Labor MLA Mark Turner has used parliamentary privilege to air explosive allegations that a senior NT Police officer inferred that Jamie Chalker had intimidated the ICAC with his “appendage” to make investigations go away and that a police inquiry into unsafe homes in Bellamack was not proceeding because the officer dismissed it as “cheap housing for poor people”.

The shocking allegations were made late Thursday night, following a motion of “public importance” put forward by independent MLA Kezia Purick, in which she called for the Fyles Government’s secret Shanahan report into proposed ICAC Act revisions be made public and raised concerns from whistleblowers that commissioner Michael Riches was not acting on serious allegations of corruption and misconduct.

During debate, Mr Turner recounted a story about his recent dealings with a whistleblower seeking an investigation into the ongoing Bellamack homes scandal that saw the government fail to act on an engineer’s report about serious safety risks with homes in the community that endangered occupants’ lives in the event of a thunderstorm and strong winds.

Mr Turner said the whistleblower respected frontline officers and had gone through the process of seeking an investigation into the NT Government’s refusal to take action on the public safety issue, finally getting in touch with a senior officer.

“The senior police officer and this again, is a kicker, allegedly told the whistleblower words to the effect that ‘the government has come up with this stupid cheap housing scheme to help the poor people. What do you expect you’re going to get? Cheap housing for poor people. What do you expect?’,” Mr Turner said.

“Not the attitude you would expect [from police]. Nonetheless, they continued to attempt to get something done. They report they referred it to the ICAC hoping the ICAC would take action and this is where it gets murky. Our ICAC, it appears, doesn’t have the resources it seems, doesn’t have the deployable investigators.”

Mr Turner added it was concerning the senior police officer had implied to the whistleblower that Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker could make ICAC investigations – such as the Bellamack homes fiasco – go away.

“They [the whistleblower] say they were told by the senior police officer, when lamenting the lack of action, the risk to the public and the sudden lack of interest from agencies that, ‘If Chalker walks in there with his’ – to be parliamentary I’ll call it appendage – ‘drops it on top of the ICAC’s desk, some things change dramatically’, or words to that effect.

“Now ignore the uncouth language and just for a moment imagine how that feels to a whistleblower. This isn’t something people deal with in their everyday life. It’s a huge thing, as huge a thing as going to a member of the Legislative Assembly because you don’t know what to do next and you think our community’s at risk.

“Now, how accurate is the whistleblower’s comment that they received from senior police? I don’t know. I cannot refer this to ICAC for the whistleblower. They’re worried the ICAC is compromised…”

Mr Turner was then cut off abruptly by Labor Speaker Mark Monaghan who suggested Mr Turner stick to talking about the ICAC’s operations, which it appeared he was doing.

“The whistleblower will happily talk to the AFP [Australian Federal Police], if they’ll look at it,” he continued. “But I wait with bated breath to see how we clear it up, protect the whistleblower, the residents of Bellamack and restore faith in reporting these sorts of things and issues relevant to the ICAC Act.”

Mr Turner’s comments in Parliament about the Police Commissioner allegedly influencing ICAC investigations comes as the ICAC is apparently still investigating allegations of “political interference” with the NT Police’s handling of the Constable Zachary Rolfe murder charge.

The NT Independent revealed in November 2021 that the NT Government was aware of structural deficiencies in a group of Bellamack homes from 2014, but did not publicly announce the safety issues until April 2021, when director of building control Mark Meldrum appeared to downplay the severity of the issues by suggesting there “was no immediate safety risk” – a claim that was contradicted by the engineering reports he had received four months earlier that indicated a potential danger to occupants and neighbouring residents in a thunderstorm, not just a cyclone as he had originally claimed.

The 18 homes were part of a government-funded scheme under the former Labor government, that aimed to provide affordable housing to lower income earners and which saw the government take on part ownership of some of the homes.

Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler and Mr Meldrum announced the government would demolish nine of the 18 homes in November 2021, on the same day the NT Independent revealed the contents of the internal engineering reports that recommended demolishing all of the homes due to public safety risks.

Earlier this week, Mr Turner announced he was referring the NT Police’s handling of the Zach Rolfe criminal investigation to the federal Attorney General and Prime Minister, over recent revelations investigators disregarded legal advice from the DPP in relation to witnesses that Mr Turner said appeared to show “manipulation of evidence, failure to disclose relevant material and the appearance of a perversion of justice”.

An ICAC investigation into Mr Turner’s alleged involvement in the 2021 so-called Labor cocaine sex scandal was dropped later that year with no adverse findings presented. Mr Turner was expelled from the Labor caucus but remained a member of the party.