Darwin Waterfront Corporation chair Patrick Bellot has offered confidential briefings to select elected officials about the Waterfront scandal, but has declined the NT Independent’s request to take him up on the offer and to share his “briefing” with the public.
There are also concerns the proposed secret “briefing” that Mr Bellot has refused to make public may contain misinformation that has not been independently verified, which could breach the Corporations Act.
Opposition Leader Selena Uibo referred the ongoing Waterfront scandal for investigation to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee last week, stating the matter raised “serious allegations involving significant sums of public money” involving the Chief Minister’s husband, as well as other “potential fraud and gross conflicts of interest” having occurred at the corporation over years.
Mr Bellot claimed in a statement on Thursday that he was “disappointed” Ms Uibo did not agree to his offer of a “briefing” before she referred the matter for investigation, but has refused to explain what information he was relying on to develop his proposed briefing.
The NT Independent first revealed the scandal in a series of investigative reports that relied on internal memos that exposed unchecked jobs for mates, non-compliance with public service recruitment processes, seemingly mismanaged conflicts of interest, and the potential misuse of public funds to pay Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro’s husband Sam Burke an estimated $400,000 in “higher duties allowance” for questionable part-time jobs over six years.
Concerns were also raised about the movement of money between different bodies to pay Mr Burke for the “higher duties” that were never properly reviewed or independently assessed. The Darwin Waterfront Corporation received more than $25 million in public funds in 2023-24, while consistently running annual deficits.
The CLP Government have repeatedly refused to refer the matter for an independent inquiry.
Mr Bellot, who is married to Mix 104.9 radio personality Katie Woolf, was appointed chair of the corporation in December by Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby through a process that was not publicly advertised.
The NT Independent understands he also recently approached independent MLA Justine Davis, offering to brief her on the matter, as well as Ms Uibo, but his advances have been rejected to date. He has not approached Greens MLA Kat McNamara.
Mr Bellot refused to say who else he offered a confidential briefing to, but has ignored repeated requests by the NT Independent to take him up on the briefing and make it public.
This masthead is the only body with a deep knowledge of the alleged misconduct and governance issues raised against the Waterfront Corporation, involving former board member Andrew Kirkman, current chief executive Alistair Shields and deputy chief executive Sam Burke.
Mr Kirkman and Mr Shields have previously denied any wrongdoing.
Mr Bellot also refused to respond to a series of questions emailed on Monday, including why he chose the two MLAs he attempted to brief, what information he was basing his “briefing” on, and whether he has adhered to his fiduciary responsibilities as chair of the board to independently verify his claims that the corporation “categorically denies any wrongdoing”.
Previous court rulings have reiterated that the chair of a board has clear obligations to independently investigate serious allegations in their corporation and have been held negligent for supplying inaccurate information without adequately investigating misconduct claims.
In the public statement on Thursday morning – after Ms Uibo referred the Waterfront Corporation for investigation – Mr Bellot said he was “disappointed” that Ms Uibo had not accepted his “invitation…for a briefing” before referring the matter to the PAC.
“The offer for a briefing remains open,” he wrote, however it does not appear that extends to the public and it is unclear if it is still open after Mr Bellot was informed of his responsibilities under the Corporations Act.
Mr Bellot refused to say if the entire Darwin Waterfront Board, including current Under Treasurer Tim McManus, approved his briefing to the MLAs and why he as chair was making public statements rather than the CEO.
He also declined to say if his briefing was an attempt to dissuade Ms Uibo from exercising her duties and responsibilities as an elected MLA and Opposition Leader to refer the matter for investigation.
Ms Uibo, who has acknowledged some of the alleged misconduct occurred under a Labor government, said it was “not just” her “who deserves answers or a briefing”.
“This is a matter of public interest, which is why I have sought for the matter to be considered by the public accounts committee, so Territorians get answers,” she said.
The Darwin Waterfront Act specifies that the chair of the corporation must be separate from executive functions. The chair also has a responsibility under the Corporations Act to act with care and honesty in the role. Providing incomplete or misleading briefings to elected officials or the public could constitute a serious breach of the Corporations Act.
