The Fyles Government has refused to release the travel costs of a senior public servant who once charged taxpayers to go to Disney World – and a former fifth floor staffer – because it claims that showing taxpayers where the pair travelled for a 10-month period would be an “unreasonable interference with the operations” of the Chief Minister’s department.
The Fyles Government has once again put a design and construction tender out for the Mandorah jetty with Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler saying it remained on track to open by the end of 2024, despite the government having originally said it would be open in May this year and failing to get anyone to build it from an earlier tender.
Labor Minister Lauren Moss charged taxpayers more than $360,000 to fit out her new electorate office, government documents show, which is more money than she committed to community suicide prevention programs for the year.
Independent MLA Robyn Lambley was forced to withdraw a comment in Parliament about convicted child rapist and former Labor secretary Kent Rowe, after Labor Speaker Mark Monaghan ruled the comment “offensive” despite Ms Lambley sharing proven facts.
Anti-corruption commissioner Michael Riches has admitted he spent the first 12 months in the role navel-gazing, with crucial ICAC investigation KPIs failing to be met by substantial margins, according to the office’s annual report.
Treasurer Eva Lawler has reassured Territorians that the economy is in good shape and that the Fyles Government has a plan for economic repair because a new KFC is being built in Stuart Park, which she likened in Parliament to a beacon of hope “for all to see”.
Parliament’s Question Time was cut short Tuesday when the Opposition again moved to censure Police Minister Kate Worden over what they said are her ongoing failures to manage out-of-control crime in the Territory and the ongoing “police crisis”.
OPINION: I can’t quite believe that I am now sitting down in front of my computer, to complain about an Australian government using similar tactics to those of oppressive regimes overseas, and even more staggered that I’m doing it two years on from when this saga first began; writes Peter Greste of the NT Government’s latest antics.
A report into the Fyles Government’s minimum alcohol floor price could not definitively determine its sole effectiveness on minimising alcohol-related harm in the NT, citing “incomplete or missing data” at times, but the government has nevertheless claimed it a huge success and vowed to keep the policy in place.
Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has scrapped the government’s public service wage freeze policy, offering public servants a “compounding pay rise” of two per cent, claiming the “economic situation has changed significantly”.
The national union representing journalists sent a letter to the Fyles Government on Monday calling on it to lift the ongoing ban on the NT Independent and to “stop obstructing” the work of journalists in the NT. Read what other media have said about the ongoing ban over the last two and half years.
The NT Police secretly sought authorisation from a federal agency to press charges against the NT Independent that would have seen a raid on its office, computers seized and staff possibly arrested, because this publication reported on a heinous sex crime the police media team suppressed from the public, it can be revealed.
