‘Nanny state’ rule set to make Territory ‘worse’ than Queensland and Sydney

For generations, Territorians have enjoyed freedoms other Aussies don’t have. They can set off fireworks on Territory Day and there is 336km of road with no speed limit.

But one of the most time-honoured traditions has been a permit system that’s allowed residents to keep crocodiles as pets — both big salties and harmless little freshies. Now the Labor government has halted the program.

Father-of-two Trevor Sullivan is almost 60 years of age, but some of his family's crocodiles are even older than him.

“My freshies I’ve had for 30 years, and my salties even longer. My oldest, Shah — his name means king in Persian — he’s 106 years old and missing half of his bottom jaw,” he told Yahoo News from his property in Batchelor south of Darwin.

“He came from a crocodile farm about five years ago, we took an 8,000km return trip. I’ve got a 22-year-old who is 4.3 metres.”

His 22-year-old daughter has been around crocodiles since she was a baby and now has two herself. Trevor fears this Territorian tradition of learning how to live safely around the animals will be lost.

Dogs, horses and cows more dangerous than crocodiles

Sullivan said he’s voted Labor nearly all his life, and the sudden decision to start culling crocs and shutting down the permit system has left him baffled, and rooting for the other side of politics.

“It’s part of the Territory that we do things differently. We've learned to coexist with crocodiles and successfully done so,” he said.

Crocodile attacks in the Northern Territory are rare. The number of people killed peaked 10 years ago when four people died, but the last fatality prior to 2024 was in 2018.

Compare that with dogs, where around 2000 people are hospitalised each year, and they’re not even Australia’s most dangerous animal. Analysis of human deaths by Australia’s National Coronial Information System found horses were responsible for 172 deaths between 2001 and 2017 — most of them fall-related, followed by cows which killed 82 people.

Trevor is now trying to sell his property so he can go travelling during his retirement, but doing so is a challenge because buyers want the crocodiles too — and they can’t get permits to keep them. With nowhere for the animals to go, he worries they will be confiscated and shot if he leaves.

"If they're successful with this, they'll start on other things. There's people with pet snakes and stuff and they'll start losing those as well," he said.

Northern Territory becoming 'nanny state' like Sydney

Crocodile wrangler and father Tommy Hayes packed up his family and moved to the Territory this year because he was fed up with Queensland's “nanny state” regulations. He had planned to get a pet crocodile but was knocked back because of the new permit rules.

“I moved here because of the freedom — the famous Territory lifestyle. It's the last place that's hanging on to the old school Australian way of life. And it had been part of our right as Territorians to have crocodiles,” he told Yahoo News.

“But it’s turning into Queensland… or eventually even Sydney. It’s a house of cards.”

He's written to the Territory government asking them to reconsider their decision, but is yet to receive a response.

Territory Government crocodile culling program in question

As well as phasing out the permit system, the Territory’s Labor government has also introduced a plan to kill over 1,200 wild crocodiles a year and it hasn’t ruled out hunting safaris. That’s despite the fatality rate being far lower than elsewhere in the saltwater crocodile’s worldwide range.

“In Indonesia, for example, at least 85 people were killed last year alone. What’s more, crocodile incidents in Indonesian Papua are believed to go largely unreported, so the number of actual deaths is likely much higher,” crocodile expert Brandon Sideleau wrote in The Conversation.

Crocodile hierarchies establish themselves over time after males fight for dominance in territories. When large individuals are shot it creates unbalance, leading to a more dangerous situation for humans and animals.

Yahoo News asked the Territory’s Environment Minister Kate Worden why the Labor Government was cracking down on crocodile permits when dogs, cattle and horses are more dangerous. We also asked her if they were planning on confiscating pets and destroying them.

She did not respond directly and instead provided a statement.

"Crocodiles are dangerous animals. For the protection of crocodile owners, and to ensure the welfare of the crocodiles, no new permits to keep crocs as pets will be issued under the Saltwater Crocodile Management Plan 2024-2033," she said.

"The NT Government takes public safety around crocodiles extremely seriously, that’s why we invested $800,000 in Budget 2024 to cull crocodiles in specific areas and to develop and deploy new crocodile detecting technologies."

The opposition’s Jo Hersey told the NT News she supported the “rights of Territorians to own crocs as pets under a permit system”.

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