The former editor of the NT News, who left the job after his involvement in the Darwin Turf Club’s grandstand scandal was made public and who wrote an editorial backing the federal Labor Party in 2019, has been named director of communications for the Finocchiaro CLP Government.

Matt Williams left the newspaper in 2021, after five years as editor, following a tumultuous time that saw him outed as the senior media figure who offered to provide the Turf Club with favourable media coverage while the public was outraged and the club was under investigation for the misuse of $12 million of taxpayer funds for the grandstand project.

His departure also came amid revelations senior management at the newspaper were concerned about attack stories he had published about the Office of the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption in the lead up to the grandstand report being released and offered to bring in an external editor to monitor its stories about the ICAC.

Political insiders were surprised by Williams’ appointment to the senior CLP Government role, given his “baggage” and the fact he has no political experience.

“Forgetting his history here, he has no experience as a political adviser and that will be a problem for a new government just coming in,” one former CLP operative said.

“It’s just stupid to hire him and puts the [Chief Minister’s] office at a disadvantage during this crucial time [of transition to government].”

The Finocchiaro Government recently advertised for a multitude of senior policy advisers and other key roles after winning a massive election victory last month, which raised questions at the time about why the party wasn’t better prepared with at least a few experienced political people ready to step in to key roles.

Sources said all MLAs showed up to the fifth floor for work on Monday and were greeted by Williams in his new role, while nobody was clear on who had made the call to hire him.

It’s understood only three people are currently involved in hiring for senior government roles, including Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro, her chief of staff Terri Hart and Adam Giles’ former chief of staff Tim Baldwin.

The NT Independent understands Williams was made redundant by News Corp recently, after taking a job as a “national racing and sports wagering editorial director” after leaving the NT News amid controversy in 2021.

The then-general manager of the paper said at the time that Williams leaving for that job was a “coincidence”, following revelations Williams had written a text to former Darwin Turf Club chair Brett Dixon in 2019 that was included in the ICAC’s investigation report, in which Williams pledged to do his “absolute best to put a stop to” negative media coverage around the grandstand and that Mr Dixon could “count on us to deliver plenty of positivity when the grandstand opens”.

Williams had been a regular guest of Mr Dixon’s at various racing events over the years, with the ICAC finding in its June 2021 report that the “senior media figure” had a “personal and professional relationship with actors central to the ICAC investigation and their industry” and that Williams’ pledge of favourable media coverage “was honoured and continues to this day”.

Williams and News Corp’s lawyers filed a complaint to the ICAC Inspector in late 2021, alleging the text message was incomplete and that the ICAC had breached its own Act by not providing Williams with a chance to respond before publishing the text in the report, while withholding his name.

Inspector Bruce McClintock found the ICAC breached the Act and should have afforded Williams the right to respond, and that the last line of the message was cut off due to an error in obtaining the message by investigators. It did not change the context of the previous lines which outlined the favourable media coverage Williams had pledged to Dixon for the grandstand.

The entire report into the grandstand, which had found “corruption, misconduct, breaches of public trust and mismanagement of public resources”, implicating senior public servants, local businessmen and Darwin Turf Club members, was eventually removed from the agency’s website in 2022 by Michael Riches, following secret negotiations with unnamed parties that eventually ended legal action against the OICAC. To date, nobody has been held responsible for their actions in relation to the misuse of $12 million of public funds.

‘Blatant, political, misguided advice’: Stone on Williams

In 2019, Williams oversaw an editorial at the NT News that encouraged Territorians to vote for Bill Shorten’s Federal Labor Party at the 2019 election, stating that “if you don’t want the next three years to be a lost opportunity for the Territory, it is important you vote Labor in Saturday’s Federal Election”.

Current CLP president and former chief minister Shane Stone attacked the editorial on his “Stone Family in Australia” blog at the time, tagging Williams and calling it the worst advice he had seen in his career in politics.

“In all the years of Territory politics dating from self-government, never before has such blatant, political and misguided advice been forthcoming,” he wrote.

Labor and Mr Shorten were easily defeated by Scott Morrison and the Coalition that year, in what has become known as the “unlosable election” that Labor lost.

Asked if he was concerned about potential “misguided advice” being offered to Ms Finocchiaro by Williams in his new role, Mr Stone said all hiring decisions are made by the Chief Minister and that “quite frankly, I don’t recall him”.

A series of questions to Ms Finocchiaro about the hiring of Williams went unanswered.

A response email quoted an unnamed “spokesperson” for the Chief Minister saying: “We don’t comment on individual staff”.

 

DISCLOSURE: NT Independent editor Christopher Walsh was senior political reporter for the NT News between 2014 and 2017 and sued News Corp and Williams for wrongful dismissal in 2017. The matter was settled out of court.