Not a single Country Liberal Party MLA has moved to call out improper conduct at the highest levels of the public service and their government’s failure to take action on an ICAC report that found the head of a major agency engaged in “negligence and incompetence” by appointing a friend to a job – with the silence particularly deafening from the party’s ministerial team, who are obligated to uphold the “highest standards of integrity” and “ensure public confidence” in government.
An independent MLA says she will publicly name the “senior public officer” who an ICAC investigation found engaged in “negligence and incompetence” concerning a hiring process in his department when Parliament resumes, while Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro stormed out of a press conference Tuesday morning after facing questions about her lack of action.
EDITORIAL: Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro’s response to the ICAC’s findings that a “senior public officer” engaged in improper conduct is now bordering on what the ICAC’s delegate found the public officer engaged in, namely “negligence and incompetence”.
EXCLUSIVE: Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has refused to take action against, or publicly identify, a “senior executive public officer” who was found in a new ICAC investigation to have engaged in improper conduct amounting to “negligence and incompetence” concerning the mismanagement of a conflict of interest, who the NT Independent can reveal at this time is the head of a major government agency.
A CLP backbencher has accused Senator Malarndirri McCarthy’s staffer of attempting to “physically intimidate” an unnamed CLP MLA while Parliament was sitting last week, claiming the staffer followed up the “harassment” by making “unfounded accusations”.
Staffers in former Labor chief minister Michael Gunner’s office used taxpayer money and resources to perform party political campaign work during the lead up to the 2020 NT election while knowing it was “inherently improper”, a new report by the Office of the ICAC has found, but again nobody has been held responsible. READ HOW THEY PULLED IT OFF
NT Parliament erupted into a public mud-slinging match on Wednesday afternoon, with politicians from both major political parties throwing their past indiscretions and scandals at one another during debate about “improving integrity in Parliament”.
The Finocchiaro CLP Government misled the public with taxpayer-funded radio ads promoting its Territory Coordinator position, the Auditor-General has found, which were carried out to promote “party political” ends and included misleading statements in breach of legislation.
The CLP Government’s new lobbyist register will not require ministers to publicly disclose who they meet with and will exempt major lobbyists, including gas companies fracking the Beetaloo Basin and other corporate firms that donate to political parties, from needing to be on the register, which a national public integrity body says is “just not right”.
CLP Education Minister Jo Hersey says she will now disclose the gift of a free luxury jet flight to a boozy brunch paid for by a wealthy Katherine businesswoman, after breaching the Disclosures Act by failing to report the gift, with the Opposition calling for the Minister to be reprimanded for flouting NT disclosure laws on multiple occasions.
EXCLUSIVE: CLP Education Minister Jo Hersey took a luxury private jet between Katherine and Darwin to attend a boozy, “bottomless” high tea at the Hilton Garden Inn Darwin in early December, but she claims no taxpayer money was expended despite posting photos of the jaunt on her government-funded social media account, which comes as the Minister was also caught out misleading Territorians about her disclosable interests.
The CLP Government and the Labor Opposition have not ruled out supporting independent MLA Justine Davis’s calls for a parliamentary inquiry into the rorting of a government Indigenous employment scheme that saw an estimated $60 million fraudulently obtained by up to 146 Territory contractors.
