The lawyer appointed to investigate the Barkly Regional Council has told a former employee that she has been excluded from examining code of conduct complaints against elected members, chief executive officers, or other staff, despite serious allegations of bullying, harassment, and mismanagement at the troubled council, which include the bungled handling of a sexual harassment complaint made by a young Indigenous woman.

Local Government Minister Chanston Paech suspended the elected members and placed the council under administration on October 17, following calls by former councillor Noel Hays in the NT Independent for the minister to sack the members. The suspension also followed 10 days after this paper published a video showing Mayor Jeffrey McLaughlin sitting on a 12-year-old boy while another man puts his booted foot on the child’s head while threatening to kill him.

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