Mr Bellot’s Thursday statement claimed the Waterfront Corporation “welcomes the opportunity to respond to any matters raised by participating in any inquiry”. However, the CLP could still block the public account committee’s investigation into the matter.
Ms Boothby said yesterday that “the committee will consider the matter through its usual processes”, but it was unclear if the committee will investigate the issues.
Labor had 8 years to fix many things. Now they are in opposition their grandstanding on issues is as fake as they are. If problems were so obvious that they can now see them, were they also corruptly hiding the truth from taxpayers?
If Liar and Boothby wanted a yes man to head the Waterfront they have one in Bellott.
The man has never been on a board and doesn’t even hold any studies in corporate governance .
I hope Boothby is not advising him in legal matters nor Liar
Good luck Patrick I would not have accepted the position even for a million dollars.
You will soon have to swallow the poison pill
‘Opposition Leader Selena Uibo referred the ongoing Waterfront scandal for investigation to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee last week, stating the matter raised “serious allegations involving significant sums of public money” involving the Chief Minister’s husband, as well as other “potential fraud and gross conflicts of interest” having occurred at the corporation over years.
~Selena Uibo knows this and so does everyone else watching and listening to this juicy scandal that just refuses to die:
~If it’s potential fraud, which it most definitely is by the reporting on here so far, then on that charge alone this is a criminal offence and she should have referred it to the NT Police, especially being an Attorney General herself – again without any legal training of course because that’s how the ALP and CLP love to hoodwink us, the voters.
~Email her and ask her why she hasn’t referred it straight to the Police and that you want her to come out in public with that comment instead of the false virtuousness and fake care for the public interest she’s attempting and failing to have us believe is behind her actions.
~Both big parties put clueless puppets into the AG position and when the Government lawyers give them legal advice to do things to assist the Government, they have no ability to legally analyse the advice and just rubber stamp it.
~This is another deliberate strategy by both the ALP and now the CLP with Clockwork Orange-speak Boothby.
~Still think The Game’s not rigged, people?
~Moving on…….Mr Bellend is “disappointed” is he, that Uibo doesn’t want to share in his little secret briefing? Not as much as we are ol’ mate.
~We’re way past disappointed, we’re at the ‘reporting this to the Police ourselves because no one else seems to want to’ stage.
~If you’ve now breached the Corporations Act as well as helping cover up other potential crimes then you can go and show your little secret briefing to the Cops.
~You’re welcome.
~Using these articles as evidence we will point the Police to your briefing Mr Bellend as well as all your other emails and documents and text messages and all the back ups of those pieces of information, which will be able to be subpoenaed in any Police investigation – as well as whether you start deleting stuff after the CLP spin room muppets read this.
~Anyone can do report crimes or what they think might be crimes, and we encourage you all to, through the Police online complaints form here:
https://pfes.nt.gov.au/compliment-or-complaint
~And speaking of embarrassing:
‘“This is a matter of public interest, which is why I have sought for the matter to be considered by the public accounts committee, so Territorians get answers,” Selena Uibo said.’
~And speaking of it not being in the public interest until now, right?:
‘“This is a matter of public interest, which is why I have sought for the matter to be considered by the public accounts committee, so Territorians get answers,” Selena Uibo said.’
~Territorians want answers about why you are only becoming interested in this DWC debacle now Selena.
~What took you so long? Being in opposition taking up all of your time was it? Just couldn’t find the right words to make a 4 sentence statement to the media? Overworked and underpaid, yes? **gives you a cuddle**
~Territorians want answers about why, in the public interest, you haven’t tried to have Greg Shamahan replaced as ICAC commissioner for his blatant conflict of interest.
~What more public interest could there be than corruption in Government?
~Territorians also want answers about why you were included on flights with Gunner, as “assistant ministers” (with a smiling photo on your own Facebook page while doing so) which fraudulently used tax payer money and why you didn’t refer yourself to the Public Accounts Committee or still haven’t.
