EXCLUSIVE: Territory taxpayers were charged more than $300,000 to fit out a new electorate office for a Gunner Government minister five months before the election through a contract that did not go to public tender, recently released government documents show.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner charged taxpayers more than $7,000 for a one-night trip to Nhulunbuy in the lead up to the NT general election that included costs for his wife and newborn baby, newly released government travel records show.
The Gunner Government needs to explain to Territorians why it lied to them in the lead up to the NT general election after providing misleading financial figures in a “horrifying” breach of public trust, a long-time political observer and academic has said.
An independent MLA says she has been forbidden from communicating with public servants after being issued a letter from the NT’s head public servant, which she says has escalated the Gunner Government’s ongoing attempt to stifle open communication.
Professional misconduct allegations filed against former Labor leader Delia Lawrie’s lawyer Alistair Wyvill have been dismissed, five years after they were made, in a decision that has raised fresh questions over how the Stella Maris Inquiry and subsequent Supreme Court appeal were handled.
Financial figures released by Chief Minister Michael Gunner before the election – as well as wild claims that close to 100,000 Territorians would be infected with COVID-19 at a cost of $200 million if it weren’t for him – have been found to be “misleading” by the Auditor General.
The Australian Senate has publicly rebuked Chief Minister Michael Gunner, unanimously passing a motion last night calling on the NT Government to rescind its ban on the NT Independent.
The Gunner Government is taking federal cash intended for private companies to build and upgrade the Territory’s roads and using it to hire more public servants, while at the same time paying more consultants for “specialist advice”, the Estimates Committee was told.
The head of the union representing public servants says the Chief Minister refuses to meet over his proposed four-year pay freeze – touted as a crucial government cost saving measure – while the head of the Education Union said he has stopped trying after being rebuffed by Michael Gunner since he came to power.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner has told Estimates hearings he will table the secret document he signed with an unknown Chinese official while on a state visit to Shenzhen, China that has not been made public, while also appearing to contradict himself over the nature of the agreement.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s ongoing ban of the NT Independent undermines basic democratic values and is contributing to the erosion of integrity in government, says journalist Peter Greste, who was jailed in Egypt for more than a year while on assignment for Al-Jazeera in 2013.
The Federal Government is handing back the Jabiru township – the centrepiece of a $446 million rejuvenation master plan – to an organisation that shares directors with an Aboriginal corporation currently under investigation by the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations for alleged financial impropriety.
