EXCLUSIVE: A fracking well drilled by Beetaloo Energy Australia that potentially connected two different aquifers, posing a risk of contamination for both, and which was forbidden under the company’s environmental management plan, was the reason the Department of Lands Planning and Environment recommended former environment minister Kate Worden prosecute the company, a response to questions on notice from Budget Estimates hearings shows.
Territory Labor appears not to have learned any lessons from an ICAC investigation into its misuse of public funds during the 2020 election campaign, with the Auditor-General finding the now-Opposition members used taxpayer-funded staff to produce party-political social media posts in recent months, in breach of the Public Information Act.
The Northern Territory recorded growth in business investment and construction activity over last year, according to the latest CommSec State of the States report, with other economic indicators, such as population growth also showing modest improvements.
Proposed legislation that will change the Anti-Discrimination Act is being heralded by the CLP and religious groups as a major win, while others have criticised the government for the changes that they say weakens protections and waters down reforms brought in three years ago.
A female police officer was sent to hospital after an altercation with five females in Yarrawonga yesterday afternoon, in an incident that saw the “aggressive” females allegedly surrounding the officers at one point, with pepper spray deployed and damage to a police vehicle, the NT Police said.
A little-known ‘networking’ company connected to Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro’s husband Sam Burke has not made its annual financial reports public since 2021 while its auditor resigned two years ago, the NT Independent can reveal, raising more questions about how much the company received from taxpayers through the Waterfront Corporation to hold a conference this year and the value of ongoing fees paid to it with taxpayer money.
A Sydney man has been charged in relation to an alleged $3.5 million rort of an NT Government department through a corporate email fraud that fooled NT public servants, after he allegedly emailed them claiming to be from an established construction company but asking to change that company’s bank account details for the next payment.
The Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education’s chief executive officer Joe Martin-Jard will leave the job roughly 14 months after he started, while his deputy has been directly appointed to take over from him in a “succession plan”, despite the Office of the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption previously warning the organisation against direct appointments of staff without a selection process.
Tamboran Resource’s long-serving CEO and managing director Joel Riddle has suddenly “stepped down” from his roles, the company said in a surprise announcement on Monday, with the chair of the board appointed interim CEO amid reported financial problems and other challenges facing the company.
NT Police have confirmed they did not undertake full searches of several potential disposal sites of Peter Falconio’s remains mapped out for them by a world-leading expert in “no-body” homicide cases in 2007, and have yet to action the entire scope of the search report.
The Finocchiaro Government has been “pathetic” and “appalling” by introducing overtly racist policies, the Northern Land Council chair has said, adding government spending on Indigenous disadvantage should be audited, while all four land councils have called for an independent inquiry into structural racism in NT Police, an independent body to investigate police misconduct, and a better policing model for remote communities.
NT Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby has attacked the acting CEO of the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency for criticising the inhumane conditions inside the Palmerston watch house and calling for the Federal Government to suspend funding police in remote communities until the NT Government meets with Aboriginal leaders to discuss ongoing crime issues, labelling the calls “irresponsible” and “absurd”.
