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.
UPDATED: Chief Minister Michael Gunner has breached the trust of Territorians in a “disgusting, appalling abuse of power”, after it was revealed his brother-in-law and then-deputy chief of staff authorised the use of public funds for campaign travel during last year’s election, an independent MLA says.
EXCLUSIVE: Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s office orchestrated taxpayer-funded election campaign trips to marginal electorates approved by the Chief Minister’s brother-in-law, in breach of rules that prevent the misappropriation of public funds, an NT Independent investigation has uncovered.
The NT Parliament’s disciplinary committee has dropped its investigation into Blain MLA Mark Turner for lying to Parliament, after the Office of the ICAC also quietly dropped its investigation into Labor’s so-called “cocaine sex scandal” without issuing a public statement.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner continued the public persecution of who he says are anti-mandatory vaccine sympathisers in Parliament Tuesday, incorrectly outing CLP health critic Bill Yan as attending the so-called “freedom” rally in Darwin on Saturday.
ANALYSIS: While the Gunner Government was establishing the NT’s Office of the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption in 2017, a Labor-run parliamentary committee failed to get up its modest proposal: that NT politicians be excluded from being investigated by the anti-corruption body. Now they’re reviewing the ICAC Act behind closed doors.
