgency for countries to secure alternative, domestic or allied sources of supply. At the same time, demand for critical minerals is skyrocketing but supply isn't keeping pace, raising alarm bells for future shortages. Top picks Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE) Cygnet Capital assisted HRE with its acquisition of three assets from Havilah Resources (ASX:HAV) in one of the world's premier uranium producing jurisdictions, South Australia. Australia leads globally in uranium reserves and ranks fourth in production, with South Australia standing out as the core of the nation's uranium sector, housing 80% of its economic demonstrated resources and close to a quarter of the world's uranium supply. Rosham reckons the market is unaware of the potential world-class characteristics at Radium Hill and believes that the best place to find economic deposits are next to old ones. 'We note the historical mining undertaken at Radium Hill as a good indication of the potential,' he said. 'The historical information on Radium Hill highlights the contents of the tailings of mining from Radium Hill at Port Pirie, which gives valuable insight of the waste material from mining uranium in the 1950s/'60s. 'It shows extremely high quantities of scandium and rare earths,' he said. 'There were a number of studies carried out in the '90s and focused on extracting the scandium and rare earths but were constrained at the time with prices and capital. 'Now, in 2025, we are in a very different environment both in prices for the critical minerals and the future demand.' Most importantly, Rosham says HRE already knows what is in the rocks at Radium Hill, which is a massive advantage for any junior. 'Their job now is certainly to go and drill and find sufficient enough quantities to be able to potentially prove up an economic deposit and build a mine,' he said. 'The interesting part is that 50 to 60 odd years ago the market for those materials – being a lot of the lanthalites and scandium – was very different in that now, they are in demand. 'Radium Hill has been totally overlooked from a critical mineral point of view, and the company does have to do some work on the metallurgy, but metallurgy could really unlock the scandium potential,' he added. 'We do think there's a treasure chest there, they need to drill but we feel like the company has a nice head start.' Cygnet Capital is also backing Warriedar, having recently acted as one of two joint lead managers, alongside Bell Potter, in a $20 million capital raise. The firm was drawn to the company based on the scale of its Ricciardo mine, the antimony potential and the large, underexplored tenement package. 'The previous owner encountered a problem with the ore, which eventually sent it broke – the company focused on oxide material at Ricciardo, with the transition and primary sulphides mineralisation not systemically explored,' he said. 'As a consequence of that, the ground was totally underexplored, and we took the view internally and came up with a valuation well in excess of 20 cents and still maintain that view today. 'Warriedar has been well-funded to go and drill and create value for shareholders, and we think the takeover bid by Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) has come in at an interesting time – we think there's more to potentially happen there before that game plays itself out.' In May, the company announced what it believes is Australia's largest open-pit antimony resource at Ricciardo, totalling 12.2Mt at 0.5%. Warridar also reported a 107% increase in the projects' total resource estimate to 1.96Moz of gold equivalent at an average grade of 2.5g/t. Carnaby Resources (ASX:CNB) A Queensland copper play, Carnaby – like many players up near Mt Isa – took a bit of a hit following Glencore's news that it was going to close its smelter. But Rosham likes the look of the stock due to its substantial resource base and highly attractive portfolio, including the recently acquired Trekelano copper-gold deposit from Chinova Resources. Trekelano is within a 20km radium of Carnaby's Greater Duchess project, making it a highly complementary acquisition. 'Trekelano looks really interesting… it was an old mine, high-grade and Glencore previously owned it,' he said. 'We started taking a position in the company about 12 months ago but they recently reported an intersection of 150 metres at well over 1% of copper, which says to me that the project has a lot more scope and scale than perhaps the market is giving it credit for. 'The company is set to benefit if the government help Glencore out with the smelter up in Mt Isa, they will benefit a lot,' he said. 'They are looking to get into production, they have access to all transport, it's a low capital cost to get into production and if copper continues going the way it is, this is one company that could definitely bubble from here.' Petratherm (ASX:PTR) Cygnet Capital identified Petratherm before it made its high-grade, titanium-rich heavy minerals sands discovery at the Rosewood and Claypan prospects within the Muckanippe project in South Australia's Gawler Craton. Petratherm has quickly become a hot topic among fundies and investors, who see the $130 million explorer as a possible takeover target for heavyweights like Iluka Resources (ASX:ILU), Tronox Minerals, or even Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO). Muckanippie is yet to host a resource estimate and unlike Iluka's nearby Jacinth Ambrosia mine is not expected to be a major zircon producer, but early drill hits suggest it's rich in titanium-dioxide-bearing material, which should translate to a premium basket price. Titanium dioxide is a key material for paint pigments, but is also a critical mineral used in welding, aerospace, aviation and defence. Rosham likes Petratherm for the titanium content at Muckanippie. New drilling results include 9m at 15.1% heavy minerals (HM) from 10m, including 26.4% HM from 12m and 12m at 12.7% HM from 4m, including 7m at 17.1% HM from 5m. 'Obviously it's just huge grade, there's still a lot of work to do but that grade is amazing if they can actually come up with some continuity,' he said. 'The material looks like it's a direct shipping ore, high titanium content, very big scale at surface, very low strip – it's a world-class discovery, we think there's massive scale and fairly easy to treat. 'We definitely think it's a takeover target for one of the big boys who would be paying a lot of attention to what they are doing,' Rosham added. 'They are currently in the process of drilling, they are going to do some metallurgical testwork, which we will hear about shortly, but if they continue with what they doing and can demonstrate the scale which we think they can, we can see multiples from here.'
