Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe has been found not guilty of murder in relation to the shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker.

Rolfe, 30, was also cleared of two alternative charges of manslaughter and engaging in a violent act causing death.

The verdict comes after an almost five-week trial in the supreme court, and after the case was delayed multiple times because of legal argument and the pandemic.

Outside court, Rolfe said: “A lot of people are hurting today, Kumanjayi Walker’s family and his community.

“I’m going to leave this space for them.”

Northern Territory police association president Paul McCue said it was a travesty Rolfe was ever charged.

“Today we’ve seen justice prevail.”

The trial heard Rolfe shot Walker, a 19-year-old Warlpiri man, while trying to arrest him in the remote community of Yuendumu, about 300km from Alice Springs, on 9 November 2019.

Walker stabbed Rolfe with scissors prior to the first shot being fired. This shot was not subject to any charges.

But, the court heard, 2.6 seconds after the first shot, Rolfe fired again, and then 0.5 seconds later he fired a third time. These final two shots were fired from close range at a time when Rolfe’s partner, then constable Adam Eberl, was attempting to restrain Walker on a mattress. The prosecution alleged Walker no longer posed a threat to Rolfe or Eberl by that stage.

Rolfe defended the charges on the grounds he feared for the life of Eberl and was acting in good faith and “the reasonable performance of his duties” when he fired the final two shots.

“When Kumanjayi Walker deliberately and … viciously tried to stab both officers with potentially fatal consequences,” Rolfe’s barrister David Edwardson QC told the jury in his closing address.

“The only appropriate response was to draw his firearm and pull the trigger, discharging each bullet into … Walker until the threat was removed.”

Rolfe had given evidence in his own case, telling the court he believed Walker was trying to stab Eberl at the time of the shots, and Edwardson said the prosecution “did not land a glove on him”.

Prosecutor Philip Strickland SC accused Rolfe of lying in the witness stand about crucial parts of his evidence, saying that Walker never put his hand on Rolfe’s gun, nor had Rolfe seen Walker stabbing Eberl.

In his closing address, Strickland said the jury should consider the context to Rolfe confronting Walker in the Yuendumu property known as House 511 where the shooting occurred.

This context, Strickland said, included what he alleged was Rolfe’s “preoccupation” with an incident three days earlier, when Walker threatened two police officers with an axe at a separate Yuendumu property known as House 577, Rolfe’s “keenness” to be deployed to Yuendumu, his “insistence” upon leaving the Yuendumu police station to immediately track down Walker, and the “manner” and “state of readiness” in which he searched House 577 minutes before the shooting.

“All of those matters, we say, are evidence of a particular state of mind,” Strickland said.

“They’re all evidence of a mentality the accused had at that time and that mentality was that if Kumanjayi Walker showed any resistance, if he presented with an edged weapon, he would be prepared to draw his weapon, and if necessary fire it at Kumanjayi Walker.”

Strickland claimed that Rolfe had lied to the court to “justify the unjustifiable”. The defence said that was “absurd”.

The jury retired to consider its verdict on Thursday afternoon.

Long-term alcohol restrictions in dozens of Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory are set to end in July, unless there's a last-minute extension to the laws by the federal government.

The NT Government said the lifting of the laws will mean 32 town camps, 12 remote communities and 215 homelands and outstations across the territory will soon be able to choose whether or not they want to have access to alcohol in their communities moving forward.

The bans came into force during the NT Emergency Response – known as the NT Intervention – in 2007, and have continued under Stronger Futures legislation since 2012.

While the laws will expire in two months' time, the Commonwealth has not publicly ruled out an extension, but did not say whether a decision would be made before the upcoming election.

Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt said there were "multiple perspectives" on the laws "that need to be considered" before they decided whether or not to extend them.

But the NT Government said it was certain the laws would end.

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner this week dubbed the restrictions as "racist" and said individual communities should be able to have freedom of choice on whether they wanted alcohol banned or not.

"Changes are going to happen, we're prepared for it," Mr Gunner said.

"People will be allowed to drink in certain parts of the Northern Territory where they're currently not allowed to drink … we're not going to be racist, we're going to work through that."

For some individuals and communities the Intervention had hugely detrimental effects.

But for Phillip Goodman, a Maranungu man and leader of 15 Mile camp, also known as Palmerston Indigenous Village, a community on the outskirts of Darwin, he said the bans had brought some respite from the scourge of alcohol-related violence at the time.

