Funding for NT legal service helping Indigenous Australians in custody set to run out in three months

Uncertainty over whether NT or federal government will continue to fund service protecting Indigenous people taken into custody

• Get our free news app; get our morning email briefing
• Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates

A legal service designed to protect Aboriginal people who are taken into police custody in the Northern Territory will run out of funding in three months.

The custody notification service, run by the Northern Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (Naaja), was established in 2019 and received three years' funding from the federal government, on the understanding that the NT government would take over paying for the service from 2022 onward.