ANALYSIS: Professor Hugh Heggie PSM is now the 23rd Administrator of the Northern Territory.

And we wish him well not getting writer’s cramp with all that Bill-assenting and handshaking. But his selection is a choice, at least for appearances, that is a problem for our system.

Administrators are generally best known for being benign, with their ceremonial and civic duties, and while the job is also associated with pomp, and to some degree now, excess, the Administrator is the highest office holder in the Northern Territory. A costly position we are addled with because we have a Constitutional monarchy in Australia, and they represent the Crown in right of the NT, and therefore, the Administrator has executive authority to administer the government of the Northern Territory.

However it is a position, the NT Independent has pointed out, that could be a part-time, honourary gig for a jurisdiction that has much better things to spend its money on. Has anyone heard of Alice Springs?

They sign all Bills that have been passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory in order to make them part of the law, they act on the advice of the ministers and they have the constitutional right to be consulted, but are not obliged by convention to follow the advice of others.

They may well be acting on the advice of essentially the person who put them in the job in the first place. And ultimately, also, the Administrator can dissolve parliament, and potentially kick that person out of a job – Dean of Law at UNSW and a leading constitutional law expert, Scientia Professor George Williams has said this is possible.

In Mafia terms, which is really a good reference point for NT politics, the Administrator is the capo di tutti capi – the boss of all the bosses. The role is also to encourage and to warn, but the Administrator does not participate in politics or public policy matters.

But in that lies the problem. The appointment of the Administrator could very easily be political – political at a Territory level.

While theoretically the Administrator is appointed to the position by the Governor-General on advice from the Australian and Northern Territory governments, you could imagine Territories Minister Kristy McBain asking: “Hugh who? Well, okay, as long as he has a pulse”.

And with the contempt for, and trashing of convention that this Territory Labor government is known for, both under Michael Gunner and Natasha Fyles, we don’t see this current system of the appointment of the Administrator as a system that can be relied on for integrity.

As an example of the integrity problems we have in NT politics, when was the last time you saw an NT pollie referred to the privileges committee, where politicians get to take action against the alleged wrongdoing of their colleagues? Well, the retired ICAC Ken Fleming was referred there by Gunner in 2021, but the disgraced former speaker Kezia Purick who Fleming found had engaged in corrupt conduct was not.

Now, do you want the Chief Minister and friends, choosing their boss of bosses?

In this specific case, Prof Heggie is also indelibly intertwined with some of the most controversial policies, and by extension, legislation the NT has ever seen.

Prof Heggie was given extraordinary powers in his role as chief health officer, under Public and Environmental Health Legislation Act, to make decisions about the Territory’s response to COVID-19, which included mandatory vaccines – which based on later legislative amendments seemed to not be legal – and mask-wearing, as well as border closures, forbidding people in particular areas to leave that area, interstate and international border restrictions, and forced quarantines.

Governments across Australia said they were acting on the CHO’s advice, but then the premier or chief minister would roll out to make public announcements.

It was all very opaque, and it was hard to know what was based on science and what was based on politics. It is still hard to tell. And because of new, even more controversial legislation, that also spits in the face of convention, we will not get to see the reasons why the CHO made the decisions he did for two years.

It was said during this time then-deputy chief health officer Professor Di Stephens displeased the Health Minister Natasha Fyles with what she said publicly and got shunted elsewhere in Health.

COVID-19 came to the NT in about April 2020, in the lead up to the Territory’s August election, and did amazing things temporarily for the popularity of Gunner, and was seen by many as an integral part of Labor’s election win.

When it comes to the appointment of Prof Heggie, who was at the end of his medical career, but now given a $330,000 a year job plus all the trimmings including overseas travel, for sake of perception alone, he should not have been given the job.

There can be legitimate questions asked of any agreement done between Prof Heggie and Gunner, or if this was a ‘reward’ for his medical opinion being compliant with a political diagnosis for sick and ailing electoral chances.

That is not to say there is anything untoward about this, or that was the case, but it undermines the role that these questions need to be asked.

Confusion about the role already by political leaders

In an opinion piece from a decade ago advocating for a change in the way Australia’s governor-general is appointed, Professor Williams said people had proposed to a Republic Advisory Committee that the office pass automatically to the retiring taxation commissioner, or that the person be selected by lottery from Order of Australia recipients because this would be ”as Australian as the Melbourne Cup”. Another suggested that the selection be made from people with an IQ of more than 140 who are ”a good shot”.

He said the most adventurous option was to allow Australians a vote, which he said there was no constitutional impediment to, as the Prime Minister could simply request that the King appoint whoever had won the popular ballot.

In the NT, you could even get a psychic croc from Crocosaurus Cove to make a selection from a few nominees drawn out of a hat of all Territory residents.

However, under the current method of selection, Prof Heggie – someone who had had a role that in some areas of public life was perceived to have been melded with a political agenda, regardless of the truth of that charge – should not have been selected. This is not specifically about Prof Heggie, more about a system that should be beyond reproach.

Prof Heggie, even from the announcement of him in this role, seemed to drift past the boundaries of the Administrator’s function, being quoted in the NT News saying: “I would like to see the Northern Territory grow our population importantly, grow in all the ways that other states do.”

Which, on the surface seems to have wandered into the realms of policy and perhaps political.

On talking to the media at his swearing in, Prof Heggie was quoted again in the NT News taking a leaf out of the ‘I Wish We’d All Just Love Each Other’ Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker’s book: “I will fulfil this role with compassion and love for Territorians.”

Even current Chief Minister Natasha Fyles seems, unsurprisingly, confused about the non policy/political nature of his role in the press release announcing his selection: “I look forward to working with Dr Heggie to deliver tangible outcomes for the Northern Territory.”

What tangible outcomes does she envisage? Signed legislation? Are there KPIs on how many hands get shaken?

Of course, if Prof Heggie behaves politically, or starts loving too many Territorians without reciprocation, we can take action akin to the Darwin rebellion of 1918, which saw NT Administrator John Gilruth put on a boat back to Melbourne several months later.