The NT Government is wasting time trying to overturn a major court ruling that forced it to provide residents with access to safe drinking water, a lawyer representing remote residents says, after the government last week moved to appeal the ruling.

EXCLUSIVE: The damning review into St John Ambulance by the NT Health Department has uncovered a toxic culture in the organisation – in addition to failures leading to patient harm – in which management used lawyers to intimidate and silence staff from speaking out and purposely ignored genuine concerns raised about the organisation’s ongoing ability to function.

Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis has initiated defamation action against Cyclone Tracy survivor Antony Bullock, who is organising a protest against the council’s cyclone memorial sculpture, over a mini-book he has written examining the process to select the controversial work, with a lawyer demanding he not publish the book and threatening to monitor his social media comments to find more instances of alleged defamation.

The Finocchiaro Government has announced an extra $3.9 million in funding for Legal Aid NT this financial year, but an internal email sent to staff warned the agency will still have to find savings, including being more stringent in who was provided legal aid, while hoping the government will increase its base funding for next financial year.

The Northern Land Council has placed two buoys on the Finniss River because of illegal fishing in Aboriginal waters, but said it was not an indication of new or changed access arrangements, while the land council said other parts of that coastline remain closed while long-running access negotiations continue.

Darwin Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis has cancelled his VIP-only unveiling of the controversial Cyclone Tracy memorial sculpture, claiming the Prime Minister had a “bad personal issue” to deal with and could not attend, then attempting to justify keeping the $300,000 in government funding for the memorial by bizarrely claiming that while the sculpture is not a memorial, giving the money back “would be a slap in the face” to Cyclone Tracy survivors who helped select the design.

The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency will not say whether any directors resigned from the board at its annual general meeting on Wednesday, while NT Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby issued a statement seemingly showing she did not know what happened at the meeting, but that she expected the entire board had stepped down or she would re-direct the organisation’s funding elsewhere.