EXCLUSIVE: NT Police Assistant Commissioner Janelle Tonkin sat on two hiring panels that promoted at least two senior police officers with whom she had allegedly been involved in separate sexual relationships but did not declare any conflicts of interest, sources with knowledge of the situation have told the NT Independent, with the matter mysteriously removed from the Justice Alan Blow report into senior police appointments publicly released last October.
A Federal Court judge has ordered Katherine Town Council to reinstate its former chief executive officer Ingrid Stonhill and allow her to continue on worker’s compensation leave until the conclusion of two unlawful discrimination complaints currently being investigated by the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Northern Territory Police say an officer who shared a photo of a half-naked distressed Aboriginal woman with colleagues in a group chat will not face a criminal investigation, partly because he had received an internal punishment of 12 months’ good behaviour, while the agency has refused to say whether the woman was asked if she wanted the matter investigated.
The Local Government Minister and the Katherine Town Council will not say why an investigation was launched into the council last year, but the NT Independent understands it probed elected members’ understanding of their roles and the now former chief executive’s performance.
EXCLUSIVE: Another Charles Darwin University program has been called into question amid the recently disclosed TAFE accreditation failure, with the Bachelor of Humanitarian Aid and Development course the subject of an external review following multiple student complaints into delayed fieldwork placements, over-enrolled classes and serious staffing issues, including allegations responsible instructors were not properly qualified.
Outgoing Charles Darwin University vice-chancellor Scott Bowman will remain in his position until the end of April on ‘gardening leave’ the university has confirmed, which will see him paid in the vicinity of $125,000 over that time, but the university would not say what type of payout he may receive after signing a five year contract extension in late November that was worth as much as $3.5 million.
Health Minister Steve Edgington has refused to say whether the Finocchiaro Government will fund the second half of the controversial NT Health Acacia IT system which has cost $320 million so far, instead hand-balling the issue to bureaucrats who told a parliamentary committee it was being shelved pending new funding approvals, while the head of the responsible department reportedly told a parliamentary inquiry last week they had no estimates for how much it would cost to complete the system.
Former Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw has been hired by St John Ambulance NT in a new undisclosed role, following the appointment of a new chief executive, while both the NT branch and St John Ambulance Australia declined to respond to an allegation that a preferred CEO candidate was put forward by the federal body and rejected by the NT organisation.
Darwin’s property and juvenile crime police unit, Strike Force Trident, is being moved from the Casuarina Police Station to be absorbed by the Crime and Intelligence Command at the Peter McCauley Centre, the police union has said, a move the man who established the unit said could see members siphoned off to other parts of the agency due to political pressures, leading to a potential increase in property crime.
Half of the controversial $320 million NT Health Acacia patient record IT system is being shelved pending new funding approvals, bureaucrats have told a parliamentary committee, despite their own previous warnings that not fully implementing it risks a “catastrophic IT systems failure” that could disrupt health services.
St John Ambulance NT has announced Deputy Chief Minister Gerard Maley’s chief of staff Abigail Trewin as the new chief executive of the troubled organisation, with the politician paying tribute to her in a press release announcing her appointment but failing to disclose she was working for him.
Police Commissioner Martin Dole has appointed Commander James J. O’Brien as acting deputy commissioner, leap-frogging him over four assistant commissioners and three acting assistant commissioners, in a move labelled “very odd” and a “massive slap in the face to all the staff ranked above him” by a former officer, but described as a “common occurrence” by the top cop.
