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Northern Territory Police are continuing the search for a man who allegedly broke into RAAF Base Darwin, assaulted a member of the Australian Defence Force and stole a security vehicle before fleeing.
The incident reportedly occurred at Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin late on 14 September around 4:30pm.
The break-in also allegedly triggered a lockdown of the base, with Military Police, Australian Federal Police and NT Police all called to respond.
“The individual allegedly assaulted a Defence Force member and proceeded to leave the base in a stolen vehicle,” a Defence spokesperson reportedly told the ABC this morning in relation to the incident.
The stolen vehicle was reportedly pursued onto the Stuart Highway in the NT where it was last seen travelling south.
Shadow Minister for Defence, senator James Paterson, speaking during a media conference at Parliament house this morning, said reports of the break-in were troubling.
“It's always a concern when an unauthorised person gets access to an ADF base. It looks like in this instance that it was able to be responded to by military police and local police. But we need our bases to be secure,” he said.
“We need to make sure that unauthorised persons, whether they are someone who has got mental health issues, someone who is drunk or whether they're someone with malign intent acting on behalf of a foreign power, are not able to access our bases.
“And I really think the Department needs to be constantly reviewing the security of our bases to make sure incidents like this can't happen.”
Investigations are continuing.
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