Do we like them?

Do we like Lia Finocchiaro?

Our score: 3 out of 10. Her trans prison ban and the push to jail 10-year-olds are harm on our terms, and I found little dated good to weigh against them.

Lia Finocchiaro is the Country Liberal Party Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, and crime and policing were the heart of her pitch. Before she even took the job, her promise to lower the age of criminal responsibility was being slammed by the peak Indigenous children's body. That set the tone for her first term.

In October 2024 the NT passed laws dropping the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10. She said it would allow earlier intervention, with skills training and two youth boot camps. Health, justice and human rights experts and Indigenous leaders called it discriminatory, pointing out that over 90 per cent of NT kids under supervision orders on an average day are Indigenous. The Human Rights Law Centre's Maggie Munn called it “deeply shameful”.

The bigger one for this page came in October 2025. She told The Australian she had banned trans women from female prisons, and was quoted saying “If you're born a bloke, you're going to a men's prison.” The Territory's Anti-Discrimination Commissioner called the suggestion “transmisogynistic and contrary to the evidence”, and the Commission said no trans women were housed in women's units. Women's Forum Australia praised her; Justice Not Jails, the Greens and the Opposition Leader criticised it.

On the harm check, that is a government leader acting against trans people's rights in her own words, plus a youth justice change that hits Aboriginal kids hardest. I found no conspiracy theories or dodgy company, and her fracking and environment funding record is something I couldn't pin down with dated reporting, so I've left it out. Her defenders say both moves are about safety and early intervention; where you land depends on whether you read them that way or as targeting vulnerable groups.

The latest stoush is over the YiSSA short-stay shelter on Darwin's Batten Road. She said buying it at the reported price would be a “waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money”, and her government appeared to reject a Commonwealth offer to split the cost, saying it came with caveats. Aboriginal organisations called her comments “hurtful”, and Opposition Leader Selena Uibo said they showed the CLP doesn't care about Aboriginal Territorians. Federal Senator McCarthy disputed her description of the conditions.

The good stuff is thin on what I could verify. Her stated aim with the youth changes was earlier intervention, with training and boot camps, but advocates say locking up young kids doesn't make communities safer. I couldn't find dated reporting on charity or kind acts, so that's honestly the whole list.