There has been a bizarre silence in the NT over the last few days on a number of fronts.

The silence is the result of such a complete failure that it should be the focus of public discourse and outrage.

But it’s not.

And the fact it is not, may be a nod to a culture of low expectations; the people don’t expect our leaders to actually have convictions, and courage, in our current distorted democracy.

A nod to the diminishment of that democracy, transparency, and accountability, under the current government, and the ruling gaggle of born-to-rule, but un-elected public servants.

And a culture that is almost exclusively one of no consequences. And barely even an attempt to deal with serious issues in any sort of honest manner publicly.

Thus it seems to have gone mostly unnoticed. Or unquestioned.

Where exactly is Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker?

First, literally, geographically, where is he?

Is he still in South Australia playing golf, thousands of kilometres away from the Constable Zach Rolfe murder trial, as revealed by this paper?

And secondly, where is he as a police and public leader?

An Indigenous man was shot by police on Tuesday, the week the Rolfe trial is coming to an end, the trial of one of their colleagues for doing the same thing.

It’s one of the biggest trials in the Northern Territory’s history.

And one of such extreme sensitivity that the verdict could cause a greater schism between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Territorians.

The death of Aboriginal people at the hands of police, or corrections officers is one of the most divisive, and emotionally fraught issues in Australia.

It goes to the heart of Indigenous Australian’s distrust going back to the arrival of Europeans. And a triggering reminder of the brutalisation and killings of the not too distant past, no matter the circumstances of each contemporary death.

Yet the Police Commissioner has said nothing.

The relationship between police officers and their own executive and government is clearly broken in a way that perhaps cannot be healed under current management.

If Mr Chalker is in Darwin, what reason could he possibly have for not speaking publicly about this death?

And did Mr Chalker discontinue his round of golf once he’d found out one of his officers had shot a man, or did he keep playing?

If the NT Independent had not put questions to NT Police media about why he was on a golf trip during the Rolfe trial, would he have come back early?

Our police sources say no. They say that’s exactly the reason he came back to Darwin.

So far, in the wake of the shooting of the man in Palmerston, we have not heard from any of the other three most senior police officers in the NT.

They have sent Assistant Commissioner Michael White out to handle the situation on his own.

And he didn’t even give a health update on the man who was shot and nobody bothered to ask.

A senior police source told the NT Independent Mr Chalker did not make either of his Deputy Police Commissioners acting in his role in his absence.

Who is in charge in the NAB building right now?

But what seems to be an indication of the broken state of the NT democratic, governance, and administrative system more broadly, and our public discourse, is there seems to be no real questions raised by the media as to where the top cop is.

Why is that? Why do we not expect more?

“Morale seems to have taken a solid shot in the arm with this appointment and that’s something that I’m very humbled by,” Mr Chalker said very un-humbly when his appointment as commissioner was announced in 2019.

He started his job two days after Kumanjayi Walker was killed.

And he did come in with great hope from some, being a Territorian and an officer who had served a lot of time remotely.

But his own quote on his appointment is certainly one that has aged as well as butchered meat in the Build Up.

NT Police Association president Paul McCue said of the incoming commissioner, members were looking forward to seeing the reinstatement of Territory values in the NT Police Force.

Members and the public might well say they are looking for an injection of any values from the NT Police top brass at this point.

In the September edition of the NT Police Association magazine, Mr Chalker made some important remarks he could do with reading again, if he even wrote them.

“We will continually face challenges as a police force. It’s up to each one of us to take on the challenges and find solutions. Each of us are leaders in our own right. It’s especially important through the ranks that great examples are set to those coming through.”

Yes it is important Mr Chalker. Crucial even.