EXCLUSIVE: The most boring Territory election campaign in recent memory may have a bit of life breathed into it yet, as high-profile Alice Springs businessman, anti-crime campaigner and Action For Alice administrator Darren Clark says he is eyeing a run as an independent.
The female Department of Infrastructure employee who was verbally abused and threatened by chief executive Andrew Kirkman has been awarded legal costs, while the Chief Minister has ruled out any repercussions for Mr Kirkman, despite the judge now finding that he and the department knew they had no case and failed to act as model litigants.
The NT Police Commissioner who claimed earlier this year that he had never seen racism in the police force has offered a sweeping public apology to Indigenous Territorians for “past harms and injustices” inflicted on them over the past 150 years at the hands of the NT Police, while committing to “eliminating racism” in the force under his command.
The first official day of the 2024 election campaign kicked off in Palmerston on Thursday, as both major parties took to the battleground satellite city for press conferences, while an independent MLA found himself saving the day for the CLP when a couple of countrymen from Wadeye crashed the party’s presser making its politicians uncomfortable.
Territory Labor says it will commit the $180 million to cover the bare minimum needed to tackle domestic violence in the Territory – if elected – after eight years of steady cuts to DV services and following internal reports released a year ago that warned the government’s cuts and inconsistent policies could result in “serious harm or death”.
NT Government ministers will be subject to new “controls and processes” for managing their conflicts of interest following another internal government review, with no specific penalties put in place for those who breach the new guidelines.
ANALYSIS: If you need any evidence of a pervasive culture of bullying and cover-up in the upper echelons of the NT Public Service, then look no further than the ease at which DIPL chief executive Andrew Kirkman resorted to blackmailing a female staffer when she questioned his decision.
DIPL chief executive Andrew Kirkman has been referred to the Public Employment Commissioner following a court ruling that found he engaged in “an aggressive, threatening and inappropriate manner” toward a female staffer, while an internal investigation in 2021 recommended forbidding recording conversations in the department after Mr Kirkman was exposed.
SECRET RECORDING: Department of Infrastructure chief executive Andrew Kirkman slammed his fists on his desk, yelled at a female staffer and said her career would be “destroyed” if she appealed his decision to move her out of the office, a secret recording aired in a Work Health Court hearing has revealed.
Chief Minister Eva Lawler says ministerial staffers can solicit political donations for Territory Labor, but only after work hours, as the NT Electoral Commission released the latest political donation returns, that show Tamboran Resources is Labor’s largest donor ahead of the 2024 general election. SEE THE FULL LIST
EXCLUSIVE: The police officer who fired a single shot at a disturbed man in Parap last week that missed the target is currently a trained marksman in the elite NT Police’s Territory Response Group, the NT Independent can reveal, who was in the IRT unit back in 2019 when he sent racist text messages calling Indigenous people “n****rs”, but was later promoted to the TRG.
EXCLUSIVE: Labor campaign mastermind and federal gas lobbyist consultant Gerard Richardson was hired by former chief minister Natasha Fyles at considerable cost to Territory taxpayers, before she was forced to resign in scandal and his contract terminated.
