EDITORIAL: This weekâs bleak Territory budget has ticked the third and final box for a federal administrative intervention.
While we already knew the Northern Territory Government could not keep the public safe, while openly applauding and engaging in widespread corruption that goes unchecked, on Tuesday we were provided hard evidence the government cannot manage its own finances.
These are all valid and concise reasons why the Federal Government could and should intervene in the Territoryâs affairs. The rest of the country is paying for this madness after all, with more than 70 per cent of our revenue coming from the Commonwealth.
The financial problems raised again in the 2025 Budget, which the current CLP Government is not entirely responsible for but have shown no ability or desire to fix, highlights that this jurisdiction cannot manage its financial affairs to anything resembling competence. Weâre quickly becoming insolvent and in many ways have already crossed the threshold of no return.
One of the most striking figures released on Tuesday was in book two of the Budget papers, listed under âfinancial risksâ.
It showed our debt net to revenue ratio is out of control, with no relief in sight. This is the figure that illustrates our ability to pay back our debt with the money we have. It shows we cannot “prudently” manage the debt and it’s getting worse. This will inevitably see our credit rating downgraded, making it even more expensive to borrow money and ultimately more difficult to pay back our massively increasing $12 billion debt, which is far and away the highest per capita in the country.
The cost to service that debt is rapidly increasing and the best the Treasury boffins could say is that while our ratio is alarmingly above the state average, the rest of the states and the other territory might catch up with us soon. Hardly reassuring and not the hallmarks of a government interested in ensuring we start repairing our budget and live within our means.
This is not the fault of the current CLP, the feds themselves have much blame to take for the infrastructure deficit inherited at self-government that we have never been able to get on top of. But while Territory Labor started the current trajectory we’re on through absolute bumbling incompetence over eight years, watching the CLP come in and continue along the same course is demoralising and reflective of a government completely bereft of ideas and capability just nine months into their term.
We need assistance from Canberra to get the books right and the NT Government should not be allowed to borrow any more money until it is put under management and we find a way to get the debt under control and effectively manage our affairs.
The other situation requiring federal action, is the continual out-of-control crime crisis that never improves.
Knife crime in particular is rampant, a reality made all too painful with the recent death of Nightcliff store owner Linford Feick. Then there was the midday stabbing in Alice Springs this week in front of families, who rightfully feared for their lives.
Not to mention the other horror stories of unprovoked violence, daily aggravated robberies and assaults and the multitude of other crimes and home invasions across the NT, from Alice to Tennant Creek, to Katherine and Darwin, causing the public to live in fear, including in their own homes.
Our governmentâs only solution is to change bail laws in the hopes of locking up more people, which evidence has shown will not keep us any safer despite all the money we want to throw at it that we donât have.
Keeping the public safe is job one of a government. But our current government, like the one before it, is too busy appointing mates for high-paying jobs and looking after themselves while the judicial system collapses along with the rest of our public institutions.
Which brings us to the widespread systemic corruption in the NT Public Service and our government. This is the reason Labor lost the last election, not because we all decided suddenly that Lia Finocchiaro could solve our problems. A monkey could have won that election with the same kind of vocabulary.
Where the Finocchiaro Government has ultimately failed is by choosing to also follow Labor’s corruption path, openly rewarding corruption, covering it up and now actively engaging in it.
Lia agrees with former Labor govt on corruption cover-ups
Just this week we saw our illustrious Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby argue in Parliament that a person should have been given an interview for the highly-paid important public position as director of Legal Aid NT because of who she knows, not what she knows. When she wasn’t given that interview because an independent panel found her unqualified, the Attorney-General took it upon herself to circumvent the process and hand her the job.
The fact Catherine Voumard is still taking the job after all the public controversy and the uproar in the legal community does not bode well.
But this week also saw Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro – who continues to hide from questions about her husband’s involvement in the Waterfront scandal after getting her Attorney-General to dismiss it through a “review” conducted by the people engaging in the misconduct – award an even higher-paying job to a man with the power to circumvent the Territory’s laws to approve projects he deems essential for our future.
Stuart Knowles’s four-year contract as Territory Coordinator, estimated to be at least $2 million for a job that never involved a public recruitment process, was awarded in the middle of serious concerns about his involvement in not only cruelty to animals, but the burying of the charges against him, with the cover-up ordered by the current head of Mining and Energy Alister Trier when he was in another department in 2015.
Lia’s argument for not taking action to investigate the possible coercion of the most powerful public servant we have and the termination of criminal charges before they went to court, is that former Labor chief minister Natasha Fyles took no action when she was informed about the same matter in 2023. Funny that the only time Lia agrees with Labor is when the cover-up of corruption is involved.
We get that ministers have the power in some circumstances to appoint who they want, but it’s the ongoing failure to base those appointments on merit and find the best people for the job that is suffocating the Territory.