"When the Intervention came in, that sort of helped out a lot of Indigenous families [in 15 Mile] struggling with alcohol," said Mr Goodman.

"And that made my work on community pretty much easier. I felt safe.

"And now I feel gutted if this system is no longer going to exist."

Communities can self-impose bans

If the federal laws fold by July as is currently scheduled, the NT Government said communities and town camps under those restrictions would be able to "opt-in" to continue the bans for two more years.

"The two-year period will enable community-led processes to be undertaken to consider alcohol aspirations going forward," an NT government spokesman said.

Mr Goodman said his community would be among those opting to do so.

But the NT Government has also confirmed some remote communities have "expressed a desire for the return of alcohol in a managed way", following the cessation of the laws.

One such community is Barunga, near Katherine, where community members were successful in their bid for a social club liquor license, so people could have a drink closer to home and not be forced to pay exorbitant taxi fees or risk road accidents driving to nearby townships to access alcohol.

The NT Government said any community wanting to open up a licensed venue, like a sports or social club, would still have to go through a full licensing process with the liquor commission.

Consultation should've happened sooner

East Arnhem Regional Council CEO Dale Keehne was in a meeting discussing the end of Stronger Futures with government representatives on Tuesday, and said while he welcomed the consultation, there were still issues surrounding the changes which needed to be addressed.

"I think it would've been great to have had this made clearer, earlier," Mr Keehne said.

While some NT communities fall under the Stronger Futures legislation, others will remain dry under NT laws – and Mr Keehne said there was now talk to see if those bans should also be removed.

"It has opened up this issue about, then, well, do we consult with communities about revisiting the NT laws on this, on alcohol not being sold?" he said.

"Is it going to open a Pandora's Box by just going, 'hey, do you want to get rid of restrictions on alcohol [in those communities too]?' and we're not hearing anyone pushing on that."

A Menzies report released in 2019 showed the NT had the highest rates of alcohol consumption per capita in Australia, with correspondingly high rates of alcohol-fuelled violence and crime.

Anthony Albanese will provide help for Australians on low and middle incomes to buy houses by giving eligible applicants a commonwealth equity contribution of up to 40% of the purchase price of a new home, and up to 30% for an existing home.

The Labor leader will unveil the new $329m housing initiative as the centrepiece of Labor’s official campaign launch in Perth on Sunday. If Albanese wins on 21 May, Labor’s new shared equity housing policy will be implemented in addition to the Morrison government’s First Home Guarantee scheme.

To qualify for help under the shared ownership scheme, eligible homebuyers will have to have saved a deposit of 2% and qualify for a standard home loan with a participating lender to finance the remainder of their purchase.

Australians with a taxable income of up to $90,000 for individuals and up to $120,000 for couples will be eligible to participate in the program which Labor has called Help to Buy.

Successful applicants will need to be Australian citizens and not current home owners. Labor says successful applicants for the scheme will also avoid the need to pay lenders mortgage insurance, which represents a saving of around $30,000.

Home buyers under the scheme will have the option of taking additional equity in the property over the life of the home loan. They will not have to pay rent on the proportion of the house owned by the commonwealth.

The new scheme is modelled on programs that already exist in the UK and in some Australian states, including Western Australia, which has the Keystart scheme.

Over time, the program is expected to deliver income for the commonwealth as the government recovers its equity and its share of the capital gain when the properties are sold.

The new policy comes as the campaign conversation has shifted to the economy, rising cost of living pressures and home mortgage rates.

A surge in inflation over the past 12 months confirmed in the latest official figures from the Australia Bureau of Statistics has led to speculation the Reserve Bank of Australia will increase interest rates during the election campaign, creating a political headache for the Morrison government.

In a statement ahead of Sunday’s Labor campaign launch, Albanese said the new home ownership program would address an affordability crisis by cutting the cost of a mortgage by up to $380,000 in some parts of the country.

He said Australia was in the grip of a housing crisis because of surging prices. The Labor leader noted the biggest drop in home ownership as a consequence of a lack of affordability was amongst Australians on low and modest incomes “who have been forced to give up on the great Australian dream”.

Albanese said 40 years ago, almost 60% of Australian on low and modest incomes owned their own home, but because of price trends, the percentage of homeowners in those income brackets had fallen to 28%.

He said after nine years in government, housing affordability had only gotten worse under the Morrison government.

The shadow housing minister, Jason Clare, said Labor was pursuing the policy because it is “harder to buy, harder to rent and there are more homeless Australians than ever before”.

