Calls for Labor Minister Brent Potter’s resignation mounted Wednesday following revelations in the NT Independent that he privately purchased shares in the government-backed $1.8 billion Seafarms major prawn harvesting project while a senior adviser to the minister responsible, which critics called the latest “appalling” example of the severe lack of integrity surrounding the current government.

Chief Minister Eva Lawler backed Mr Potter on Wednesday, as she did following revelations earlier this month that her deputy Chansey Paech purchased shares in a grog wholesale company ahead of liquor bans being lifted in remote communities in 2022, stating that any suggestion Mr Potter “has done something dodgy is wrong”.

“Eva Lawler defending both Chansey Paech and Brent Potter reflects on her own moral compass,” independent MLA Robyn Lambley said.

“This continuing Labor integrity saga is appalling. These people are not worthy of the esteemed positions they hold [as ministers]. If Paech and Potter had any respect for Territorians, they would do the right thing and step down immediately.”

NT Greens candidate for Mr Potter’s current seat of Fannie Bay Suki Dorras-Walker called on the Chief Minister to clean up her government’s integrity crisis.

“Eva Lawler must act, the NT Government cannot continue to be a consequence-free zone,” she said.

“While Territorians are hurting from the soaring cost of living, our representatives appear to be more concerned with their share portfolio than serving constituents. This is another example of our representatives using their power to benefit themselves and not the community.

“We desperately need representatives who are not acting out of self-interest.”

Mr Potter privately purchased the shares in Seafarms Group in June 2021, while employed as a senior adviser to then-aquaculture minister Nicole Manison, which a national integrity expert said was problematic due to the possibility that Mr Potter could have access to sensitive government information about the Seafarms project before making his investment decision.

Ms Lawler told the NT Independent in a statement on Wednesday that “while Brent Potter owned these shares as a ministerial staffer, strict processes were put in place by his manager that ensured no confidential information about the project was discussed with him”.

However, those processes were put in place after Mr Potter bought the shares while employed as a senior adviser. He commenced the role in Ms Manison’s office in November 2020 and purchased the shares seven months later, in June 2021, one month before another government press release about the project was issued to celebrate its share placement scheme raising $92 million.

The Labor Government publicly pumped $56 million of public funds into the project through upgrades to major roads accessing the Legune Station prawn farm facility since 2020.

Ms Lawler said a review “into conflicts of interest” she ordered upon assuming the role after former chief minister Natasha Fyles resigned in December amid her own shares scandal, would “make the system simpler and more transparent for Territorians”, although she provided no examples.

She added Mr Potter had declared the shares on his Register of Members’ Interests forms after being elected as the Member for Fannie Bay and sold them when he became a Minister.

However, Mr Potter breached the Legislative Assembly Disclosures of Interests Act by not reporting his divestment of the shares within the mandated 28-day reporting period, which he claimed was an “administrative oversight”.

Records show Mr Potter sold the Seafarms Group shares on November 17, 2023 – the day after Ms Fyles divested her shares in Woodside Energy – for $0.004 per share, or $34.80 in total, which was a massive loss on the $500 he purchased them for in June 2021, around the time share prices dropped from nine cents to six.

He told ABC Radio on Wednesday that he “knew nothing more than any, everyday Territorian” when he purchased the shares.

Mr Potter previously attracted controversy for potential conflicts of interest involving government money in 2022, when the NT Independent revealed he was heavily involved as Ms Manison’s adviser in securing $10 million in public money for Amphibian Aerospace Industries – a company that has pledged to rebuild an old an amphibian aircraft – that the Labor Government claimed would result in the company contributing $100 million of economic activity to Darwin by the end of the decade. Mr Potter previously worked for the CEO of AAI in a business called Elbit Systems.