EDITORIAL: Chief Minister Eva Lawler’s flawed decision to keep Brent Potter in her Cabinet following revelations of his inexcusable and hateful social media posts has seen the insidious nature of racism flourish in the Northern Territory as a result, while the Chief Minister has been led down a dark path in her defence of the indefensible.

Instead of living up to her claim the day before the posts were made public that she would not tolerate racism in the NT – nor “abhorrent” hate speech online – Lawler instead showed us all how to accept it, first by excusing it and then providing a defence for it.

A defence that is now being used by some to justify racist comments on social media.

Lawler failed to properly call out Potter’s conduct when it was first revealed and instead made excuses for him – excuses for posts in which he aimed to proliferate racism, belittled women and LGBTQI community members, praised Putin, promoted Nazis and called for Jews to be arrested for practicing their religion.

It is a disgrace of the highest order that needs to be rectified immediately. Labor clearly knew the posts were a problem and hid them from the public when Potter first ran in 2022.

We’re not saying that Potter’s career in politics is immediately over, we’re saying it’s time for him to leave Cabinet right now for the good of the Northern Territory.

In pursuing her defence of Potter and his posts, our Chief Minister has demonstrated that nothing is off limits, no boundaries respected.

This week, she publicly attacked a private citizen and veteran in Parliament for having the gall to criticise Potter, she impugned the integrity of Parliament by casting unfounded aspersions against everyone in the Chamber, and it was revealed this week that her office issued a secret media statement that effectively served to run propaganda for Nazis, by denying that Potter was quoting one when he lovingly shared Erwin Rommel’s modest sentiments that “in the absence of orders go find something and kill it”.

The fifth floor has done some despicable things in the last seven-and-a-half-years, but for their highly-paid comms team and presumably leadership to come up with the tactic of downplaying those responsible for the most significant atrocity in the history of mankind to help a bozo like Brent Potter keep his job is something we will never forget. We don’t think you should either.

Lawler’s deflection on Thursday that it was Potter’s ministerial team that attempted to spread Nazi misinformation is just another example of poor leadership.

Eva Lawler is the Chief Minister and the Potter problem is hers. She is the person ultimately responsible for upholding her government’s values and our community standards.

Even the Adam Giles-led CLP government knew it was time to boot someone out of Cabinet when they failed to meet community expectations.

Lawler’s failure to uphold those community standards has been disastrous. What we’re seeing play out is what happens when leaders fail to make strong, decisive and principled decisions.

On Tuesday, a commenter on Robyn Lambley’s Facebook page did the inexcusable and called Deputy Chief Minister Chansey Paech a “useless black homo”. It was offensive, reprehensible and did not go unnoticed by the Deputy Chief Minister himself before it was deleted.

Let’s be clear here, Lawler and Labor gave the green-light for this type of conduct when they permitted Potter to remain in Cabinet with no consequences. They set the tone and the standards.

That individual qualified his hateful comment by writing: “I’m 27 and on a journey so it’s ok for me to say [that]…”

This is the defence that our Chief Minister and Police Minister armed racists with to make disgusting and hurtful comments with impunity.

It’s similar to the crime epidemic suffocating the Territory presently: There are no consequences for anyone and that starts at the highest levels of our government with the message received loud and clear that it’s fine to say and do anything.

The only people Lawler stopped short of impugning in Parliament were two nuns sitting in the gallery.

We have no idea what the nuns were doing there, but we suspect they were there to explain the concept of penance to Potter.

We can’t believe we need to say this, but the Parliament must be held to a higher standard than the general public and needs to lead by example. It’s crucial for the functioning of society.

Yet again, these Labor pollies show us that they feel they are more important than the high offices they hold.

As we said, Potter’s career doesn’t need to end right now – his life does not need to be over for his historical hateful posts which he says he now regrets – but our sanity needs to be restored while that self-described ‘dickhead’ takes some time away from making decisions that affect veterans and police officers.

He no longer commands the respect necessary to effectively function as the responsible Minister.

The people of Fannie Bay can pass ultimate judgment on him on August 24, including for the posts and his decision to privately invest in a government-backed prawn project while an adviser to the Minister responsible for the project. He can also explain why he and the Labor Party were not upfront with voters about his posts, given that he now says he disavows their sentiments.

But for right now, he needs to go away and shut up.

If Lawler can’t see why that needs to happen after all of this, then she needs to go now, too.