The former editor of the NT News, who left the job after his involvement in the Darwin Turf Club’s grandstand scandal was made public and who wrote an editorial backing the federal Labor Party in 2019, has been named director of communications for the Finocchiaro CLP Government.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has announced her first Cabinet, that will be made up of all six of her former opposition team members, as well as newcomers Robyn Cahill and political unknown Jinson Charls.
Former NT CLP senator Sam McMahon charged taxpayers to travel around Queensland for two weeks in June 2021 because she and her staffer Ashley Manicaros did not want to face a 14-day COVID quarantine if they returned to the Northern Territory, according to documents filed by a federal parliamentary body that is seeking to recoup the funds through the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Former chief minister Natasha Fyles is trailing the Greens’ Kat McNamara in Nightcliff following a redistribution of preference votes, with Labor now on the verge of losing every Darwin seat it had once viewed as its heartland.
Selena Uibo has been elected as the Labor Leader of the Opposition, making her the first Indigenous woman to lead a major political party in Australia, who will now pick up the pieces of what is left of Territory Labor.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has backed away from holding a parliamentary inquiry into what she called a “crisis in police”, despite calling for one seven times while in opposition, and criticising the previous Labor government’s “deliberately constrained” and “behind-closed-doors review” of police.
CLP Leader Lia Finocchiaro was sworn in as the Territory’s 14th Chief Minister at a ceremony at Government House Wednesday morning, where she and her deputy Gerard Maley gave themselves every portfolio on an interim basis to “continue with the business of government” until the full Cabinet is sworn in next week, she said.
ANALYSIS: The election carnage was devastatingly brutal and somehow beautiful in its fury and righteousness. Most of the Labor bastards who thought they owned the Territory were put in their place by Territorians.
The Country Liberal Party has defeated Territory Labor in an election landslide that has seen Lia Finocchiaro elected the first female CLP Chief Minister in the Territory’s history.
EXCLUSIVE: A corruption investigation into Deputy Chief Minister Chansey Paech’s previous shares in a liquor wholesale company has been blocked by the Labor Government, which refused to release portions of Cabinet records that would show if Mr Paech declared a conflict of interest during Cabinet discussions about the NT Government’s role in federal grog bans in remote communities being lifted, the NT Independent can reveal.
Labor’s Wanguri candidate Shlok Sharma has released a list of endorsements from high-profile Labor powerbrokers, including a couple who wrote a character reference letter for a convicted paedophile two years ago, a gas lobbyist with a secret client list and a fifth floor staffer who helped run Labor’s 2020 election campaign that misused taxpayer money.
NT VOTES 2024: The NT general election will take place on Saturday, August 24, with approximately 155,000 eligible Territorians casting their ballot for their local Member of the Legislative Assembly. The NT Independent has provided a list of all registered candidates running and their pitch to you. SEE THE FULL LIST.
