Welcome to Hotel Northern Territory, where you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave. From travel bubbles to disappearing vice-chancellors to the Gunner Government’s Pauline Hanson defence for banning the free press. This is what is good and gammon this week.

Copping some Kiwis

Soon New Zealanders will be able to come to the NT as the first part of a travel bubble. And by this time next week, all going well, Sydneysiders will also be able to come to the NT without quarantine, and Territorians will be able to visit Sydney without quarantining on the way back.

The opening up of travel is good.

Charles Darwin University announced this week it was proposing to cut 77 jobs or five per cent of its staff, in merging the higher education and the VET sections.

What was strange about the announcement was the absence of the very well paid vice-chancellor Professor ‘Mad Dog’ Simon Maddock’s name on the press release, instead the deputy vice-chancellor’s name was tied to the bad news. It was really a selfless act letting his underlings get some of the public spotlight.

Which made us think of this:

See if you can pick him out in this photo.

Is there a spate of senior people disappearing?

When the Health Minister Natasha Fyles had a press conference to announce a case of Clayton’s COVID-19; the coronavirus you’re having when you’re not having coronavirus. (For those too young to get the Clayton’s reference click here.)

By her side was acting chief health officer Dr Charles Pain (real name). Presumably Dr Hugh Heggie was off reading the chicken bones to determine where the next COVID-19 hotspot will be. But what happened to deputy chief health officer Di Stephens? According to Linkedin she became chief medical officer of the NT quarantine facilities about four months ago but was referred to in the media as the deputy chief medical officer in recent weeks.

We suspect she was just too honest in front of the media and has been dispatched to where she cannot cause trouble by clearing explaining the situation of a global pandemic.

It seems even Ms Fyles’ mad CPR skills aren’t enough to revive Ms Stephens’ media career. Or maybe she is the one who bunged the ‘do not revive’ order on it.

See you in some Girraween gulag some day, when we get sent there too, also for acts of honesty against the state, Ms Stephens.

Just the tonic for Indigenous disadvantage – seeing northern suburbs people happy

The Gunner Government has put a lot of effort into creating stimulus projects to help the economy after COVID-19. We have seen the home improvement voucher scheme and the tourism voucher scheme stumped up. We also now understand about the Public Service Voting block which is keeping Labor in power. So, as we are always happy to help out the government, we have an idea that combines middle class welfare, the NT’s history of water park pork barreling, the latest water park/surf park enthusiasm frenzy, and the misuse of Indigenous funding. And we will not rest until there is a water park in every Darwin northern suburb backyard funded by Federal Government money aimed at Indigenous disadvantage. Ahh, the great Territory lifestyle.

An artist’s impression of a Territory Government financed backyard ‘water park”: It is shittacular hours of fun for some of the family.

Home water parks for all (or at least some) is good

The court jesters of democracy

The national broadcaster published an article this week, about the Gunner Government’s ban on the NT Independent with interstate experts condemning the assault on press freedom. It is another low point in transparency and accountability for a government which came to power and produced a document entitled Restoring Integrity to Government: Trust and integrity reform discussion paper.

The line up of critics and their comments were as follows.

Dean of Law at UNSW, and leading constitutional law expert George Williams: “There’s a question about whether the constitution has been breached and also the Self Government Act of the Northern Territory.”

Monash University deputy head of journalism Johan Lidberg: “Governments and politicians shouldn’t do this. It stifles accountability. Apart from it being weird, it’s actually quite serious. As far as I understand the Gunner Government has not been able to point to specific [publication issues printed by the NT Independent], which makes [the situation] quite frankly serious.”

Alliance for Journalists Freedom director Chris Flynn: “We can’t imagine any Australian government — state or federal — would knowingly restrict press freedom. News publishers should not be denied access or contact with governments because of personal issues.”

Early court jesters were once known as professional or licensed fools. The NT versions certainly make us laugh. Media Entertainment Arts Alliance spokesperson: “Any attempts by governments to dictate which media outlets can or cannot have access to its ministers and departments poses real risks not only for press freedom but for the right and ability of voters and citizens to know what their government is doing.”

The only response the Chief Minister Michael Gunner and his head of communications Maria Billias can come up with, boils down to the Pauline Hanson defence: “I don’t like it”.

