Labor MLA Mark Turner has used parliamentary privilege to suggest the NT Police executive is secretly recording police officers and staff at stations and in their patrol cars, adding that if proven “the attrition rates would further climb”.

Mr Turner used his adjournment speech on Tuesday night to raise issues about mental-health support services for NT Police members following a CLP motion to debate the ongoing crime crisis that was supposed to touch on well-being issues of NT Police personnel that has been subject of a review completed earlier this year.

Mr Turner, a former police officer, told Parliament there had been no improvements in how the executive deal with their employees following the well-being review and that many officers are being disciplined “with serious mental health issues” then told to respond to the alleged discipline breaches within 14 days with no assistance.

“Contrary to the claims by the senior executive, [members] advise me that they are not receiving any contact,” he said.

“They are left alone, costing the taxpayer tens of thousands of dollars. There are literally not enough appointments for people to get the medical care they need. A third of our police are being put through the disciplinary system. They need our support and not to be used as a political football as we saw today.”

Mr Turner then claimed that the “latest issue appears to be covert recording within the workplace”.

“Rumours now abound that the rank-and-file police are worried that they are being recorded at work or in their vehicles, including people being suspended over being covertly recorded,” he told Parliament.

Mr Turner quoted previous Fair Work Commission rulings that found secretly recording workers in the workplace was “inappropriate” and “unfair” and created a “corrosive workplace” where workers lived in fear.

“Fundamentally it should also be noted the concept of the inappropriateness of secret recordings of conversations would equally apply to an employer and is easily corrected by notice that the meeting or appropriate workplace is being recorded,” he said.

“I cannot say yet if this has or has not occurred, merely that enough people are concerned that they are talking to me about it.”

Mr Turner said he would be taking his concerns about the executive secretly recording staff to Police Minister Kate Worden and the Public Employment Commissioner, “to make it clear that this practice should not be tolerated”.

“We need to restore trust,” he said. “If as a public service we are doing it, god help us, but we should follow the directions of FairWork and let people know. I imagine the attrition rates would further climb.”

He further reiterated his calls for a Royal Commission to examine all of the problems in the NT Police force.

“Members of our community with limited information do not trust a system with political interference or the perception of political interference,” Mr Turner told Parliament.

“They will talk to a royal commission and not speak to a politically charged [local] process. They cannot see integrity in such a process. This situation and lack of trust in our most essential institutions cannot be allowed to continue.

“As a Member of the Legislative Assembly, as things currently stand, I can see no mechanism available to our Parliament that can either confirm these issues, dispel them, or otherwise restore confidence in the Northern Territory Police for our police officers apart from a Royal Commission established under Commonwealth Royal Commissions Act 1902,” he said.

“I fear without such an enquiry, Territorians will continue to languish in purgatory not of their making due to a political system without the courage or separation required to do what must be done.”