“Do you think ignoring a media outlet fosters freedom of reporting by the media?”

So asked Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro when in opposition at an Estimates hearing in December 2020 of then chief minister Michael Gunner.

Gunner had earlier fled an arranged press conference at the wharf after his staff notified him the NT Independent was there. He then spouted nonsense in Parliament – after telling security not to let our reporters in – that he did not recognise the NT Independent as a media organisation.

He offered different reasons over the years for why he would not answer questions from this masthead, chief among them that the owner is conservative businessman Owen Pike. The joke in the office at the time was, ‘wait til he finds out who owns the NT News’.

But everybody knew the real reason was the Labor chief minister did not want to face tough questions from NT Independent editor Chris Walsh. His concerns were proven right when the NT Independent later revealed in an investigative series that he misused public funds to run Labor’s 2020 election campaign. Gunner resigned shortly after an ICAC investigation was launched in 2022.

His successor Natasha Fyles kept up the ban for the same reason and herself ran away from this paper’s questions at a press conference in late 2023, slamming the car door shut so fast her media adviser couldn’t get in. Again, it was the NT Independent that exposed her failure to disclose shares in a mining company she made decisions about as a minister that ended her political career.

(The outlier here is Eva Lawler who permitted us to attend her press conferences, but regretted it on certain days when she would get nearly as apoplectic as Bob Katter, but credit to her for showing the courage to take the tough questions and never threatening to punch us or run away.)

Lia Finocchiaro has now not held a press conference in nearly seven weeks, the last one being July 14, two days before the NT Independent revealed she had breached the Disclosure of Interests Act by failing to disclose on her register of members interests forms for two years that her husband Sam Burke was the director of a private company that received public funds from the Darwin Waterfront Corporation—the same $25 million publicly-funded entity he oversees as deputy chief executive.

Then there’s the other governance failures, mismanaged conflicts of interest and unusual board and executive position overlaps at the corporation that have not been fully explored or explained to the public.

Last Friday, Finocchiaro ran from all media at the NT Police Association annual conference after her adviser Elle Arnold told the ABC she would take questions. But the NT Independent showed up after the pledge was made and she suddenly felt the urge to leave. Funny that.

On Tuesday, the NT Independent approached the Chief Minister as she left her bi-weekly radio session on ABC Radio Darwin to politely ask her a few questions that her office has repeatedly refused to respond to, first about a significant investigation report into the appointment of senior NT Police executives and then about the Darwin Waterfront Corporation.

Instead of fostering media freedom, as she is obligated to do under the MLA code of conduct, Ms Finocchiaro jumped in her car and refused to answer a simple question about the police executive jobs inquiry report and why it’s been sitting on her desk for three weeks. It wasn’t a big ask; it was a couple of questions that would have taken all of five minutes to answer.

This followed her cancelling a scheduled press conference last week in the rural area that the NT Independent attended without her office ever explaining why she did not show up. Let’s not forget that before that, Lia walked out on media in two separate press conferences when directly asked about the Waterfront scandal.

Back at Estimates in 2020, Lia Finocchiaro took it to Gunner for doing the runner, making him visibly uncomfortable as she skewered him for his illegal ban on this masthead.

Gunner slumped back in his chair sheepishly. He did not want to answer the questions, repeatedly complaining in a low, mouse-like tone that the issue should not be raised at Estimates because he claimed it had nothing to do with the business of the Department of Chief Minister.

But Lia rightfully persisted.

“It is about policy, how you conduct yourself as Chief Minister and public impact,” she said.

“Are you not going to entertain this at all, even though it is a huge question regarding scrutiny and your conduct?

“It is about media freedom and the public receiving information. You cannot justify why you do not recognise them?”

But now that Lia is in power, she is no longer the champion of the free press.

This is a major problem for her. She is in breach of the MLA code of conduct for failing to foster freedom of reporting by the Territory’s journalists, bypassing them for months in favour of quick radio grabs and poorly written press releases.

More than that, she has shown she is incapable of doing the job of Chief Minister. That job involves answering tough questions on a daily basis and if she chooses to avoid the media, she is not promoting or defending her government’s business.

This is often the reason cited when politicians resign in scandal: “I resigned to stop distraction to the business of government”, which a former CLP deputy chief minister uttered when his own shares scandal was revealed by Walsh in 2016.

But Lia continues to run in hopes the Darwin Waterfront Scandal goes away. It won’t. She’s now a distraction to the business of her own government.

As we explained a couple weeks back, failing to address a scandal only keeps it going and stinking more by the day. The fact she recently doubled down and outright dismissed calls for an independent investigation into the Waterfront scandal is also disturbing and a massive conflict of interest she has refused to explain.

Every journalist in the NT should be asking her office why she refuses to hold a press conference. Like Lia said, this is about “scrutiny” of elected officials and the conduct of the Chief Minister.

She is now the one “ignoring a media outlet” and stifling “freedom of reporting by the media”.

Indeed, she was right, this is also about “policy” and “how you conduct yourself as Chief Minister”.

But that was only when she was in opposition.

Now, ignoring the free press and running from scrutiny is the CLP Government’s communications strategy.

Just the last three years in NT politics has shown us what happens to a Chief Minister who is afraid to answer questions.