Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro joined her deeply unpopular Labor predecessors by fleeing the NT Independent Tuesday morning when confronted by this masthead outside ABC Darwin’s studio, which followed her evading all media at the NT Police Association annual conference last week and failing to hold a press conference in six weeks.

Ms Finocchiaro’s office has not responded to the NT Independent’s emailed questions in more than a month as well, as she faces scrutiny over her failure to disclose her husband’s directorship in a private company on her register of members’ interests forms for two years, while the company received public funds from the Darwin Waterfront Corporation – a $25 million corporation in which her husband Sam Burke is the deputy chief executive.

Other questions around the corporation’s governance failures, mismanaged conflicts of interest and its unusual overlap of board and executive positions involving Mr Burke, Andrew Kirkman and CEO Alastair Shields have also not been properly addressed after an independent MLA raised deep concerns about the government’s “fundamentally inadequate” public hearing and attempts to bury the scandal.

The latest avoidance of the press comes two years after Ms Finocchiaro pledged not to follow the Labor Government’s illegal ban on the NT Independent, stating that her government would continue to answer questions from this masthead if elected.

Ms Finocchiaro appeared on ABC Radio Darwin’s Breakfast program Tuesday morning, which has become one of only two media outlets she regularly uses to spread her government’s message, while bypassing all of the Northern Territory’s journalists since July 14 – the last day she held a proper press conference.

NT Independent editor Christopher Walsh approached Ms Finocchiaro and her media adviser Elle Arnold outside the studio while filming the interaction on his phone, with Ms Finocchiaro smiling and asking “how are you” before continuing to walk towards her car.

“Hi Chief,” Walsh said. “I’m good, I have a few questions for you.”

Ms Finocchiaro did not stop and kept walking while Ms Arnold mumbled something about leaving.

Walsh asked first about the ongoing Justice Alan Blow inquiry into executive police recruitment practices, whether she had seen a copy of the report’s draft recommendations and why it was being held up.

Ms Finocchiaro did not offer an answer, slamming her car door shut and driving off with Walsh next to the car.

She is now the third chief minister to flee the NT Independent, and the first CLP leader to do so.

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro joined her deeply unpopular Labor predecessors by fleeing the NT Independent when confronted outside ABC, which followed her evading all media at the NT Police Association conference last week and failing to hold a press conference in six weeks. pic.twitter.com/umRheInPuw

— NT Independent (@independent_nt) August 26, 2025

Amid a massive shares scandal in November 2023, former chief minister Natasha Fyles fled a press conference without taking questions from media after the NT Independent arrived and she was unsuccessful in having organisers remove editor Walsh.

Ms Fyles had failed to disclose her shareholdings of various companies on her register of interests at the time and was in breach of the ministerial code of conduct, as well as the Public Disclosures Act. She later resigned.

Ms Finocchiaro also appears to have breached the Public Disclosures Act by not disclosing that Mr Burke was a director of a “networking” company called Place Leaders Asia Pacific between 2022 and 2024 that received an undisclosed amount of taxpayer cash through the Waterfront Corporation, including money to hold a conference this April in Darwin.

Ms Finocchiaro disclosed the directorship two years late and only after public scrutiny around politician’s interests was raised. In late 2023, Ms Finocchiaro was adamant Ms Fyles resign for not disclosing her share holdings, but did not mention that she was not disclosing her husband’s directorship at that time.

Independent MLA Justine Davis previously said it is a “double standard” for Ms Finocchiaro to call for other politicians to follow disclosure rules while she failed to, which had the potential to destroy the public’s trust in its elected officials.

In June 2020, Michael Gunner famously fled the NT Independent at a scheduled press conference at Stokes Hill Wharf, moving the media to Parliament House and not permitting this masthead to attend, as part of his illegal ban on the NT Independent that was strongly condemned by international journalism rights groups, the MEAA, constitutional law experts, the Australian Senate and many others.

While in opposition at the time, Ms Finocchiaro pledged to recognise the NT Independent and “support it”.

“We would allow the NT Independent to report the issues just as other news outlets do,” she told the ABC in August 2023.

Walsh said Ms Finocchiaro had clearly broken her pledge.

“To have the CLP Chief Minister run and hide like Gunner and Fyles is extremely disappointing for our democracy,” Walsh said. “We thought we were done with this type of silliness.

“We said in an editorial recently that running from scandal doesn’t make it go away, it becomes a distraction to the government’s business, which will continue to fester until it is properly dealt with. We await the Chief Minister showing the leadership required to deal with this rather than running off from tough questions and sincerely hope this failure to respond does not lead to another illegal ban on the free press.”