How can Lia sack former police commissioner Michael Murphy for hiring one of his mates for a senior job, then turn around and start doing the same thing herself, while openly applauding her Attorney-General for following suit?
Maybe her arrogance is buoyed by who she appointed to be the anti-corruption watchdog.
Our Independent Commissioner Against Corruption for the foreseeable future is Greg Shanahan, a man directly appointed by the Chief Minister, and a long-time public servant who just happens to be best mates with those same men and women who have destroyed our Territory and compromised its progress and future to enrich themselves over many decades.
The public has no faith in the body charged with investigating and exposing corruption at the highest levels of government and the public service, but yet we’re continuing to pay Shanahan $500k a year and pumping $6.6 million into his office this year to take no action on blatant corruption in the most corrupt jurisdiction in Australia.
No amount of jingoistic propaganda about Territory Day and fireworks in state media can distract from our issues. The problems are massive and need our attention to fix.
The days of pitting us against our southern neighbours are over for now, because successive Territory governments have made our southern neighbours’ assistance critical for our future.
Lia need not worry about covering herself in patriotic glory to celebrate the day we gained self-government. She is looking more and more likely to be the Chief Minister who oversees us handing it back.
Our current CLP and ALP members of Parliament should also no longer worry about re-election come August 2028.
At this rate, weâll be lucky if the Northern Territory exists in three years.
CLP MLA Resume/Linkedin entry in 2028 :”From 2025 in record time, as a Minister in a highly functioning Cabinet, my team successfully gave the Territory Economy the coup-de-grace it required. The CLP Cabinet successfully continued funding bullshit events/programmes and successfully avoided any prudent fiscal cuts. We successfully did not cut the Public Service headcount which was proudly the highest per population headcount in Australia, a glorious 1 Public Servant for every 9 Territorians, unmatched anywhere else. Private sector workers where proudly sacrificed to achieve this noble goal. Liaised extensively with Federal Government Intervention Team 2, and handed them the keys to Parliament House.”
Excellent editorial by the NT Independent newspaper.
Good mornings all,
Firstly-My sincere heartfelt thanks that Territorians have a true media outlet with not only balls but also respect!
This editorial pinged on my phone just as l was about to gather all my chopped ingredients to begin cooking my best mate(wife) her request for an omelette!
Never have truer words been arranged so perfectly such as to sound the bells of fear for the future vision of our NT, our independence and our livelihood as Territorians!
Itâs game time, big time and l strongly urge Territorians to put your game boots on, grab the sliced oranges and meet at the field of despair!
Now to cook the omelette!
You can bet all of them are as busy as little bees topping up super and lining up jobs before judgement day that will surely come. The gravy train is slowing.
The CLP, a fresh start, they said. A new direction. Less corruption, more competence. And Territorians, bless their optimism, believed them.
What’s more surprising is that it hasn’t even been a year, but it feels like longer, and here we are: same swamp, different crocodiles. “Crocs in the Cabinet 3” is writing itself đ€Ł
Under Lia’s enlightened leadership, the NT hasnât just stumbled, itâs face-planted into a governance crisis so dire that even the NT Independent is openly musing about federal intervention. Not satire. Actual editorial. When your local paperâs headline might as read âSEND HELPâ, you know things are going well and we have 3 more years of it. I can foresee all future headlines, if it wasn’t so absolutely dismal it would be comedy show.
Letâs talk about fiscal responsibility, the CLPâs favourite talking point that they harped on about for the last 8 years. Their solution? Some vague waffle about âbudget savingsâ and âreprioritisation.â They even trotted out the always-reliable scapegoat: cutting interstate consultancy fees. But when pressed on where $104 million in extra cuts would come from, Lia shrugged and gestured vaguely at âwaste.â No cuts to public sector jobs, they swore. Just…magic?
Meanwhile, contracts are mysteriously landing in the laps of CLP-aligned businesses, shocker there, without the pesky hassle of competitive tendering. Itâs the ALPâs cronyism all over again, just in a different-coloured polo shirt.
Take water, for instance. The ALP copped flak for a shady water license near Mataranka back in 2022. The CLP screamed blue murder at the time. But now that theyâre in charge? Not only did they not reverse it – they didnât even bother to review it. Apparently, “corrupt and opaque” is fine, so long as itâs their corrupt and opaque.
On infrastructure, itâs deja vu. Projects are stalled or ballooning in cost. Roads crumble, hospital blowouts, public housing is still a bad joke, especially our rural. But donât worry, Lia assures us she cares deeply. Unfortunately, platitudes donât lay bricks or pour concrete – what a ****ing con.
And then we have the ICAC. You know, that pesky watchdog that was supposed to stop all this. Instead, itâs been neutered into irrelevance. The ALP weakened it, sure. But the CLP? They just sat on their hands while it burned. Commissioner resigns amid scandal? Meh. ICAC finds corruption in high places? Table the report, move along. Nothing to see here…it’s like every other report before it, sits in the deep dark recesses of the CLP secretariat never to see the light of day again.
