EXCLUSIVE: The Office of the ICAC hired a Labor Party member last year to undertake unspecified legal duties in the organisation, the NT Independent can reveal, which follows revelations a CLP operative was hired last month as an investigator, that Commissioner Michael Riches contends now was an “organisational failure”.

News of the latest political hire comes the same day Chief Minister Natasha Fyles criticised the ICAC for hiring a CLP member as an investigator and while the ICAC is understood to be investigating Labor for alleged misappropriation of taxpayer funds during the 2020 general election.

The NT Independent revealed last week that CLP executive management committee member and party campaigner Cormac MacCarthy was hired in June as an “operations officer”, which is understood to be an investigator and assessor in the Office of the ICAC.

Mr Riches, who has been widely criticised for allowing the hire to happen, issued a statement on Wednesday afternoon in which he said he accepts “full responsibility” for the “adverse impact that decision has had on the reputation of my office”.

“This was an organisational failure for which I am responsible and I apologise for it,” he wrote, adding that while Mr MacCarthy had “done nothing wrong” and “performed exceptionally well”, he has now been transferred out of investigations and into a non-investigatory role.

However, the NT Independent can reveal lawyer Benedict McCarthy, a federal Labor Party member and election 2022 campaigner, was hired around August of last year by the Office of the ICAC for duties that have not been made entirely clear.

Around the time Mr McCarthy was hired, he took part in a local youth law event along with Territory Young Labor members, including Lithira Abeysinghe and Harvie Stiller.

Mr Stiller, the president of NT Young Labor, was forced to resign from his role in Federal Labor MP Luke Gosling’s office last year after a video on social media emerged of him snorting a white substance with a $50 note that had been cut into lines.

Ben McCarthy (far right) at the William Forster Chambers Golden Gavel event in August 2022

Mr McCarthy previously worked in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, before that he worked as Justice Stephen Southwood’s associate.

Mr McCarthy is also currently on the Law Society Council while employed by the ICAC, that recently decided unanimously to publicly back Federal Labor’s Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Mr Riches said his office would not be expressing a view on that matter and said that proposition was a “matter for electors”.

When asked about Ben McCarthy, Mr Riches told the NT Independent on Wednesday that being a member of a political party should not be an “automatic barrier to employment in my office”, despite moving Cormac MacCarthy into a non-investigatory role and changing processes for hiring people affiliated with political parties.

He said Ben McCarthy had only participated in federal Labor Party activities on the day of the 2022 Federal Election and that he understood Mr McCarthy had no dealings with the Territory Labor Party.

“I understand that he never attended a party meeting or took part in any other political activity,” Mr Riches said.

“Nor do I understand him to have had any involvement with the Territory Labor Party. Even with the more strict controls that I [have announced] this afternoon, based on the information I have I do not consider that such limited involvement by a young individual in a political party would, or should, automatically exclude the individual from employment in my office.”

Those “strict controls” include strengthened requirements in a pre-employment questionnaire to disclose if an applicant for a job with the ICAC has been a member of a political party in the last five years, that will be investigated to determine whether the political activity “represents an unmanageable risk”.

Mr Riches also said that all current staff members will have to disclose any conduct “that might be perceived to be supportive of a particular political party”, which will become an annual requirement. New ICAC recruitment processes will also focus on “applicants who reside interstate and overseas”.

Fyles refuses to say if she knows Ben McCarthy, criticises ICAC for hiring politically-aligned staffer

The revelation of the hiring of a Labor Party member comes on the same day that Chief Minister Natasha Fyles criticised the ICAC for hiring a CLP member in an investigative role.

“It is concerning and we’re looking at the legislation around ensuring that someone that has had political connections recently shouldn’t be in that type of position,” she said at a press conference.

“I think independent bodies that are set-up need to have and need the perception of independence.”

Ms Fyles’ office refused to comment on whether Ben McCarthy had attended any Territory Labor functions, campaigned for the party at any time or if Ms Fyles personally knew him.

It’s widely understood the Office of the ICAC is investigating alleged misappropriation of public funds by the Labor Government involving former chief minister Michael Gunner’s campaign travel during the 2020 NT general election.