The Lawler Government and CDU have refused to explain how the university can provide the necessary independence to undertake monitoring of the gas industry’s fracking operations in the Beetaloo Sub-Basin, after its vice-chancellor told a Senate inquiry the university regularly accepts money and gifts from the industry, with other integrity issues at the highest levels of the university remaining unresolved.
The Lawler Government has signed a multi-year gas supply deal with Tamboran Resources to purchase gas from its future Beetaloo Basin operations to keep the lights on in the Territory, before the government has given final environmental approval for the operation to go ahead.
Attorney General Chansey Paech has announced $57 million to repurpose an old prison in Darwin and an Alice Springs rehab facility to house female inmates, contradicting his previous “jailing is failing” mantra, that will also see male prisoners detained at the old Berrimah prison as an “interim measure”.
CDU vice-chancellor Scott Bowman has refused to answer questions about his performance at last week’s Senate hearings into the proposed Middle Arm industrial precinct, including why he did not disclose that the university has recently been awarded the majority of a $2 million contract by the NT Government to monitor fracking operations in the Beetaloo Sub-basin and his apparent breaches of policy.
UPDATED: The CLP has raised three times more money in political donations than Territory Labor by the end of March, with a crypto bro leading the party’s donations take, while Middle Arm proponents and developers backed in Territory Labor with big bucks ahead of August’s general election, new disclosures filed with the electoral commission show.
CDU vice-chancellor Scott Bowman was exposed at the Federal Senate inquiry into the proposed Middle Arm industrial precinct on Thursday for attempting to stifle academic freedom and failing to disclose glaring conflicts of interest with major Middle Arm gas proponents in the university’s submission to the inquiry, which appears to have breached academic policies and marred the university’s reputation.
Leaked screenshots of a Territory Response Group email that police members shared depicting a “Black Monopoly” board with every space designated “go to jail” in 2008, has cast further doubt on TRG members’ sworn claims their unit of the NT Police was not racist.
The Lawler Government has released the long-awaited review into police resources, which made 18 recommendations to improve the NT Police force, following a decade of “deeply traumatic organisational events” that led to multiple organisational failures, including the inability to properly allocate its resources.
Official documents have revealed the Lawler Government made an error concerning which ministry was supposed to declare the Alice Springs “emergency situation”, raising further questions about the legality of the youth curfew and whether police have been exposed to legal risk in carrying out the orders.
Attorney General Chansey Paech has backflipped on his previous position that a youth curfew is “madness”, “punitive” and treats kids like “dogs,” as he publicly supported the Chief Minister’s unilateral decision to implement the Alice Springs curfew, which she has now indicated could be used in Katherine and Tennant Creek.
Chief Minister Eva Lawler has pledged to recruit 200 new police officers over the next four years, despite the Labor Government telling Territorians for years that there were enough officers, and announcing the figure before the review into police resources is publicly released.
NT Police Commissioner Michael Murphy has not ruled out deploying the Territory Response Group to assist in Alice Springs, despite preliminary ICAC findings that the elite group of officers engaged in racist conduct, while sources say the TRG members will most likely be deployed as general duties officers to prevent stoking racial tensions in the community.
