Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby has moved to change Freedom of Information laws to block correspondence between ministers and their staff ever being made public, which will effectively end a legal challenge seeking a former Territory Labor minister’s correspondence, in a move Ms Boothby claims is somehow “strengthening integrity”, while a national integrity expert says it removes a “cornerstone of accountability”.

The proposed amendments to the Information Act were introduced to Parliament by Ms Boothby on Thursday to block emails between former Labor mining minister Nicole Manison and her staff relating to the McArthur River Mine’s reduced security bond that the Environment Centre NT sought through FOI laws.

The NT Government had asserted that correspondence between ministers and their staffers “not related to official government business” was not subject to FOI laws and would not be released. The ECNT challenged that decision and was in the middle of a legal process in the Supreme Court that is now expected to be terminated due to the CLP’s proposed amendments to bring their untested defence into law retrospectively.

Ms Boothby claimed it was “long-standing practice” that correspondence between ministers and staffers not be released and the changes “simply make that long-standing practice clear in law”.

“Territorians expect their money to be spent on delivering services, not fighting endless green lawfare in court,” she said in a statement.

“These updates reflect our government’s commitment to a year of action, certainty and security and delivering laws that work for the Territory.”

But the amendments to the Information Act will have far-reaching consequences for the public’s right to know how its politicians make decisions and who influences those decisions, the Centre for Public Integrity said.

“The FOI legislation around Australia is the cornerstone of transparent, accountable government,” Geoffrey Watson told the NT Independent.

“Governments should not be secretive about how we are being governed – they should be proud of it.

“If they’re hiding it, they’re hiding it for a reason and that cannot be a good reason.”

Mr Watson added he was “disappointed but not surprised”, stating that it was clear the government was afraid of losing the court battle and chose to legislate rather than have to release the internal documents.

“Their first resort is to deny access, but when courts overturn that, they then move to change the legislation,” he said.

ECNT executive director Kirsty Howey said there was more at stake than their specific matter in the court, and called the CLP’s move an “attack on transparency”.

“Public access to government documents is absolutely fundamental to a functioning democracy,” she said.

“The Finocchiaro Government plans to gut our freedom of information laws by removing public access to ministerial documents.”

Ms Howey argued that documents held by ministerial offices are government information, despite the government’s protests, and was seeking a precedent-setting case to establish that level of transparency. But it appears as though the court case will be ended due to the legislative changes which Ms Boothby said would be debated and passed in next month’s sittings.

“It’s yet another unbelievable attack on transparency, undermines the NT’s fragile democracy even further, and may be unprecedented in Australia,” Ms Howey said.