As the federal election nears, the NT Independent will be offering advertising packages to all the candidates and political parties without favour.


As the federal election nears, the NT Independent will be offering advertising packages to all the candidates and political parties without favour.

ANALYSIS: In a respectable jurisdiction, those in positions of public trust currently under investigation for the decision to charge Constable Zach Rolfe would realise they are only caretakers of those crucial positions and stand aside while the investigation is underway. But not in the NT, as we grapple with a confusing and hopelessly compromised situation.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner has overturned the long-standing government ban on the NT Independent, stating the Territory’s corruption watchdog’s investigation into political interference had made him realise he’d “dropped the ball” on his promise of restoring integrity to government.

UPDATED: Celebrated NT cartoonist Col Wicking has ditched the NT News to continue his famous cartooning career at the NT Independent citing professional integrity and employment security as reasons

The NT Independent turns two years old today. It's been a wild couple of years. We're proud of this online newspaper's contributions to public life in the Northern Territory. We started this to make a difference and after thousands of stories over those two years,...

ANALYSIS: Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker’s second attempt to explain himself and his political masters this week, in the wake of the most high-profile criminal trial since a former NT police chief went to jail, saw him once again divorced from reality, contradicting his previous statements and leaving us all with more questions than we had before.

OPINION: The Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia should replace the Queen and the Govenor-General at the top of our political system with the creation of a kind-of Australian republic, writes Patrick Berends.

Former Darwin critical care registered nurse, Laine Jolly, who refused to be COVID-19 vaccinated, writes Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s mandate created division and hatred in a misguided attempt to advance his own political position.

Former NT Police sergeant Leith Phillips asks Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker questions about his behaviour over the last ten days, from the lead-up to the end of the Constable Zach Rolfe murder trial, and argues he has presided over the greatest loss of experience the NT Police force has ever sustained.

Retired Territory lawyer Geoff James argues the Gunner Government is exploiting the scope for one-person-rule offered by the Public and Environmental Health Act emergency powers, but that the chief health officer’s so-called vaccine mandate is invalid because it goes beyond the power afforded him under the enabling act.

NT Independent editor Chris Walsh’s critical analysis of the news of the week on the Territory Story podcast, including details of an ICAC probe launched into Eva Lawler and department over TIO Stadium debacle, a tender out for development of MAGNT master plan, could cost $100m over ten years, and why the Police Commissioner was interstate playing golf before the end of the Constable Zach Rolfe murder trial. And yes, so much more.

ANALYSIS: There were some important words Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker did not say in his press conference – which he walked away from without taking questions – after the verdict in the Constable Zach Rolfe murder trial yesterday that rendered his statement meaningless.