The recent Public Accounts Committee report into how Territorians were roped into the worst deal in the history of the Northern Territory with Paspaley Group to build the company a nearly $1 billion ship lift, that the NT will see zero profit from, has shone a bit of light on what has become standard operating practice for our broke jurisdiction, run by people out of their depths to the benefit of a select few.

We simply cannot afford to build a billion dollar facility for a bunch of billionaires to profit from while the rest of us pay for it over the next 50 years to the tune of $1.8 billion.

That’s the long and the short of it – why have none of our political leaders said this publicly?

This matter screams out for leadership.

When will Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro stand up for Territorians and shirtfront the Paspaley Group over this?

This deal is a shocker and one that we cannot afford regardless of the claims of some burgeoning boutique marine industry it might deliver and the exaggerated employment numbers that will get thrown around as the government attempts to defend the indefensible by building this thing for a private company to profit from.

We know, as the PAC confirmed, that the previous Gunner/Fyles/Manison/Lawler Labor government got us into this, but that is not a reason to sit still and let the Territory be taken advantage of.

Why did we elect Lia Finocchiaro and her CLP team of over-confident underachievers if it wasn’t to fix what Labor broke? It wasn’t to give us all pet crocodiles.

Instead of standing up for the Northern Territory, our leader and her team declared they are sitting still on this tremendously bad deal because “the contract is signed” and therefore we need to throw at least another $600 million into finishing the Ship Lift for Paspaley on terms nobody but Paspaley thinks are fair.

For all of Lia’s Trump-like tough talk and racist policies, including punching down on transgender people, picking fights with Aboriginal groups and insulting our hard-working paediatricians and public servants, when it comes to fighting for the Territory’s finances and economic future, she curls up in the foetal position.

Last week’s performance on ABC Radio Darwin would have been funny if it wasn’t so serious and a perfect insight into our leader’s hypocrisy.

Lia said her government has a duty to “act responsibly with taxpayers’ money” and “can’t continue to throw good money after bad”, and that projects started by Labor “can’t come at any cost”.

This is true and would have been refreshing to hear in the right context.

But she was talking only about Labor’s proposed State Square art gallery project that she claimed had blown out by $100 million, without appearing to realise those lines should also be applied to the Ship Lift, which started with $100 million in public funding in 2015 under the previous CLP government, only to sky-rocket to the latest $820 million figure, which after we all pay to maintain the facility over the next 40 years, will see us on the hook for nearly $2 billion in “lifetime cost exposure”, while not getting a single cent back on the project.

Then there’s the $35 million a year in interest costs alone to pay back NAIF the $300 million we borrowed from them to build it, while the government Treasury boffins refused to say how much more we’ll be paying in interest to go deeper in debt for the remaining $520 million to fund it.

This is madness any way you cut it and hard to understand why the Chief Minister can be so hypocritical. On one hand she scraps a project by stating we can’t afford it, but then continues with another that will cost 10 times more and see zero returns on investment.

Contracts not referred for investigation despite lingering questions of impropriety

The PAC inquiry found budget and project management on the Ship Lift was non-existent, yet the CLP Government is still moving ahead with it, which, as we said a couple weeks ago, shows that this CLP Government is no better than Labor.

“Fundamentally, at no point in time has there been a business case developed for this project,” the committee said in its report.

“This means that the standards of transparency and public accountability have not been maintained, nor is there clarity regarding whether the project maximises outcomes and public benefit for the significant public expenditure.”

Even the committee’s chair, CLP backbencher Clinton Howe recognised it as “the greatest transfer of public to private wealth in the Northern Territory’s history”.

Yet our Chief Minister agrees to proceed with it instead of referring it to the proper bodies for investigation.

One of the more puzzling aspects of the PAC’s report into this shonky deal was its conclusion that the NT Government could not break the suspicious binding contracts with Paspaley Group to build them the billion-dollar Ship Lift without having to pay the company $600 million for terminating the contract.

More madness.

Lia said she accepted that conclusion, despite, and this is critically important, the PAC not seeking any independent legal advice on the matter.

It accepted the advice from the Department of Logistics and Infrastructure – the same department which under a slightly different name and while run by Andrew Kirkman – ignored the Auditor-General’s 2024 advice to commission a cost-benefit analysis of the project, while remarkably telling the AG it would do that only when the project was completed.

Meanwhile, the costs blew out by a further $300 million in the time between the department ignoring the AG’s recommendation and the PAC starting its inquiry. The department cannot explain why, but that particular blow-out occurred in the months leading up to last year’s election.

Again, nothing about this has been referred to a proper body for investigation, whether that be the NT Police or the struggling Office of the ICAC, which we assume does still exist in some current form, despite its best efforts to turn investigations into “learning opportunities” for people who continue to flout the rules.

The PAC said they could not conclude how the suspicious contracts were approved or varied due to the department claiming they knew nothing about the contracts and that any insight was protected under “cabinet in confidence” provisions.

The committee never called Kirkman, Gunner, Fyles, Lawler or anyone else who was involved in the greasy deal to provide evidence at the inquiry. They relied only on new departmental staffers, many of whom weren’t in the roles when the deals were approved and signed.

Suspicious deals that benefit an elite few with taxpayer money sounds like sufficient grounds for breaking a contract to us and at the very least grounds for a proper independent investigation that might find more reasons to break the contract.

Ship Lift project needs to go back to market

A real leader would tell Paspaley Group to get stuffed over this deal because it is clearly not in the best interests of Territorians or the Territory overall.

If the company wants to sue, let them. Their highly paid PR people can craft a narrative around why they’re trying to bankrupt the Northern Territory – their own home – because they expect everyone who lives here to pay for them to make more money. When was the last time Paspaley Group did anything good for the Territory that didn’t involve some sort of taxpayer kickback?

It’s a PR nightmare even for an arrogant and entitled enterprise like the Paspaley Group.

But the main reason the company won’t sue is because it knows this deal stinks. It does not want to see those contracts aired in a public courtroom.

Does anyone remember the Turf Club grandstand scandal?

That showed us how Labor did business and this one is starting to smell like the grandstand, only about 80 times more pungent.

Still, Lia says the contract is signed and that “people are very disappointed at the cost and the way it’s come about, but they are excited about the prospects.”

No, we’re not excited about the prospect of going deeper in debt for a multi-billion dollar company to make more money.

We’d like to see real leadership here.

Tell Paspaley the deal no longer works for the Territory and put it back out to the market for a new expressions of interest phase. Even if we must still plunk more than the $250 million we already have on it, we need to get at least something back more tangible than empty promises of a few dozen jobs.

Defence too would be more likely to use the facility if it wasn’t run by Paspaley, which has a reputation for prioritising their own vessels ahead of everyone else’s at their current ship lift.

Lia promised to rebuild our economy.

Instead, she’s once again restoring the corrupt Territory lifestyle.