Police morale has not changed since 80 per cent of respondents voted in August that they had no confidence in Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker, the NT Police Association has said, in an embarrassing challenge to Mr Chalker’s assertion this week attitudes towards him have “changed dramatically”.

NTPA vice president Lisa Bayliss made the comments on Mix 104.9 radio on Friday morning, adding there had been little support for officers inside the NT Police force.

She was on the program talking about crime in Alice Springs, and the NT Police annual report released this week which showed the attrition rate was over 10 per cent – a more than doubling in Mr Chalker’s time in the job – when host Katie Woolf then asked her how morale was in the police force.

“Well, look, it’s, it’s, we haven’t heard any different from our, when we did our survey last,” she said.

“And when members do speak to us, there’s a lot of unhappy police. Things are really tough.

“We’ve had a very difficult couple of years with COVID and also obviously with the [Constable Zach Rolfe] trial and now the [Kumanjayi Walker] inquest. The reputation has taken a battering, of the Northern Territory Police. It’s been a very difficult time for our members.

“It’s very difficult at this time because we haven’t seen a lot of support for our police force. It’s in publicly [sic] and also within the Northern Territory Police. A lot of them are hurting quite a lot. And I think that’s contributed to the attrition rate.”

In a press release about the attrition rate published on Thursday, Ms Bayliss did not mention Mr Chalker at all, despite an overwhelming 79.7 per cent of respondents to the NTPA survey saying they had no confidence in him.

The online survey was completed by a massive 1044 police officers – a total not seen since the pay ballot in 2017 – and the second highest total participation rate in the history of the NTPA. There are currently 1608 members who were eligible to participate in the survey.

At the time NTPA president Paul McCue said in a statement the police force was “in complete crisis”.

Mr Chalker’s handling of the 2019 fatal shooting of Kumanjayi Walker during a bungled arrest, and subsequent murder charge against Constable Zach Rolfe, was given in the survey as the main reason police officers had lost confidence in him.

Another 79.4 per cent of respondents to the survey said current morale in the NT Police force is “low or very low”, while other troubling results showed 92.6 per cent of officers surveyed said they do not believe there are enough police in the NT to do what is asked of them.

Ms Bayliss’ account sits in stark contrast to Mr Chalker’s public opinion on his own popularity, which he gave in a rare press conference on Wednesday, while discussing a crime crisis in Alice Springs, where he said he felt more officers have confidence in him today, despite the inquest still ongoing.

“I think it’s changed dramatically since a lot of truth has come out,” he said, adding that the attrition rate has “dropped markedly”.

“We’ve made significant arrests, we’ve loaded up the jails, justice is being done and we are out there providing support to the community.”

Mr Chalker said the inquest had provided “the truth” and that racist text messages shared between officers in Alice Springs, including Constable Rolfe, were “completely and utterly reprehensible”.

“People have now seen the truth for what it is as the evidence has been presented and are now making the appropriate judgment calls,” he said.

“There is a cultural change going on and people now understand why that has occurred.”

He did not specify what “truths” he was talking about, nor why he was talking about the coronial, when previously he had said he was legally limited in what he could say before it was completed and that he also needed to be respectful of the process.

Mr Chalker added he was cleaning up the issues that all took place before he became commissioner.