In the last two weeks we have boldly strode well past the concept of just Clown Town – welcome to Planet Clown Town. We are now operating in a different reality in a different galaxy. There is a lack of oxygen here and we find it difficult to breathe.

Last week was a new low point for integrity in the Northern Territory, and integrity was not able to evolve and drag its busted arse out of the Planet Clown Town primordial soup this week.

We could have raffled who to pin the clown nose on this week.

Everything and everyone has been as transparent as the Adelaide River. But there are more cold-blooded apex predators than the Adelaide River could hold.

For reasons that will become clear later, the image of small time crook and part time actor Jack Karlson being arrested in a Fortitude Valley Chinese restaurant in 1991 came to mind last week for alcohol-fuelled, hazy goings-on in the Territory.

As Karlson said to the arresting officers then, perhaps as a prophecy for the Territory in 2024: “Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest”.

Karlson for chief minister anyone?

TELL us what you have seen happening in Clown Town at news@ntindependent.com.au

The Minister we deserve

Brent Potter, aka Brylcreem Brent, is the all-singing, all-dancing, all-Nazi-quoting Alt-right opportunist Labor Minister for Brent Potter’s Self Interest. He is the man he thinks you want him to be in any given moment. But not the man you really need him to be.

He made Clown Town last week for the extraordinary coincidences around him buying shares, and how he was pre-selected. But this is a bloke who is ambitious and desperately wanted the Photoshopped clown nose.

This week the NT Independent revealed posts from Brylcreem Brent’s now-deleted Facebook page from between five-and-11 years ago that can be summarised as follows: quoting Nazis; praising Vladimir Putin; permitting the casual use of the n-word amongst family members; sharing a link to a video about how to “destroy” the Black Lives Matter movement; using a derogatory slur against gay people; promoting “toxic masculinity”; and sharing multiple posts from conservative media websites and far-right groups in which he mocked Federal Labor and former Victorian premier Dan Andrews.

His explanation was a beautiful mix. At once he said it was military-themed cynical and satirical humour you would only understand if you were a veteran. And if he didn’t hook the Million Dollar Fish with that one, he cast out the line that in his 20s, like many people, he did things on social media he regretted and would never do again with the benefit of hindsight.

The next day he developed further “hindsight”, the sort of “hindsight” that only comes with national media coverage of your failings. Then he decided the posts were racist. His changing story reminds us of the exceptional, ever-expanding truths of bongo-playing now-suspended Barkly mayor Jeffrey McLaughlin when explaining his child-sitting-on ways to the media over a couple of days.

It doesn’t help that last week Brylcreem Brent fronted the media, when talking about alleged racism in NT Police, and said: “You’re always troubled when you hear racism comments, and comments that are derogatory, because they have no place in this organisation or any department”, while also reiterating on Monday that racism “will not be tolerated by myself or my colleagues”.

Potter’s explanations have all the authenticity of a pleather couch. He is disassociated from reality, as if lies are his truths; he is George Costanza on crack. He concocts more fantasy than his cousin Beatrix.

He is not a leader the NT needs but he is probably one we deserve. If he ever tries to sell you a monorail just say no. Actually just say no to whatever he says.

To sort of paraphrase his Nazi inspiration, in the absence of orders, Potter should go find what is left of his political career and kill it.

Restoring integrity to government (again) didn’t last long

Seventy-six days – including the Christmas-New Year break – was all it took for the current incarnation of the Territory Labor Government to seemingly surpass redemption.

Chief Minister Eva Lawler should pat herself on the back for smashing Michael Gunner and Natasha Fyles’s records on achieving that.

She this week hitched her reality and the Territory’s reality to Brylcreem Brent’s on Planet Clown Town. As she did for him a couple weeks back over his shares madness and Deputy Chief Minister Chanston Paech over his own shares debacle before that.

And just like our political leaders stretching back to at least 2013, she is not a leader where truth and integrity seems to hold value. Planet Clown Town has a real Trumpian feel.

Lawler too had her ever-expanding truths moment. When asked about racism in NT Police on ABC radio the day before the first NT Independent story, she denounced racism and comments against multi-cultural groups, and Islam, and said it was more cowardly to make the comments on social media than in person.

The next day however, in response to the real Brylcreem Brent being exposed, she said there was no place for racists BUT (emphasis ours) Potter had made the posts “around a decade ago” (between five-and-11 years ago actually) and he regretted it and they don’t reflect the 2024 version of Brylcreem Brent.

By Thursday she said he was an “idiot”.

Clown Town wonders what her final position will be as this saga drags on. The truth here is like a rolling stone.

But we know she is adamant and will not move from her position that racism has no place in the NT; unless it comes from someone in her Cabinet and enough time has past.

And that, effectively, is the best the fifth floor brains trust could come up.

The government is in more shit than a Leanyer duck.

“I wasn’t racist then but I have changed a lot…’: Police Commissioner

Police Commissioner Michael Murphy dragged the top cop role into farce.

Judging by his performance it seem unfathomable he is not wearing the clown nose this week. But disgrace is also a rolling stone, and moves quickly in the NT.

Last week, while giving evidence at the Kumanjayi Walker coronial, Zach Rolfe made allegations of racism in the NT Police, which included hearsay allegations of Territory Response Group members giving out an annual “Noogada” award – which Rolfe said was colloquially knowns as the ‘coon of the year’ award – and of Murphy getting kicked out of a Chinese restaurant for being verbally abusive, and saying something racist.

Murphy’s high-priced taxpayer-funded lawyer asked for a non-publication order on his rank and name, even though it had been live-streamed and the details were not redacted from the livestream video the next day.

