US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US Department of Energy, Chris Wright, is also chief executive of a company that has a stake in Beetaloo Basin fracker Tamboran Resources.

Golden snapper around Darwin remain overfished, with around one fifth of their original population left, and with fishing mortality rates estimated to be more than double the rate considered sustainable, which will prevent stocks from recovering, the Golden Snapper Stock Assessment report says.

The Finocchiaro Government has named former INPEX NT general manager Stuart Knowles as the interim Territory Coordinator, on the same day it publicly released its proposed legislation that would give the position and the Chief Minister sweeping powers to exempt certain projects from environmental and other regulatory processes.

Empire Energy’s pilot project to frack gas in the Beetaloo Basin has been given environmental approval, the company has said, while an environmental group estimated the approval would allow the company to use 410 million litres of water, the equivalent of 164 Olympic swimming pools and produce 72 pools worth of fracking wastewater over the life of the project.

Solar installation company Mpriza Group Pty Ltd and its manager, Nicholas Zikos, have been fined after pleading guilty in Darwin Local Court to multiple work health and safety breaches, some of which were brought after the company “inadvertently” sent evidence of its own wrongdoing to NT WorkSafe.

Darwin Council will spend more than double the money on a new civic centre than it said it would spend two years ago, as part of a new public-private development deal announced with developer DCOH.

Infrastructure Australia rejected the Northern Territory Government’s business case for the proposed Middle Arm industrial precinct, documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws show, while the NT Environmental Protection Agency has extended its deadline by two years for the government to submit an environment impact statement, pushing the project start date back to at least 2026.

Millions of Territory taxpayer dollars have been wasted on the proposal to manufacture amphibious aircraft in the Northern Territory, with the Chief Minister announcing the project is currently in limbo as the government attempts to claw back millions from Amphibious Aerospace Industries, which is allegedly only operating out of the United States currently.