Allegations of political influence in the office of the ICAC amid its ongoing corruption investigation into the sitting Labor Government strikes at the heart of our democracy and shows just how compromised our institutions really are here.

How is it that we have to be asking questions about the anti-corruption body’s integrity, while our government is under investigation for serious corruption and while other fundamental legal agencies such as the police and the Office of the DPP have also repeatedly shown their failures to act with integrity?

Yet here we are.

The NT Independent revealed this week that the massive investigation into the Labor Government’s misuse of public funds for campaign purposes at the last election was compromised after a young lawyer named Benedict McCarthy failed to disclose that he was, or is, a member of the Australian Labor Party and campaigned for them at the last federal election – just three months before he was hired by Michael Riches’ office and put on one of the most important investigations the NT has ever seen.

Not only did he not disclose that perceived conflict of interest, he also apparently did not bother to say anything when his former colleague at the DPP (and former political adviser), with whom he had discussed at great length his desire to take a job on the fifth floor as a Labor Government adviser, was identified as a witness and appeared in front of the ICAC.

One source said they were surprised when Mr McCarthy showed up working for the ICAC after making no secret of his desire to work on the fifth floor.

The takeaway for some political people this week was that he ultimately landed that job on the fifth floor as a mole inside the ICAC’s investigation.

There is no evidence of that at this point, but the idea that a young lawyer with heavy Labor ties who actually wanted to work for this dysfunctional and corrupt government could come anywhere near this investigation is ludicrous.

But again, here we are.

As Michael Riches correctly concedes, there are problems in the office of the ICAC and “errors were made”. While it is refreshing to see someone take responsibility for their failures – unlike our current crop of government ministers who could never utter the ‘R’ word in seven long years – somebody needs to be held responsible for this and heads need to roll.

Even if we put aside this young man’s undisclosed political and professional conflicts of interest, what the hell is a kid who just graduated law school doing providing the ICAC with the finer points of the laws this government may have broken when it stole taxpayer money to fund their re-election campaign?

That’s just not acceptable for such a serious investigation and points to massive incompetence in the Office of the ICAC.

The political ties should have been picked up by the people who hired him.

Riches should have immediately been on the phone this week to outside, experienced legal eyes to review everything he has done to this point on this investigation and find a way to salvage whatever he can.

It also goes without saying, but in this place we usually do need to say it, that he needs to investigate how it was that Ben McCarthy came to work in his office and if any sensitive information was communicated out of his office or if political influence was exerted anywhere along the way.

This sweeping investigation is not just about Michael Gunner, his office, his brother-in-law turned deputy chief of staff and later main flight booker, or other mates involved.

It goes to trust in our government not to steal from us and raises questions about the integrity of every elected member of the Labor Government.

Gunner and Fyles have fostered a culture of cover-ups and corruption

Back when we broke the travel rorts scandal with documents obtained through Freedom of Information laws, that showed the Labor Government spent $40,000 of taxpayer money on party political trips during the caretaker period in 2020, we sent questions to every sitting Labor member to ask when they first became aware that taxpayer money was being used to campaign during the election and what they did about it.

Not one responded. Not one said they disapproved of what was going on. And they still haven’t.

We’ve seen the Red Tribe pull this before, taking Gunner’s orders to stick together despite the circumstances and the overwhelming evidence against them.

Facts have never got in the way of this government before and they won’t now. Look no further than the Kent Rowe child rape scandal. They all stuck together like Gunner said and everything went away after sending a few letters of reference for their mate who ran all of their election campaigns to get him a reduced sentence that legal professionals had called “manifestly inadequate”. (Then this government had the gall to make the process illegal this week after they did it for their guy).

This Gunner/Fyles Labor Government has fostered a culture of corruption and cover-up in its government and the public service on a scale never before seen here and has failed to accept responsibility for any of it.

As former NT ALP president and senior political adviser Charlie Phillips wrote in an op-ed in this publication recently, this government has four main templates for dealing with its scandals when they present themselves: Deny, Delay, Cover-up and Accept No Responsibility.

We have seen them apply this strategy most recently on issues ranging from helping their child sex offender mate get a reduced sentence, to the Speaker secretly allowing two Labor MLAs to charge taxpayers for their personal holidays interstate, to the cover-up of the flood evacuees situation at Howard Springs; to the NT Beverages scandal (more on the new levels of corruption that hit next week) and back to the travel rorts scandal, among many others.

In every instance, not one Labor MLA has come out to rebuke them for their actions, because it’s easier for them to cover it up and accept no responsibility.

So, it is clear that every one of them in the Labor caucus endorses what has gone on and therefore need to be treated now as the worst amongst them. If they stick together like this, then surely they will fall together as well, when the stench of corruption becomes too thick for voters, or those who might bring about charges, to ignore.

There are people in Cabinet right now, including the current Attorney General, who benefitted from those taxpayer-funded flights during the last election and were onboard them. It appears our first law officer has no issue with that. Are the backbenchers going to allow him and Gunner and other ministers to ruin their electoral chances when the group is painted with the same corruption brush beyond any reasonable doubt?

There are a lot of things Gunner and his political protege Natasha Fyles can come back from – openly lying to the public as they’ve shown us repeatedly is one – but blatant corruption ends political careers and reputations.

This corruption investigation does not just involve the highest political offices in the NT, but also the highest office in the public service.

According to caretaker guidelines for governments in election campaigns, the department and its then-chief executive Jodie Ryan were responsible for ensuring that public funds were not used for party political purposes.

So, why did Gunner’s brother-in-law and then-deputy chief of staff approve the travel instead of the supposedly apolitical head bureaucrat?

The answer leads straight to the desk of the most senior public servant in the NT.

Riches may not have wanted to take on such a big investigation when he started in the role, but thanks to pressure put on him by independent MLA Robyn Lambley after Gunner’s shock resignation last year, he had no choice.

ICAC needs to change to restore public confidence

We don’t believe, like others, that we need to disband the ICAC and give its powers to the new national body. We all know what happens when the Northern Territory is put on a federal to-do list; we get immediately relegated to the bottom of the pile and nothing happens for years.

To even suggest that is akin to suggesting we might as well just let corruption run rampant here because our systems and institutions are unable to protect us from it. Which might be true, given the ICAC’s poor performance to date, but we believe the right person leading the charge here is crucial to holding those responsible for corruption to account.

It’s clearly time to do something different. If Riches wants to restore the public’s confidence to basic levels necessary to keep his job, if he can at this point, he needs to sack some senior people immediately for the latest failures and show the public he’s done it, so we all know what real accountability looks like.

Then we need to admit this place is hopelessly conflicted and move to engage with other states’ anti-corruption bodies to trade or borrow their investigators for a couple months at a time.

Simply passing serious corruption allegations back to departments, as Riches has preferred to do repeatedly, without any investigation, is not going to cut it anymore.

The systemic corruption of our institutions needs to be flushed out into the open and dealt with for everyone to see. It’s the only way to restore any confidence in the Northern Territory.