Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s proposed new bill that would ban state and territory governments from entering into agreements with China without federal approval is not expected to affect the Darwin Port lease, but will provide greater scrutiny around Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s dealings with China, a Darwin-based Chinese policy expert says.
The Gunner Government will form a majority, with the Labor party leading in 15 seats after recounts and revised two-candidate preferred counts on Monday, with 13 seats confirmed. The CLP will form official Opposition with an expected seven seats.
The Gunner Labor Government has been re-elected but by late Saturday night it remained unclear how big its expected majority will be.
In an extraordinary public statement, the NT Government has admitted TIO Stadium does not have a proper occupancy permit but says the AFL games scheduled for this weekend will go ahead anyway, raising new concerns.
TIO Stadium is not properly certified and does not have an overall occupancy permit, according to internal government documents obtained by the NT Independent, which has raised questions over whether this weekend’s AFL matches will need to be cancelled.
As the 2020 NT election heads into its final stretch, the focus has remained on the urban centres. But the bush has been where previous NT elections were won and lost. According to GetUp’s team on the ground, Indigenous Territorians are fed up with the major parties’ broken promises.
The Independent Commissioner Against Corruption is currently assessing alleged breaches of the Electoral Act in the lead up to the August 22 election that the NT Independent can reveal includes allegations the Territory Labor Party set up a taxpayer-funded email address for campaign purposes.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s repeated politicisation of the coronavirus pandemic is the focus of a fresh complaint filed with the ABC after the public broadcaster aired a Labor political ad which is alleged to have breached its editorial policies.
The Country Liberal Party will preference disgraced former speaker Kezia Purick in the seat of Goyder in the upcoming general election, the NT Independent can reveal.
Former Labor treasurer and party president Syd Stirling is one of two men who were paid an average $318 an hour to run the NT Remuneration Tribunal – the committee that recommended scrapping politicians’ requirements to publicly report their travel expenses to the public.
Territorians have been denied the right to know where their politicians travelled over the last two and a half years and how much it cost until after the election, following the government’s decision to stall the NT Independent’s Freedom of Information application into taxpayer-funded travel.
The NT Government has dropped an investigation into allegations of serious safety and building non-compliance issues with the Silks Club bar, according to a brief, four-sentence letter by the NT’s director of building control addressed to Darwin Turf Club chairman Brett Dixon.