While the Chief says he wants people from other parts of Australia to move here, what would southerners make of the national embarrassment he’s caused with the tin pot democracy he has created?

Even the previous CLP Government, a rolling maul of shambolic scandal, schisms, sometime shadiness and stupidity, were smart enough not to do this.

The Gunner Government’s restriction of free reporting of the media is buljit.

Let us not forget this

The last time the ABC reported on Mr Gunner’s potentially constitution-violating ban on the free press was when, 113 days ago, he ran from our reporters at a press conference he organised at Stokes Hill Wharf. He retreated to the safety of Parliament House and barred the NT Independent from attending.

Here are some of the commemorative statue ideas we came up with a while back.

His excuse at the time was once again, basically the Pauline Hanson defence: “I don’t like it”. In this case he was talking about the paper’s owner’s unrelated Facebook page.

He just really needs to point to where it hurts so we can rub some cream on it.

We know it is hard to believe a Chief Minister would actually do that, but here is not only proof, but Australia’s top media watchdog program, Media Watch, calling his behaviour crazy.

Just in case you missed it, of course. Click on the image to watch.

More buljit.

But we also know this

When writing about his findings against former Speaker Kezia Purick earlier in the year, the NT Independent Commissioner against Corruption Ken Fleming wrote that despite widespread and persistent disquiet regarding the conduct of some members, the Legislative Assembly had not used its powers to investigate the conduct of members in this, and the preceding two parliaments.

Which of course can only mean one thing, no MLAs have done anything wrong in the last 11 years or so.

If the government really does want to get people to move here they should scrap the Boundless Possible slogan and replace it with No Consequences. Or as Chief Minister Sweary Mick would say, No Fucking Consequences.

No consequences for politicians is gammon.

And then there are these three

Not only has the Chief Minister got his colleagues in continued breach of their code of conduct and potentially breaching the constitution, there has to be questions about his influence on the head public servant Jodie Ryan, the Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker, and NT Administrator Vicki O’Halloran, who also have some sort of ban on the NT Independent and have politicised their institutions.

Ms O’Halloran even called security on the NT Independent when we were covering the swearing in of the new government.

“Government is a trust and the officers of the government are trustees, and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people,” former American senator Henry Clay in 1829.

We know they could be violating the constitution but who really knows the extent of the codes of conduct, rules, and Westminster conventions, this trio of professionals, paid by the taxpayer, are violating.

The constitutional expert, Mr Williams, has already offered an opinion on Ms O’Halloran’s behaviour: “The exclusion of journalists from covering the work of government or that of the Administrator would raise important questions under the freedom of political communication guaranteed by the Australian Constitution.”

Their actions are part of a broken democracy here.

Saying the actions of Jodie Ryan, Jamie Chalker, and Vicki O’Halloran in stifling the free press is gammon, is a gross understatement.

Sick ’em Jamie

The Police Commissioner politically attacked the federal Coalition Government this week, suggesting Prime Minister Scott Morrison is ignorant of the challenges facing Indigenous people across the Northern Territory.

He had earlier said he could not currently staff remote police stations properly due to a potential cut to federal funding, through a federal agreement, due to expire in 2022.

It was an unusual and political public criticism of a Prime Minister by a public servant.

It would be interesting to find out his motivations.

Just a nice post from the Administrator

Who else is supposed to be playing an important role in facilitating democracy? The answer is on the tip of our tongue, we just can think of who right now though.

What didn’t make the cut

While the government may think we are just a rogue hate machine, we just want them to know we do take the sensibilities of those, who like themselves, will easily have their feelings hurt, and be readily outraged, offended and infuriated, seriously. Below is an image the NT Independent editor thought was going too far for an article about reading the Lord’s Prayer before Darwin Council meetings. But what is a better and more tasteful image to represent the council’s association with the alleged blood magic sacrifice, where God sacrificed himself to himself for a few days, in substitutional atonement to close a loophole in the rules that he created himself, that underpins Christianity? Amen to that.

Darwin Council’s Robin Knox and Gary Haslett on either side of the Jesus sitting in on council meetings debate.

Censorship is gammon.