Letâs not kid ourselves here CLP isn’t trying to reform the system, they decided the path of least resistance and merged with it. Every promise they made is now buried under layers of spin and dysfunction. Territorians didnât just get more of the same, they got it with smugness and a fresh coat of paint.
So the NT Independent calls for federal intervention, itâs not alarmist – itâs the political equivalent of calling triple zero while the house burns down. Because this isnât governance. Itâs theatre. And the punchline is on us.
Hopefully they will be a one term party…
âRe-integratedâ into South Australia?
I think debt to GDP is currently in the order of31%. Increase to 17B in 5 years and sSay GSP increases 4%PA. Then we will have debt to GDP of 40%. Aus gov currenly on about 30Q%. US on 124%. So in the eyes of the Gov it is all OK??. Which of course depends. Can we halt the increase. Our future depends on gas sales. Literally.
Surely, now the time? For Administrator of our failed and corrupt Northern Territory to speak out? Inform all territorians that Self-Government currently, non- viable? It is not a time to look over the shoulder. Enmesh ourselves, wondering why? That comes later. Right now we are bereft of leadership, stability, vision, safety . . . and governance.
Youâre all missing the point, well one of the points.
Feds wonât step in, neither will Administrator, both doing so would require tons of extra work that they donât have the stomach for.
The corruption here in NT is magnified because of the small muddy puddle we live in and the amplification of converging views here on NTI.
The mechanisms of checks and balances are being ignored, in full view, because those in power know there are no consequences. As Maley told the ABC: if people want to complain then they can do that once every 4 years.
So, the next group of people to follow this corrupt and couldnât care less band of LiaRs and incompetents will have to change The Game. Working within the current rules (written by the powerful, and we include the ALP) is open to too much abuse. Playing the current Game allows the Maleys of the world to gloat while they gorge.
If you feel that there arenât enough decent people out there to take over and run the place properly – which our household totally disagrees with by the way – then you must play a different Game.
This means, for example, changing the rules around a 4 year election cycle. Make it 2, f**k itâ make it 1 until everyone involved learns to f**king behave themselves and stop stealing shit. Short term pain, long term gain.
Or, change the while voting system to make it more representative of smaller groups who have a better chance to oppose certain decisions from big parties. True proportional representation for example, there are others which can be tweaked to make it contextually appropriate for our Territory.
Or, change legislation so that Captainâs picks no longer exist. Donât see the ALP or CLP cutting their own throats by doing this because they both love it when itâs them doing it for their mates. Of course they wonât, so a completely new way of doing politics needs introduced in the NT to suit the unique and high level of corrupt people we have here wanting power.
Legislate, like Wales did, to make promising things while campaigning to get into office then not keeping those promises, into a criminal offence and you lose your seat as well.
Only a new Party with those kinds of ideas and more, will be able to change The Game for better outcomes.
No one is discussing changing the whole voting system. No one is threatening to prosecute people like Sam Burke and Alastair Shields. No one mentions legislating against NT Government employees being employed in ICAC.
Only one Party is: Change For Better.
Has anyone been to the Police to report a crime they see published in NTI yet? If not, then why not? The evidence is in the public domain, use it to ask the Police to prosecute those named in the criminal cover ups. Keep doing it until someone does something. Hound them, harass them, make them take us seriously.
We must change our collective mindset and take the fight directly to the corrupt. If we sit idly by and do nothing they will steal it all for themselves. While laughing at us. Which is what they are doing.
The fact that no one from the ALP has spoken out about changing The Game means they like it the way it is. This should be a red flag to everyone. No one in the current political system has any new ideas for how this can all be done differently, they accept The Game and they accept the current rules. Not one person or group other than Change For Better talks about any kind of serious systemic solution.
Who is going to put real checks and balances and legal consequences into our political life, the CLP? The ALP? One Nation? Pfffft.
Vote independent. Get involved in community democracy and find the next batch of Justine Davises. Maybe it’s you, reading this right now?
Have we left it too late? By that I mean in our small, distraught NT. Federal Govt. intervention inevitable. Why? Because, whilst our loved Territory only now has begun to recognise critical challenges. Other significant factors such as Global unrest, militarization, shrinking workforce, Indigenous fragmentation, financial debt; already in play. Prioritization? Definitely demanding Federal engagement. In one sense our sick, sorry and corrupt CLP / ALP Govt’s more likely than not had already failed essential capabilities?
Not a lot of choice, the end is nigh for the NT unfortunately. Lack of quality in the political sphere is very noticeable although this could also be noted in the federal scene.
An excellent editorial.
Very well written and significantly on point.
So, where do we go from here?