‘Ms Boothby said yesterday that “the committee will consider the matter through its usual processes”, but it was unclear if the committee will investigate the issues.’
~Waiting with baited breath to hear what her cute little cheerleader, poms poms blazing, Mr Boofby, has to say about all this.
~Let’s start a competition: WWBS: What would Boofby say?
~My entry: “Attorney General Boothby is great, she makes decisions”
The more people who report this whole story to the Police as a potential crime, right from the start of the media reporting, and you can let the Police decide if it is an actual crime or not, then the more weight the claims will have and it might tip the scales if they were considering to prosecute or not.
Also remember, the Police have a lot of power to serve search warrants and subpoenas on people, premises, electronic systems of record, mobile phones etc. If they want to they could go through the whole DWC and NT Government email systems and Government issued mobile phones, as well as personal email accounts and personal mobile phones to gather information.
This story has a lot of legs yet as the DPP can still intervene to stop prosecutions. Would they dare, if the Police handed them a large brief to prosecute LiaR’s husband Sam Burke and others? Watch this space.
Dirty NT Politics: Like a badly acted soap opera, without any soap.
The last word on this latest episode from our esteemed Attorney Dummy when asked what she thinks of the current mess:
“That’s our Government”
Love it! Spot on > “Dirty NT Politics: Like a badly acted soap opera, without any soap.”
I wonder what Airport Development Group Executives and the ADG Board think about the ADG brand and potential reputational damage when having a employee in such a questionable situation and its associated media storm, which doesn’t look like the media coverage will end anytime soon?
This also applies for the North Queensland Airports Board of Directors.
The board of Venture Housing are also in the same situation!
For your information here are the Board and Executive Members of all 3 organizations:
ADG Board Members
Mike Mrdak, Chair of ADG
Karen Green, Director
Merren McArthur, Director
Brian Chitty of IFM Investors, Director
Josh Norton of IFM Investors, Director
Simon Parbery of Paliside, Director
Kelvin Wong of Paliside, Alternate Director
ADG Executive Team
Tony Edmondstone, Chief Executive Officer
Sandra de Kock, Executive General Manager
Rob Porter, Executive General Manager – Operations
Tristan Cribb, Executive General Manager – Commercial
Alastair Gregory, General Counsel & Company Secretary
North Queensland Airports Board of Directors
Operations Board:
Emeritus Professor, Sandra Harding, AO (Chair)
Marko Josipovic, Executive Director
Liz Savage
Hugh FitzSimons
Property Trust Board:
Robert Hardy (Chair)
Colin Storrie
Peter Varghese AO
Yoonju Hong
Venture Housing Board of Directors & Audit and Risk Committee
Allan McGill AM Chair
Clare Milikins, Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee
Fran Kilgariff AM, Director
Robert Stribling , Director
Roland Chin, Independent Member of the Audit & Risk Committee
Venture Housing Executive leadership
Tim Sunwoo, Chief Executive Officer
Fred Docking, Head of Operations
John Rawnsley, Company Secretary & Governance Manager
Christine Kuen, Finance Manager
Have a read of section 181 of the Corporations Act (Cth) – Good faith–civil obligations and section 184 of the Corporations Act (Cth) – Good faith, use of position and use of information.
As a 2015-25 Waterfront Wharf 2 Parkside, building 5/6 owner/occupier I I submitted an NT ICAC DWC & Sterling Management Services body corporate services complaint alleging fraud, money laundering, privacy breaches & bullying.
2018 NT ICAC Acting CEO Allan Borg buried my evidence & worked together with the NT Ombudsman against my claims. I have had Wharf 2 car-park, theft vandalism, personal secret smear campaigns driven against me, yet I’m still here & will now submit an NT Police report, sadly many cops are bought for financial gain.
2025 DWC Chair Patrick Bellot is unaware of the vipers nest he is protecting? For everyone’s sake I hope Mr Bellot shows integrity, stops lying for the selected NTG gangsters, because the 2015-25 DWC Board have been frauding Toga apartment owners for years, time for truth. It is up to him which path he chooses, good verse evil?