The NT Police secretly sought authorisation from a federal agency to press charges against the NT Independent that would have seen a raid on its office, computers seized and staff possibly arrested, because this publication reported on a heinous sex crime the police media team suppressed from the public, it can be revealed.

The secret plot against the free press for reporting on matters in the public interest has been condemned by the union representing Australian journalists, who called the police’s tactics “disturbing” and part of a “dangerous pattern of behaviour in the Northern Territory” against this newspaper’s journalists.

The MEAA also passed a motion this week officially condemning the police and the NT Government for the failed scheme, as well as for the ongoing ban on this publication’s journalists from attending ministerial press conferences.

The police hatched the plot to charge the NT Independent for running a March 2021 news article about a toddler who had been sexually assaulted in their front yard through a fence by a man in the street. The police had not notified the public about the horrendous incident.

That report sparked a special investigative series exposing the police media unit’s ongoing suppression of serious sex crimes being committed against Territorians, including another disturbing story about a registered sex offender being found outside a child’s bedroom with a ‘rape kit’, a woman being raped in the street and other serious sexual offences from Alice Springs to Darwin.

The NT Independent was recognised for Best Crime Reporting at the NT Media Awards last year for its series, which the national judges called an “extraordinary series of reports” which exposed the police’s failures to properly inform the public.

However, the NT Independent was only recently made aware through documents that appeared online that in the weeks after the first story ran, the NT Police filed an application with the Australian Classification Board to have the story classified as “restricted content” without having to provide an explanation.

This, according to legal sources, would have given the police the power under Territory legislation to execute arrests, obtain computers and raid offices under the auspices of upholding the Classification of Publications, Films and Computer Games Act NT 1985.

A breach of the Act carries a two-year jail term.

Journalists working in the Northern Territory have legal shield protections for publishing material in the public interest, however the NT Independent understands the classification angle would sit outside journalistic privilege protections.

The classification board, which applies ratings to movies, video games and publications – including for pornographic material – ultimately rejected the NT Police’s application and did not list the report as restricted, opting instead to classify it as “unrestricted” content, meaning it “is not likely to include material that offends a reasonable adult to the extent that it should be restricted to adults”, the board said.

“Applicants for classification (including law enforcement applicants) are not required to provide a reason when submitting material for classification so this information is not captured in classification records,” a spokesman for the classification board told the NT Independent.

“On 17 May 2021, the Classification Board classified [the article], as ‘Unrestricted’.

“State and territory classification legislation regulates how classified publications can be delivered or sold and prescribe penalties for breaches.”

Had the report been deemed “restricted”, the police would have been able to enforce penalties under the Act, including raiding the NT Independent’s office and seizing property.

“A police officer may enter on land, or on or into premises, and may search for and seize a thing that the officer believes on reasonable grounds to be connected with an offence against this Act that is found on the land or on or in the premises …,” the Act states.

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance said the police plot was “appalling” behaviour and designed to intimidate the press.

“The NT Police appear to have sought powers that would allow them to prosecute NT Independent for that publication’s factual, award-winning reporting about Police suppressing information,” said MEAA media director Adam Portelli.

“This appalling overreach by NT Police is designed to intimidate the media and restrict publication of stories that matter.

“This is an extremely disturbing development that represents a dangerous pattern of behaviour in the Northern Territory.”

MEAA also called on the government again to lift its ongoing and illegal ban on the NT Independent.

“There is no place in open and transparent government for politicians and public servants to hide from legitimate scrutiny of their activities,” Mr Portelli said.

“The previous and the current Chief Ministers have locked out the NT Independent from reporting matters that are in the public interest. We call on the NT Government and NT Police to respect the rights of journalists and to cease impeding the public’s right to know what our governments and their agencies do in our name.”

NT Independent editor Christopher Walsh said it was concerning that NT Police, with possible assistance from the government, would hatch a secret plot to find a backdoor way to subvert laws protecting journalists from unlawful searches and arrests.

“That police enacted this secret plan to arrest journalists for doing their job and reporting on matters of public importance is another disturbing blow for our democracy in the NT,” he said.

“This was a disgusting crime against a child that the public had a right to know happened in the community.

“But we really shouldn’t be surprised that the NT Police would try something like this under this current Commissioner, who has already threatened the NT Independent with investigations – including one at the request of a businessman who the ICAC had found engaged in ‘corrupt conduct’ and who had provided the Commissioner with free tickets to horse races.

“We’ve all recently seen this is also a Police Commissioner who has no moral qualms about illegally obtaining private messages between parties and using them publicly if he thinks it will benefit him personally.

“The rest of the country is now catching on to what’s been allowed to go on up here and they know it’s completely unacceptable. Maybe our elected leaders will recognise that too now.”

The NT Independent will be filing complaints with the appropriate statutory authorities in relation to the police executive’s use of public resources to carry out their own grudges.

Commissioner Jamie Chalker, police media manager Rob Cross, Chief Minister Natasha Fyles, Police Minister Kate Worden and former police minister Nicole Manison did not respond to questions.

Ms Manison, who was minister at the time of the secret plot, would not say if she was aware of the police’s attempt to charge journalists for reporting on issues of public interest.

Here is the resolution passed by the National Media Section Committee of the MEAA on Tuesday, September 20, 2022, passed unanimously:

THAT this meeting of the MEAA National Media Section committee (NMS):

• condemns the attempts of the NT Police to gain powers that would allow it to prosecute the NT Independent over its reporting in the public interest;
• condemns the NT Government’s actions against the NT Independent, impeding the public’s right to know; and
• calls on the NT Government to accept the NT Independent as an award-winning media outlet whose editorial staff are MEAA Media members who are bound by the MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics.