The NT’s anti-corruption commissioner Michael Riches was so afraid his career would be over after being served with a domestic violence order in May 2023, that he offered to pay his estranged wife $20,000 to ensure the matter never made it to the courts, according to a report in The Australian, while the NT Independent can confirm he did not disclose the matter to the ICAC Inspector.
EDITORIAL: Police Commissioner Michael Murphy has repeatedly said it will take courage to rid the force of racism. What he doesn’t seem to understand is this rules him out of being Police Commissioner. He has proven he is a coward and a liar and a man who buries racism rather than investigate it.
EXCLUSIVE: The NT’s anti-corruption commissioner Michael Riches says there is “no substance” to serious allegations made by his estranged wife in a recent social media post accusing him of perpetrating domestic violence against her over a 10-year period.
ANALYSIS: It was odd that the current Independent Commissioner Against Corruption, the man who has yet to make his mark on the role after three years, was calmly and methodically engaging in woodwork in his home garage, while the people he was hired to investigate savagely wrapped up their last week of sittings down the street with the most important investigation of his tenure hanging over them.
Chief Minister Eva Lawler says Labor will not reimburse taxpayers for the public money it used to fly former chief minister Michael Gunner to remote communities in marginal electorates on polling days in the lead up to the 2020 election because it was all too “ambiguous” and refused to condemn the conduct that was the focus of a three-year ICAC investigation.
Anti-corruption commissioner Michael Riches “refuses to call out misconduct, mismanagement and corruption”, an independent MLA says, despite having evidence that Territory Labor and Michael Gunner used public funds for party political purposes at the 2020 election, calling for an inquiry into the Office of the ICAC’s conduct.
The NT anti-corruption watchdog’s long-delayed report into Territory Labor’s taxpayer-funded 2020 election campaign has ended with “no concluded findings” of whether former chief minister Michael Gunner “did or did not engage in improper conduct”, but flagged a secret second report will be provided to current Chief Minister Eva Lawler next month concerning Labor staffers’ involvement.
The Lawler Government has announced a big-spending budget three months out from the general election that puts the Territory on course to achieve a net debt of $11 billion by next year.
The Lawler Labor Government’s 2024 Budget is proof that Labor is bereft of any “new ideas” to address the Territory’s problems, CLP Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro says, while the Chief Minister threw it back at Ms Finocchiaro, demanding to know where she’s been hiding for the last month.
A powerful peak body for Aboriginal Territorians has publicly rebuked Police Minister Brent Potter for his comments about violence in Daly River, insisting the Minister and the Lawler Government are playing “the blame game” instead of accepting responsibility for their failure to uphold law and order across the Territory.
The Labor Government needs to come clean to Territorians over its misappropriation of taxpayer money to fund its 2020 election campaign instead of hiding behind new staff guidelines, the Opposition CLP says, while the Chief Minister says she has not been informed yet of what the ICAC’s investigation will reveal, but would not denounce party figures’ actions.
EXCLUSIVE: Labor’s misuse of public funds at the 2020 election has sparked internal reforms to ministerial staff rules, ahead of possible findings from the long-delayed ICAC investigation into the party’s conduct, that an independent MLA says continues to “stink” the longer it remains unresolved.
