The Gunner Government has not properly implemented many key budget repair measures it claimed it has and has no effective way of measuring government savings or whether it can ever get back to a sustainable financial position, a scathing Auditor General’s report has found.
The Department of Chief Minister and Cabinet has refused to explain incomplete travel records provided to the NT Independent last year under FOI laws that showed Michael Gunner’s then-deputy chief of staff and brother-in-law approved the use of taxpayer funds for campaign purposes in apparent contravention of the law.
Senator Sam McMahon, who resigned from the CLP earlier this year, will re-contest the upcoming federal election as a Liberal Democrat, she has announced.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner has thrown his support behind beleaguered Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker in Parliament, in the face of three NT Independent articles this week based on different detectives’ diary notes that contradict Mr Chalker’s claims that he was not involved in the process to charge Constable Zach Rolfe with murder in 2019.
NT Parliament descended into farce again Wednesday afternoon, with the Gunner Government using parliamentary technicalities to block the Opposition from asking the Chief Minister about his role in the Zach Rolfe ICAC investigation and the Speaker kicking the Opposition Leader out of Parliament, later admitting she was “confused”.
The Opposition has used Parliament to move a censure motion against Chief Minister Michael Gunner for rejecting a public inquiry into allegations of political interference in the Constable Zach Rolfe affair and called on him to stand aside while the ICAC investigates.
A senior adviser to the Chief Minister allegedly told an Alice Springs businessman to “fuck off” twice after he had raised concerns about crime issues during a government visit to the town last week, independent MLA Robyn Lambley said in Parliament.
An independent MLA’s motion to establish a non-partisan parliamentary committee to investigate solutions for the crime crisis currently gripping the Territory, that was to focus first on crime in Central Australia, has been defeated by the Gunner Government.
Any issues of illegal conduct around the charging of Constable Zach Rolfe found through the upcoming coronial inquest into the death of Kumnajayi Walker would be sent to the Police Commissioner and the Director of Public Prosecutions – the very positions alleged to have been compromised by “political interference” – according to the Coroners Act.
UPDATED: NT Police Association president Paul McCue said “political interference was alive” when Constable Zach Rolfe was charged for murder in 2019, implicating senior NT Labor politicians for influencing the decision to lay charges.
Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler must immediately stand down while the NT’s anti-corruption commissioner investigates her involvement in the TIO Stadium fiasco, the Opposition CLP says.
The Gunner Government is under investigation by the NT’s anti-corruption commissioner over its handling of the TIO Stadium fiasco following Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler’s extraordinary ministerial order to exempt the facility from building certification laws meant to protect the public.