He said the program would help Australians buy a home with a smaller deposit, a smaller mortgage and smaller mortgage repayments. “This will help a lot of Australians buy a home with a smaller mortgage that they can afford to repay, instead of renting for the rest of their lives”.

Labor is launching its campaign in Perth for the first time since 1940 as part of an attempt to pick up three Liberal-held seats in the west – Swan (on a 3.2% margin), Pearce (5.2%) and Hasluck (5.9%). The party will also attempt to sandbag the ultra-marginal seat of Cowan held by Anne Aly.

Sunday’s launch will be Albanese’s most significant campaign event since emerging from home isolation on Friday after a coronavirus infection.

Albanese hopes electoral gains in WA will be the bedrock of Labor’s pathway to victory on 21 May. On the hustings in the west on Saturday, Albanese promised $125m in new funding for 135 locally made electric buses as part of a plan to shore up onshore manufacturing.

Voters have turned their backs on One Nation founder Pauline Hanson, who could lose her Senate spot.

The conservative politician's party is trailing behind the Queensland Greens candidate Penny Allman-Payne for the race to the Senate.

Senator Hanson, who had to spend election day in isolation after testing positive to COVID-19, was well short of a quota on Saturday night as counting continued.

Her party polled 7.8 per cent of the Senate vote, to the Greens' 14 per cent.

The outspoken Queenslander has run an anti-vaccine mandate campaign and refused a coronavirus jab herself.

She was first elected to the Senate for Queensland in 2016.

In the Sunshine State, Nationals senator Matt Canavan was re-elected, as was his Victorian colleague Bridget McKenzie.

High-profile Liberal senator Simon Birmingham was also returned.

On the incoming Labor government's side Penny Wong, soon to be foreign minister, was re-elected for South Australia.

Senator Wong will need to be sworn in next week ahead of the Quad security meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday.

Labor senator Murray Watt was also returned to the chamber, while Queensland senator and former assistant minister for women Amanda Stoker is at risk of losing her position.

Senator Stoker, who was third on the Queensland LNP ticket, sparked controversy after attending an anti-abortion rally in Brisbane during the election campaign.

High-profile candidates Nick Xenophon and Clive Palmer fell well short of a quota in their SA and Queensland races.

Independent candidate and former Wallaby David Pocock is tipped to defeat outgoing minister Zed Seselja on preferences for an ACT Senate seat.

Clive Palmer’s mammoth campaign spend of close to $100m has failed to deliver his party results, with its primary vote failing to reach 5% across the country.

In both regional and metropolitan areas, the United Australia vote increased slightly to about 4.7%, and was strongest in Queensland where it polled close to 6%.

But as expected, the party did do well in outer suburban areas that were hit particularly hard by the pandemic, with it polling about 10% in the seats of Holt, McMahon, Calwell, Bruce, Wright, Forde and Scullin.

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party polled higher than the UAP, recording about 6% of primary votes nationally. The party this year stood in almost all lower house seats, boosting the count.

At the 2019 election, when Palmer’s campaign was credited with helping erode Labor’s primary vote with its campaign against Bill Shorten, the party recorded a primary vote of 3.4%.

United Australia leader Craig Kelly, who defected from the Liberal party to sit on the crossbench, managed to secure just 8% of the primary vote, with the south-west Sydney seat of Hughes expected to return to the Liberals.

Palmer has spent tens of millions of dollars in the lead-up to the election, campaigning on the issue of freedom and opposing Covid vaccine mandates and lockdowns.

He has also campaigned strongly against both major parties, urging voters to put the Liberal and Labor party last.

In the final days of the campaign, Palmer accused the major parties of wanting to give up control of Australia’s health department to the “Chinese-controlled WHO”, in double-page newspaper advertisements across the country.

“They will control our lives. Unelected Foreigners controlling Australia? Not on our watch,” Palmer said.

Ahead of the election, Kelly said he was hopeful of picking up seats in the outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne that had been hit particularly hard by Covid lockdowns.

“Whatever the result is we’ll all be able to hold our heads high because we’ll be on the right side of history,” Kelly told Australian Associated Press.

But while it was able to increase its vote in many of these seats, its vote has failed to influence the outcome.

Labor MP Julian Hill, who holds the seat of Bruce, has described Palmer’s party as a “giant preference scam” to help Scott Morrison remain in power.

The UAP campaign, the most expensive in Australian electoral history, may have contributed to the record vote for minor parties and independents at this election, with Labor’s primary vote at 32% and the Liberal and National coalition with a primary vote at 34%.