EDITORIAL: It is beyond comprehension and probably explanation why the Fyles Cabinet would seemingly sack the Police Commissioner, or “ask him to resign”, and then continue for days to refuse to admit they did it.

And it all comes in the middle of a crime crisis which required intervention from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese earlier this year, before leading to the stabbing death of Declan Laverty while at work in a Darwin bottle-shop, which kicked off a massive rally on the steps of Parliament House demanding action to keep the community safe.

We don’t encourage you to go down the rabbit hole of trying to understand what is going on here, because to admit to understanding what is going on here is probably to admit you have lost your sanity.

In the book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is talking to the Queen and says one cannot believe impossible things.

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” the Queen said.

“When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

But the Fyles Government, and the Gunner Government before it, has long said to Lewis Carroll: “hold my beer”.

The Queen only had to believe six impossible things per day?

The Territory Labor Government meanwhile has created a whole fictional reality of the impossible to believe.

But the fact that Chief Minister Natasha Fyles or Police Minister Kate Worden refuse to speak honestly about what has happened is also incredibly predictable despite how inexplicable it should be that it could happen.

Sky News was the first to report on Saturday that on Friday afternoon the Fyles Government asked Jamie Chalker to resign after a chaotic reign as the top cop.

Perhaps the strangest thing is that it is actually a popular decision that could have helped the government claw back a tiny amount of respect.

Mr Chalker has become a despised figure in the Territory, especially with his own members, becoming the only police commissioner in the NT to have a vote of no confidence in him – with about 80 per cent of the 1,044 officers who took part in the survey out of 1,608 who were eligible, voting against him.

In the period leading up to last August’s vote, almost acting like a tribute act to the government itself – which has never taken responsibility for anything that has gone wrong in the past six and a half years, ever – Mr Chalker and his deputies had initially said only a “small faction” had no confidence in him and that “this sentiment has caused anxiety and distress” for other police officers.

That is Mad Hatter reality.

With this government and this police commissioner, the curtains match the carpet.

It belies belief that was not the end of the road for the Police Commissioner.

That is without any attention given to allegations of seemingly attempting to pervert the course of justice in the Rolfe matter and a host of other incidents over the last three-and-a-half years.

If his deputies think that the rank-and-file not liking Chalker caused “anxiety and distress”, what do they think of what is going on now, when the government has refused to take responsibility for their own actions and explain to officers and the rest of the Territory why they took that action? Even the NTPA has called on Fyles to show leadership and explain.

But no, we seem to have flipped over to an alternate reality at some point where logic and fact no longer matter.

Given a chance to address the matter on Monday afternoon, almost three days after the initial reporting, Ms Fyles fronted a press conference to say: “I have indicated to you that Mr Chalker is on leave … that’s all I will be saying.”

After reportedly being asked the same question, whether she had asked the police commissioner to resign – several times – that is the best she could come up with.

In what way could she possibly think that is acceptable?

Given the lack of certainty we’re left to our own imaginations. Has Chalker pulled an Adam Giles and simply refused to stand down and threw his phone in a pool somewhere?

Or maybe there is some sort of legal issue that has prevented them from explaining why they asked him to resign?

In 2015, the previous CLP government forced a police commissioner to resign and explained to Territorians why John McRoberts had to go (incidentally, he was later charged and convicted of perverting the course of justice).

We don’t know what the reason or reasons for this latest commissioner dismissal is, but it would be hard to think of any other reasons unless we were well-schooled in the muddled and mystifying world of political reality here now.

It has all the markings that we are in a fairy-tale called Natasha’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Except it isn’t so wonderful here.

To stretch the Alice In Wonderland analogy we will finish with this exchange between the Cheshire Cat and Alice.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” Alice asks.

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” the Cat responds.

“I don’t much care where —” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“— so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw, “lives a Hatter, and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice said.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” the Cat says, “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”