At a press conference the next day, Murphy made the Police Minister and journalists all fly to Planet Clown Town with him and pretend that no accusation had been made against him as he hid behind the non-publication order.

You would think a Police Commissioner would have fronted the media, said the allegation was against him, and that it was not true. Nothing to fear if you have done nothing wrong, we could imagine he would say to a criminal.

Instead, it seems judging by the scant details from his press conference, he decided who would investigate him, and who would investigate allegations of racism in the Territory Response Group.

He also flatly denied to journalists making any racist comments at any time, when asked.

But that denial was not his to make, and he had no ethical place to tell the public that.

The Independent Commissioner Against Corruption wrote to Coroner Elisabeth Armitage after “investigating” the matter to inform that Murphy had said he was too drunk in a Chinese restaurant to recall if he racially abused staff.

“He does not deny that it was said. In the event that Mr Murphy did make the comment, he has expressed his embarrassment and remorse,” he wrote.

“Mr Murphy does have a recollection of being asked to leave the restaurant, although cannot recall the reason.”

Did Murphy tell the ICAC, “yeah, that sounds like something I would say”?

By the time this week rolled around, Murphy obviously had the benefit of more media-inspired “hindsight”, denying any memory of saying something racist but then saying all that mattered was “who I am now”, and that he had “grown a lot in time over 25 years”.

So what was he before exactly? He kind of sounded like a young Brylcreem Brent, but worse than the Police Minister who could bring himself to say he was racist, while Murphy instead played around the edges and tried to score points for having changed but not willing to admit what he had done.

Clown Town reckons he Fully Manicarosed himself.

As we understand it, Murphy could now probably just be a placeholder while we wait for the details of police racism pus to be slowly squeezed out of this gigantic wound, and we find out what Murphy knew and when.

Does anyone apart from himself and Police Minister Brylcreem Brent believe he is the man to deal with racism in the force with the intestinal fortitude he displayed over the last two weeks?

Brylcreem Brent, of course, has admitted to his own racism and not quit, so on what basis could he ever tell the police commissioner to go if it came to that?

Crazily enough on Monday, less than two days before he was verbally stumbling along like a drunk man, trying to excuse his own failings, Potter said of Murphy’s situation: “Racism or discrimination in any form is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated by myself or my colleagues.”

We fixed if for you Brent: “Racism or discrimination in any form is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated by myself or my colleagues FOR THE NEXT DAY AND A HALF, after which it all becomes okay, or if you are the Police Commissioner and you were too maggoted to remember”.

The Independent Clown Against Corruption

The police racism allegations were made on the Monday. On Tuesday, it was announced the allegation against Murphy – which at the time we were pretending wasn’t against him – would be investigated with “a level of independence” and that may include the ICAC.

By Friday, the now renamed Independent Clown Against Corruption, Little Mickey Riches, had written to the coroner, saying he had immediately stopped making his latest educational TikToks about conflicts of interest and initiated an investigation into the matter upon hearing Mr Rolfe make the allegations on Monday during the live stream of the coronial inquest because it was “serious and that it was in the public interest that I investigate”.

After having eaten many succulent Chinese meals of Peking duck and special fried rice to get into the mind of the Police Commissioner, he concluded that he was buggered if he knew what had happened, or what was true, and it was not in the public interest to investigate further.

“Mr Murphy does have a recollection of being asked to leave the restaurant, although cannot recall the reason,” Corruption Clown wrote.

He added that “another witness” who had told Murphy and others that Murphy had been directed to leave the restaurant for making the racist comment, later told the ICAC that “he embellished that story and that Mr Murphy had not in fact been asked to leave”.

Admittedly it is alleged to have happened at least 21-years ago, and he said the Chinese restaurant had closed. What he didn’t say was that it only closed last year and the man who owned it and ran it is fairly well known.

We deduce from his comments that he didn’t try to speak to the owner or any of the staff, and relied heavily on the accounts of two police officers who are still under the command of Murphy.

Mickey Riches has been in the job since July 2021, and from what we can tell, the majority of investigations will take about 17 years to complete; so three days to come to a “I’m buggered if I know” conclusion makes him the Territory’s own The Flash. And compared to his usual “output” sadly seems like an improvement.

Just pretend he didn’t half-arse it.

Clown Town opened a fortune cookie we think was meant for ICAC: “A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking”.

Cops investigating cops

TRG members’ sworn affidavits were given to the coroner on the Thursday, in which they said the Noogada award, was not a racist award as claimed.

When the affidavits were presented to the court, Rolfe’s barrister Michael Abbott asked the coroner why the certificates that had been given out with the awards were not attached to them. He said they were clearly racist and he had asked for them to be produced.

Some of the certificates were handed to the court the next day and at least one of the awards was described as featuring a backdrop of the Aboriginal flag, but the actual certificates were suppressed from media publication because Murphy’s lawyer argued they could be fake. There is little doubt Ian Freckelton was really the only person in that courtroom who could be bothered putting on the Planet Clown virtual reality headset and argue they could be fake.

Based on the description of them given, they seemed to show the TRG officers were lying to the court.

So what was the coroner’s response to Abbott the day before about where these seemingly vital pieces of evidence were?

Coroner Armitage said that police had investigated the allegations of racism in the TRG awards and “if they choose to provide further evidence they can do so”.

“There are other mechanisms for evidence to be produced for these proceedings which would be open to you,” she told Mr Abbott.

Perhaps by the coroner forcing the issue? It seems, based on that, the inquiry is interested in showing a small group of low and mid-ranking cops including Rolfe are racists but when the racists are of too high a rank the court loses interest.

Yeah, just let the cops investigate themselves.