EDITORIAL: There’s no sense arguing anymore if the previous Labor government was worse than the current Finocchiaro CLP Government – this government has simply picked up where Labor left off and every other self-serving, egomanic government we’ve had over the years, that puts its elected members’ interests and its mates above all Territorians.

Which is why we continue to drift further from our potential. Instead of flourishing, our economic and social advancement has been delayed for years once again while the elite few line their pockets and leave town when the public finally catches on.

The Gunner/Fyles/Manison/Lawler Labor government was voted out at last year’s Territory election for various reasons, chief among them was their glaring lack of integrity and transparency, the stink of corruption and an almost daily assault on the public’s institutions, mixed with their own disrespect for the rule of law.

In its dying days in office, the then-Labor government refused to hold anyone accountable for misconduct, including its own ministers who had breached the public’s trust while mired in various shares scandals and integrity issues, and became so adrift from their pledge of “restoring integrity” to government they were unrecognisable as a Labor party.

Outside of Michael Gunner, nobody epitomised the self-interest and lack of principles of that government more than Natasha Fyles, who took Gunner’s lead in shaping the party around her own ambitions that necessarily involved abandoning all values.

Lia Finocchiaro, who shares that same sort of naked ambition and spoiled brat arrogance, was able to build up a lot of good will following the election, with Territorians willing to give her a chance after eight years of a bad Labor government.

But she has proceeded to piss it all away by choosing to govern the way previous CLP governments and the last Labor government did; by appointing mates to important statutory roles (including the judiciary, Legal Aid and the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority), refusing to take action on serious allegations of misconduct in government agencies (which goes to the heart of public confidence in its government), manipulating legislation to serve her own interests rather than the public she serves, withholding funding from statutory bodies until they commit to the government’s will, sacking people who speak out against it, and various other all-around nefarious behaviour unbecoming of a leader.

Lia and Fyles are both born-and-bred Territorians with the silver spoon firmly implanted, who witnessed how the Territory was run for decades by self-serving governments, inspiring both to seek the top role, but lacking the compassion and political temperament to put their own interest aside to govern for all Territorians.

Instead, they governed by decree and without public consultation. Lia hasn’t hired a gas lobbyist to be her senior adviser like Fyles, but only because she takes her political advice from industry direct and cuts out the middle man.

It was almost comical in Parliament this week to hear Lia say she was “streamlining integrity” by introducing legislation to create a new Integrity and Ethics Commission, while numerous unresolved integrity matters hang over her, including her use of the ministerial white car chauffeur service to attend party functions (while chastising the Greens for using their electorate office to hold a function which all parties do), a failure to address issues raised in a Four Corners investigation about conflicts of interest and a cosy relationship with industry at the Racing and Wagering Commission that embarrassed us nationally once again, and the still multiple unresolved serious governance issues at the Darwin Waterfront involving taxpayer money that she and her family have personally benefitted from.

If voters truly despise a political hypocrite, we needn’t pay for a poll to tell us what we already know about how popular Lia is right now. The latest bit of discourse this weekend about the hypocrisy of “assistant ministers” and their intrastate travel are the least of the real misconduct issues at play here and the latest distraction from our real concerns about impropriety at the highest level of government.

This CLP Government was drunk on a cocktail of conceit, stupidity and spite this week when it stood up in Parliament and said it was serious about restoring “integrity and trust” to government and the public service.

After patting each other on the back for “restoring trust” by introducing the Integrity and Ethics Commission legislation – which it refused to submit for proper scrutiny in a huge twist of irony – this government quickly moved to alter FOI laws to ensure that all correspondence between ministers and their staffers never sees the light of day.

They did this, they admitted in an official statement, to protect former Labor mines minister (and current Tamboran Resources VP) Nicole Manison’s internal emails from being publicly exposed, that would have revealed secret deals arranged with a mining company to benefit those elite few rather than you.

If anyone needed any further evidence that the two parties are conspiring to enrich themselves at the expense of Territorians, there it is.

Neither the CLP or the ALP give a shit about what’s good for the Territory; it’s all about what’s good for them and they are only too willing to abuse their power to cover-up their misconduct.

It’s hard to say, outside of the whole “tough-on-crime” rhetoric and cramming our jails full of Aboriginal people without proper resources to address rehabilitation or root causes, what would have been different had Labor won re-election last August.

Surely, Labor too would have scrapped the ICAC that they set up to fail, blocked their public emails and documents from being accessible to the public, appointed more mates of their own, attacked more of their critics, and denied all responsibility for their misconduct.

The one thing we know for certain is that no matter who is in power, Martin Dole would still be the Police Commissioner right now and not because there was “no one better in the country” to lead our police force, which Lia actually said, while appointing him to the top cop role through even shadier hiring practices than she fired Murphy for.

Dole was the next man in line to lead a deeply dysfunctional police force that Lia pledged to hold an inquiry into seven times in opposition but reneged on as soon as she was sworn in as Police Minister.

The arrogance and hubris is sickening.

It was an undisclosed shares scandal that took Fyles down in the end, after the NT Independent revealed her shares in a mining company she made ministerial decisions about, but failed to disclose on her register of interests. Her party took action against her over that breach of public trust.

Lia, we discovered a few months back, also failed to disclose a matter on her register of interests at the same time: that her husband was the director of a company called Place Leaders Asia Pacific that was being funnelled taxpayer money through the already dysfunctional Darwin Waterfront Corporation, where he also happened to be the deputy chief executive and who benefitted from a wide-range of questionable governance practices.

She finally disclosed that directorship two years after she was legally required to, and only after Fyles was rolled and scrutiny on every politician’s personal declarations reached fever-pitch. Sam Burke resigned from the director role six months later in the days following his wife’s election last August.

Our Chief Minister has refused to explain why she was breaching the same laws she criticised Fyles for breaching at the time.

Yet nobody in the little nest of dysfunction and ego that is the CLP parliamentary wing have moved a finger to call Lia out for this and other egregious public integrity failures that is costing this jurisdiction credibility and a proper future.

The NT Independent is and always has been what our name suggests. We have never favoured either of our major political parties and have always held both to account for the last half-decade without fear or favour.

We think we speak for all Territorians when we say all we want is good government.

We want our political leaders to forgo their entitlements, their egos and their over-inflated sense of self-worth and truly lead for the good of the Territory while earning back the public’s trust.

This is not a special request. It’s the bare minimum needed for the Territory to succeed. We cannot continue like this.