NT Young Labor president Harvie Stiller has been involved with the Labor Party since at least 2019, contrary to media reports, and was photographed with federal leader Anthony Albanese just days after appearing in a video that showed him snorting a white substance, the NT Independent can reveal.

Mr Stiller resigned from his staffer position in Member for Solomon Luke Gosling’s office on Monday after the NT Independent sent questions about the video, a spokeswoman said, but Territory Labor has refused to remove him from his role on the executive management team of Young Labor.

It remains unclear why he would resign from one position but not the other.

The lack of action by the party and its leader has reignited questions about a drug culture in the NT Labor Party that the Opposition says has gone unchecked by Chief Minister Michael Gunner for years.

Mr Gunner refused to do anything about Mr Stiller’s standing in the party on Tuesday, stating the video of alleged drug use that was produced in October 2020 and publicly shared on Snapchat last October, depicted drug use from “18 months ago” and was therefore not relevant.

The NT News claimed without attribution that the video was filmed before Mr Stiller was a member of the party, but campaign photos on Territory Labor’s Facebook page show that is untrue.

The photo with Mr Albanese and former Young Labor president Lithiria Abeysinghe was posted on November 1, 2020 and shows Mr Stiller wearing dark sunglasses with a beer in his hand – just days after the video of him snorting the white substance cut into lines with a $50 bill was filmed.

Mr Stiller was heavily involved with Territory Labor during the 2020 election campaign, with numerous photos on the party’s Facebook page showing Mr Stiller campaigning with senior Labor ministers including Michael Gunner, Natasha Fyles, Eva Lawler and others.

But the party has refused to comment on the growing scandal, reiterating concerns the CLP raised that illegal drug use is condoned by the party.

Senior Labor sources told the NT Independent the optics of not dealing with the situation are bad and could alienate party members with core Labor values.

“When you talk about community expectations and what the Territory Labor Party stands for, this is certainly going to have an effect on that,” one senior party figure said.

The latest scandal comes a year after the party was caught up in the ‘cocaine sex scandal’ that saw MLA Mark Turner dumped from caucus and Mr Gunner’s friend and senior adviser Kent Rowe, who ran the NT Labor Party for the better part of a decade, forced to resign from his job for lying about an affair he had with a local sex worker and conversations he had with her about drug use.

However, the party did not expel Mr Turner or Mr Rowe from its ranks.

In February 2021, Mr Gunner admitted he had heard allegations of illegal drug use among fifth floor staffers but chose not to investigate the issue.

NT Police’s Special References Unit did investigate the matter last year but it remains unclear if their investigation was concluded.

Opposition CLP Leader Lia Finocchiaro said she was not surprised the party has taken no action on the allegations of drug use in its ranks.

“The refusal to remove the President of NT Young Labor embroiled in the Labor ‘snorting scandal’ gives the green light to unacceptable, and potentially illegal drug use by Labor members,” she said.

“This proves Michael Gunner turns a blind eye to possible illicit drug use.”

Stiller appeared in federal Labor election ad when he was in Year 10

Mr Stiller first appeared in a 2019 Bill Shorten campaign ad, in which he is identified as a Year 10 student, who was concerned about “education cuts introduced by the Scott Morrison Government”.

He has also appeared in recent Unions NT campaign advertisements about casual loading workplace policies.

Mr Stiller is pursuing a law degree at Charles Darwin University, according to his LinkedIn page, where he is also the undergrad rep on the University Council – the body that oversees the university’s affairs.

A CDU spokeswoman said in a statement that the university “will discuss the circumstances and contents of the video with the student” after they became aware this week “of a video from 2020 featuring an undergraduate law student and member of the University Council”.

Mr Stiller has not responded to the NT Independent.

Labor president Erina Early has also refused to comment on the matter. Mr Gosling and Mr Albanese also did not respond to questions, including whether they would ask the party to deal with Mr Stiller’s position.