Parts of a secret review of the NT ICAC Act commissioned by the Gunner Government have been released through a public “discussion paper”, including recommendations that politicians not be investigated by the ICAC for unsatisfactory conduct and that individuals found to have engaged in misconduct not be publicly named.
UPDATED: The Country Liberal Party says its vice president has been ‘reprimanded’ after telling a group of vaccine protesters that the party’s “strategy” is to support the vaccine mandate but that many members don’t believe in it, then encouraged the crowd to run for the CLP at the next election to “kick all of these fools” out of Parliament.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner has refused to answer written questions from an independent MLA about when he became aware his brother-in-law and former deputy chief of staff approved the use of taxpayer money for Labor’s 2020 election campaign travel, in contravention of rules meant to protect against the misuse of public funds.
The Gunner Labor Government is wasting taxpayer money sending the MLA they kicked out of caucus last year to London at taxpayer expense to take part in a parliamentary junket, the Opposition CLP says.
ANALYSIS: The ICAC Inspector’s report released last week into a complaint by the NT News and its former editor Matt Williams is not a get-out-of-jail-free card as the Territory’s only daily newspaper seems to think it is, nor is it vindication for them – it’s a new nadir of just how corrupt and incompetent the Northern Territory has become.
A secret consultancy contract between the Department of Health and Ernst and Young that saw procurement rules violated to inflate a $700,000 contract to more than $4.3 million through variations has been referred to the ICAC by the Opposition and an independent MLA.
EXCLUSIVE: The NT Health Department and its Minister misled Territorians and violated government procurement policies when it awarded a controversial $700,000 consultancy contract to Ernst and Young that ballooned to more than $4.3 million after multiple variations, the Auditor General has found.
The Territory Labor caucus and the NT’s head public servant have refused to say when they became aware of alleged election rorts perpetrated by the Chief Minister’s Office during the 2020 election caretaker period – or if any of them reported suspected improper conduct to the anti-corruption body in accordance with mandatory reporting laws.
EXCLUSIVE: The extent of Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s brother-in-law’s involvement in the 2020 Labor election campaign while drawing his taxpayer-funded deputy chief of staff salary has been further revealed in a series of internal emails obtained by the NT Independent.
READ THE DOCS: A standard 30-day Freedom of Information application turned into an eight-month struggle to extract public documents from the Office of the Chief Minister. Here are the documents we eventually obtained that show taxpayer funds being used for party-political campaigning by the Chief Minister.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner did not answer direct allegations made in Parliament that his brother-in-law and former deputy chief of staff approved the use of taxpayer money for Labor’s 2020 election campaign in breach of rules meant to prevent the misappropriation of public funds.
Territorians have been banned from attending NT Parliament for the last week of sittings of the year, following a “security risk assessment” by NT Police, Speaker Ngaree Ah Kit said, while friends of Labor were allowed to attend the afternoon sittings.
