Chief Minister Natasha Fyles’ office has defended senior political adviser Gerard Richardson’s dual roles as adviser to the NT Labor Government and co-owner of a company that lobbies for Tamboran Resources, which the Federal Greens have called “outrageous and alarming”.
A federal independent MP has called for a full investigation into Chief Minister Natasha Fyles’ office following revelations her senior political adviser’s consultancy firm is the registered lobbyist for Tamboran Resources, while the NT Independent can reveal more details about the extent of his firm’s influence in potentially securing federal funding for the controversial Middle Arm industrial precinct.
EXCLUSIVE: Chief Minister Natasha Fyles’ most senior political adviser’s consultancy firm is the registered lobbyist for a national gas company that the NT Government approved to frack the Beetaloo Basin and develop a massive Middle Arm LNG project, federal records show, raising further serious conflict of interest concerns involving the NT Government’s gas policies, the NT Independent can reveal.
EDITORIAL: The Opposition CLP has failed to do its job this week in Parliament, which won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been observing NT politics for any amount of time, but their latest failure raises troubling questions about our democratic institutions and who is actually protecting and defending them.
The Fyles Labor Government attacked their own Speaker on Wednesday afternoon after he threw Treasurer Eva Lawler out of the chamber for belligerence, in an unusual scene from the floor of Parliament that followed comments about drinking high-priced Veuve Clicquot champagne and “being out of touch” with Territorians.
Territory Labor’s support has plummeted to new lows that would see it lose power if the election were held today, a new independent poll shows, with only 19.7 per cent of Territorians polled saying they would support the scandal-plagued Fyles Government.
Chief Minister Natasha Fyles failed to publicly disclose on her parliamentary register a potential conflict of interest involving her husband working for a major health provider that has reportedly been paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars by the NT Government, an independent MLA says.
Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has followed her predecessor and fled from the NT Independent at a press conference Wednesday morning, leaving in the government SUV so quickly that her media adviser was left standing in the road.
“What is the point of a code of conduct when you see behaviour like this go completely undisciplined,” Territory Labor asked Parliament in 2016, when a CLP minister breached ministerial rules in a private shares scandal. Three days later he resigned. For five days now, Chief Minister Fyles has remained silent on her own breach of the ministerial code of conduct. READ WHAT HAPPENED IN 2016 HERE.
EXCLUSIVE: A national integrity expert has called on the Labor Government’s Cabinet team to immediately deal with Chief Minister Natasha Fyles’ “clear breach” of the NT ministerial code of conduct for failing to divest her shares in gas giant Woodside Energy when she obtained them last year.
ANALYSIS: The Chief Minister now has a lot in common with the previous scandal-plagued Giles CLP government, with no credibility left and her political career in tatters for arrogantly lying to Territorians to further her own interests and failing to accept responsibility.
EXCLUSIVE: Chief Minister Natasha Fyles breached her government’s own ministerial code of conduct by failing to divest her Woodside Energy shares, triggering calls for her resignation and an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss her future as leader, the NT Independent can reveal.
