EXCLUSIVE: Labor Minister Brent Potter privately purchased shares in an NT Government-backed “major project” while employed as a senior adviser to the minister responsible for the project in 2021, which a leading integrity expert said was “just wrong” and raised serious concerns about the potential use of sensitive government information for personal financial interests.

Mr Potter, who worked as a ministerial adviser to then-aquaculture and agribusiness minister Nicole Manison, purchased 8,700 shares in Seafarms Group – the parent company of the Project Sea Dragon prawn farm – in June 2021.

Records provided to the NT Independent by the Minister show he divested the shares last November – two days after he was made aware former chief minister Natasha Fyles was in breach of the ministerial code of conduct for not divesting her shareholdings in Woodside Energy.

Mr Potter repeatedly refused to say what prompted his interest in Seafarms, but an NT Government media statement released the month after he invested stated that Seafarms had successfully raised $92.5 million in June “to kickstart construction [of the prawn farm project] via share placement”.

The Labor Government had repeatedly touted Project Sea Dragon as a major $1.87 billion aquaculture project that would create 1000 jobs for Territorians, with Ms Manison stating in the July 2021 government statement that it was “such an exciting project for the Territory because it means jobs, jobs, and more jobs”.

Project Sea Dragon received Major Project status from the NT Government in 2015 and benefited from $56 million worth of road upgrades paid for with public funds by the current Labor Government starting in 2020, to facilitate the potential prawn farm at Legune Station, near the WA border. It remains unclear if the government provided other taxpayer funds or commitments directly to the company.

Mr Potter told the NT Independent he declared the shares while a ministerial adviser “on an internal conflicts HR disclosure statement” after purchasing them, but again refused to say why he invested in the company that had benefitted from public funds and that his minister had high-level discussions with concerning government support.

Mr Potter said he divested the Seafarms shares upon becoming Police Minister in late October 2023, however a “sell order” he provided shows the shares were sold on November 17 – one day after Ms Fyles divested her shares in Woodside Energy, following the NT Independent revealing she had breached the ministerial code of conduct by not divesting those shares when she became a minister.

He claimed that he attempted to divest the Seafarms shares on October 30 last year, but that “nobody wanted them” and he was forced to keep them until the 8,700 shares could be sold on November 17 for $0.004 per share, which earned him $34.80 – a massive loss on the estimated six cents per share he purchased them for in June 2021, when share prices dropped from nine cents to six.

“I have no shares which could be considered a conflict of interest in any way,” Mr Potter said. “I previously owned Seafarms Group Limited shares, which I sold off when I became a Northern Territory Minister to ensure no conflict would ever arise.”

Centre for Public Integrity director Geoffrey Watson said it was concerning Mr Potter had purchased the shares while in the role of adviser to the minister responsible for the project.

“It doesn’t matter that the shares were sold at a loss,” he said.

“All purchases in shares are risky and speculative. The point here is that the trading of the shares was done at the time that he might have been in possession of information that the government intended to plow money into the project.

“As the government’s plan for the project shows, if it had all worked out, the shares might have been worth a small fortune.

“It is just wrong that people are trading shares in areas where they are potentially privy to confidential government information.”

Mr Potter told the NT Independent he purchased the shares while “police adviser to the NT Government”, however screenshots of his LinkedIn page taken before he deleted it in 2022, show Mr Potter was a senior adviser for then-deputy chief minister Ms Manison, who was also police minister at the time, as well as aquaculture and industry minister.

His LinkedIn page specifically stated that he advised Ms Manison in relation to “Northern Australia and trade”, “petroleum” and “defence industry”.

Multiple government sources said Mr Potter never officially held the role of police adviser, but it is understood he would have been privy to all information related to the minister’s portfolios.

He left his ministerial adviser role in July 2022, after he was hand-picked by Ms Fyles to run in the Fannie Bay electorate following the resignation of Michael Gunner.

Mr Potter was also an adviser to Ms Fyles for two months and was her chief of staff’s brother-in-law at the time he was selected to stand for Fannie Bay.

He attracted controversy ahead of the by-election after the NT Independent revealed he previously worked for the CEO of Amphibian Aerospace Industries and was instrumental as an adviser to Ms Manison in securing $10 million in public funds for that company to rebuild an old amphibian aircraft, which raised perceived conflicts of interest at the time.

Mr Potter refused to say if he had declared a conflict of interest while an adviser on that project concerning his relationship with AAI’s CEO Dan Webster, who was executive director at a company called Elbit Systems Australia at the same time Mr Potter worked there as the business development manager between 2018 and 2020.

Mr Potter has since declared the potential conflict of interest with Elbit Systems on his parliamentary Register of Members’ Interests form, but not AAI, which the government has also touted as a linchpin of its $40 billion economy goal by 2030, providing it $10 million in pubic funds despite the company never having built an aircraft and leaving other jurisdictions after similar broken promises of stimulating local economies.

Potter breached Disclosure of Interests Act, more concerns raised over ministerial integrity

A hard copy of the parliamentary Register of Members’ Interests shows Mr Potter still held shares in Seafarms as of Friday, February 16.

Mr Potter’s office first claimed he would be disclosing the divested shares on March 1, before the Register of Members’ Interest is uploaded to a government website for public viewing.

Informed by the NT Independent that he was legally obligated to disclose any additions or deletions to his register within four weeks of changes occurring, Mr Potter’s office said “an administrative oversight” was to blame for not properly recording his disclosures within the 28-day reporting period.

Revelations of Mr Potter’s shares in Seafarms follows the NT Independent reporting earlier this month that Deputy Chief Minister Chansey Paech purchased shares in a liquor wholesale company that supplies alcohol to Alice Springs bottle shops two months before his Cabinet controversially permitted Intervention-era grog bans on remote communities to lapse in 2022.

Mr Watson said the latest revelations of a Labor minister involved in a questionable shares purchase highlighted the need for stronger integrity measures in the Northern Territory.

“The fact [Potter] divested after the Fyles shares matter is evidence of widespread acceptance of purchasing shares or investing in areas related to governmental information, which needs to stop,” he said.