South Australia Police says there's nothing new in sending its officers out of state after union officials demanded answers and claimed they weren't consulted ahead of the Alice Springs deployment.
Commissioner Grant Stevens said the force would send reinforcements to relieve officers in the outback town after the Northern Territory government asked for help in managing an ongoing youth curfew and an influx of people from the APY Lands.
NT Assistant Police Commissioner Martin Dole on Friday said the interstate contingent would "boost our resources" so the force would be able to return some of its officers to Darwin while also policing Alice Springs.
SA Police Association president Mark Carroll said he was entirely unaware of the deployment, prompting lawyers to write to Mr Stevens on Friday seeking clarification.
Mr Carroll said the union would need to know the new terms and conditions, housing arrangements for those deployed and legal implications if something were to go wrong.
But Chief Superintendent John De Candia said on Saturday the 20 deployed SA officers would be afforded the same pay and conditions that they would have in South Australia.
Any additional allowances, travel arrangements and meals will be paid for by NT police.
"The deployment of South Australian police officers to other jurisdictions is nothing new," he told reporters.
"This is something that has occurred for many years."
Under the arrangement, two week-long rotations of 10 officers drawn from State Operations Support Branch will be sent to assist police in the Alice.
The first will leave Adelaide on Wednesday and be sworn in as officers of the NT Police Force to return the following Thursday.
"No current police operation is going to be impacted as a result of these two deployments," Supt De Candia said.
He said the force was "working through" the letter received from the union and would provide it with more information "in order to resolve this issue".
A two-week youth curfew was imposed in Alice Springs on March 27 when the NT government declared an emergency following escalating violence.
Tensions in the desert town were inflamed by the death of an 18-year-old in a car accident in early March.
Chief Minister Eva Lawler flagged last week the curfew may be extended to cover the entire school holiday period but declined to provide further detail.
