The first sitting of the Northern Territory Parliament under the new Finocchiaro Government will begin on October 15, and run for two weeks, with the government saying it will introduce its promised bail reforms, decrease the age of criminal responsibility, and bring in minimum mandatory sentences for assaulting frontline workers in the first week
The CLP Government’s director of communications is being paid more money than the NT’s head of nursing and midwifery and more than every new CLP minister, the NT Independent can reveal, with former NT News editor Matt Williams given the plum gig by Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro that pays up to $300,000 a year, despite having no experience as a political adviser.
The Territory’s anti-corruption watchdog’s suspension following alleged “inappropriate behaviour” towards several female staffers will end on Sunday, before the investigation into his alleged conduct is complete, while Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has refused to comment on whether he will be reinstated to the role on Monday.
Existing “infrastructure” could be used to house overflow prisoners who are being held in police watch houses, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has said, but her government remained silent on the potential for using the old Berrimah jail when youth prisoners are moved out next month, while the former chief minister told the police union in April there were no immediate solutions to the problem.
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.
