ANALYSIS: This week’s Budget Estimates hearings have again raised some truly troubling facts about corruption in this place and how the Gunner, sorry, Fyles Government continually fails to address it, choosing instead to excuse it and in at least one instance we heard of this week, foster it.
Department of Infrastructure chief executive Andrew Kirkman told Estimates hearings he has no idea why the ICAC is conducting a review of policies and procedures at the Katherine DIPL office, and initially claimed no knowledge of a report his department ordered into corruption allegations at the office in 2019.
The NT’s anti-corruption watchdog was forced to end an investigation into “serious” allegations that Labor Government ministers were misled by an unnamed individual, after ICAC Michael Riches was unable to access Cabinet documents, the commissioner disclosed during Estimates hearings on Tuesday.
Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said she does not “recognise” the NT Independent as a media organisation, despite her federal Labor colleagues, the national union representing journalists, other journalistic bodies around the world and tens of thousands of Territorians all supporting this news publication.
Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler has rubbished an independent engineer’s report into safety issues at TIO Stadium, saying her “advice” from unnamed advisers is that the building is “safe” and fire hydrant water pressure issues resolved, despite the report clearly showing the building’s water pressure is substandard and could “impact life and safety” at the facility.
Labor Member for Daly, Dheran Young, is currently traveling overseas while the volatile “humanitarian situation” in Wadeye worsens by the day, with his ill-timed trip also wreaking havoc on Budget Estimates planning, which has seen meetings postponed because the government cannot fulfil its commitment of three committee members.
Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has unveiled her new Cabinet, that will see Nicole Manison stripped of the police portfolio and Eva Lawler named Treasurer.
The NT’s head public servant Jodie Ryan has resigned from her position effective Monday, as the fallout from former chief minister Michael Gunner’s shock resignation last week continues.
Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has named Nicole Manison as her deputy, keeping her in the role she has held since Michael Gunner’s Labor government was first elected in 2016, in a move seen as mending dividing factions in the party.
UPDATED: Natasha Fyles has been selected by her Labor parliamentary colleagues as the new Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, telling Territorians that she will “put my own mark” on the leadership after nearly six years of rule by Michael Gunner.
Human rights lawyers and Aboriginal justice groups have said the NT government’s new law putting a $15,300 cap on false imprisonment compensation would reduce government accountability in prisons, and it went against the government’s own commitment to the Convention against Torture which Australia ratified in 2017.
Nicole Manison has refused to publicly say whether she is putting her hand up to be the next Chief Minister, but guaranteed Territorians a new chief would be chosen on Friday morning to provide “stability”.
