There has been a lot going on in Clown Town since our last edition, most of which we have tried to block out and move on from. But it appears it’s time once again to wallow in the misdeeds, malfeasance and asinine behaviour of our leaders and explore that sweet corruption-incompetence nexus that makes us all feel at home in the Great Territory Lifestyle.
TELL us what you have seen happening in Clown Town at news@ntindependent.com.au
The future is here today, well it was back in 1956
Clown Town saw a 1964 Holden Special driving the other day. A classic, yet primitive, car from a relatively early period in the development of the Australian car industry. We would suspect the vast majority of people would rather see a car from 1964 in traffic than drive one.
It got us thinking about how the then-Gunner Government gave $10 million to Amphibian Aerospace Industries to anchor its fictional Aerospace Manufacturing Precinct.
AAI will reportedly “build an upgraded version” of an old amphibious aircraft from the 1950s. So like a 1956 FJ Holden that flies. The government claims AAI alone will create 300 jobs and contribute $100 million a year to the economy.
The NT News reported AAI were going to flog the magic planes for $31 million a piece. Should Holden open up the Fishermans Bend plant again and start pumping out upgraded FJs? Because General Motors seems to be missing what the NTG sees. Or maybe GM could get $10 million from the taxpayer to anchor our new Automotive Manufacturing Precinct?
$40 billion dollar economy here we come. Or maybe the claims are clownish and the Labor government have just flushed $10 million of our dollars into smelly Lake Leanyer?
Spin until it hurts…everyone
The folks at NT Health emailed the NT Independent complaining that we had named chief executive Dr Marco Briceno as a spokeperson for information about the downgrading on the perhaps unprecedented level of care for the neonatal intensive care unit. He was incidentally on holidays, but we used his name because they wouldn’t supply one with their comments and us, being kind of old fashioned, think accountability and transparency is like, what’s the right word, Important?
Health’s argument was that there were a range of staff at NT Health who endorse media statements therefore they don’t attribute statements to one specific person. So, in order “to ensure accuracy, we collaborate with a range of subject matter experts”. Those are un-named experts of course.
“We would appreciate if this advice could be followed and corrected in future reporting to ensure community interpretation,” they wrote. Whatever “community interpretation” means.
But to give them credit, they do not deviate from this policy…until they have something positive to announce and then the CEO’s name will be slathered on that press release like butter on toast. That is, if a minister doesn’t steal the announcement from them.
In the last week, NT Heath has tried to spin Royal Darwin Hospital’s inability to treat premature babies, and then went on to lie about the clinical review into St John Ambulance, putting out a statement that it was a “standard quality assurance activity”, when the terms of reference specifically stated the review was ordered after investigations into clinical cases.
So yeah, think about spinning and trying to manipulate facts around the treatment provided to premature babies, and trying to deny serious issues in the ambulance service. These are certainly highlights for your CV.
When the full truth of the St John Ambulance saga comes out, the people who told those lies should have to go. Or maybe that is why NT Health doesn’t want to put any names to their lies?
Helping out a mate down on her luck
A while back, federal Resources Minister Madeleine King was in Darwin to announce the Commonwealth was giving $840 million in loans and grants to mining company Arafura’s Alice Springs rare earths mine development.
She said it was so Australia’s raw minerals would to be processed in Australia and to support the chance of advanced manufacturing in Australia.
But when asked if the government stumping up the cash came with any requirement to favour Australian buyers, she gave a big no to that idea, with an argument along the lines of not restricting the free market. It is always about the free market until the government steps in as a cut-price lender to a mining company.
The ultimate punchline is that Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart owns a 10 per cent stake in Arafura Rare Earths. And to add another punchline, she also owns stakes in multiple other mining companies mining rare earths in other countries, taking advantage of the slump in the value of rare earths companies, and happy in the knowledge the Australian taxpayer will give her a discount bin loan.
A curious case of jails
The Lawler Government announced on Friday, through the NT News, that there would be two new women’s prisons, one in Alice Springs and one in Darwin.
Clown Town was not able to get to Attorney-General and Justice Minister Chanston Paech’s press conference in Alice Springs but we do wonder if he was wearing his ‘Jailing is Failing’ T-shirt?
For some unexplained reason however he repeatedly referred to the jails as “therapeutic facilities”. We guess it’s kind of like a day spa with bars.
Cheer squad
ABC Darwin referred to the Parramatta Eels as the Territory Eels, the marketing term the Northern Territory Government uses for the team when they play in Darwin, a game that is financed by a large chunk of sweet taxpayer cash. But they must not tell taxpayers how much money they are spending.
The ABC doesn’t need to be the cheer squad and buy into the marketing spin at the expense of their listeners.
We have the best gas and are full of it
The NT Independent wrote an article about how it was possible that in the third quarter of this year, the NT might have to import gas from Queensland to generate electricity. Which one industry commentator said was a bit like cows having to import milk.
Our aspiring alternative government, the CLP, chimed in with a Trumpian statement from their leader Lia Finocchiaro: “The Territory has the best gas in the world…”
What do you even mean?
“We have the best gas, we have the gasiest gas, nobody has better gas than us. Our gas has the most gas in it. And I know that, they know I know that. But Eva Lawler has no idea. I have an idea. One anyway. Tough on crime. I know words. I have the best words in the world. Tough on crime are the best words. We are the best opposition. No one opposes like we do. We will make the Territory slightly less shit.”
BoBo boo boo
Charles Darwin University’s vice-clowncellor Professor Scott “BoBo” Bowman went and fudged up but he is not going to admit that anytime soon.
He put on quite the embarrassing show at last week’s Senate hearings into the proposed Middle Arm industrial precinct, and then refused to answer the NT Independent’s questions about it all, including whether he would resign for appearing to breach the university’s policies around conflicts of interest and academic freedom.
Bowman had secretly written to the Senate committee to ask them to suppress one submission from CDU academics entirely and ordering them to redact parts of the other – authored by the outgoing chair of CDU’s human research ethics committee – because he did not agree with their opinions.
Then there were the undisclosed conflicts of interest inherent in his submission backing the Middle Arm gas hub.
It was one of the more humiliating public performances from a community leader you could ever hope to see, which wandered into the territory of former police commissioner Jamie Chalker’s six-minute-and-33-second press conference that should have cost him his job immediately following the Rolfe not-guilty murder verdict.
“Mr Bowman, I put to you that for $600,000-odd a year, you should be far more across conflicts of interest and academic freedom,” independent ACT senator David Pocock said, eliciting applause from the gallery.
READ: Clown Town – We are all the real clowns
Even then, BoBo didn’t disclose to the inquiry the university had recently been awarded the bulk of a $2 million contract by the NT Government to monitor fracking operations in the Beetaloo Sub-basin.
It was a peak Clown Town performance, and in line with the quality of other leaders we attract here in our own special slice of Clownadise, BoBo is the vice-clowncellor we should expect to have.
After the NT Independent reported it, Prof BoBo got all keyboard warriory and started commenting on the NT Independent Facebook page saying the senators were out to discredit him and CDU because they did not like that the university was supporting the Middle Arm development. But then he went quiet when other commenters started asking him about the money the university received from gas companies.
He has dedicated time to the Facebook comments section before, previously admitting to doing it on the NT News page, making it sound like it was something he was proud of. This is why he is paid the big bucks.
As a sign that he values the freedom of the press as highly as he values academic freedom, he spat the dummy further and cancelled his NT Independent subscription this week. We have a feeling he is going to want to subscribe again really soon to keep up with all the goings-on involving him and his senior colleagues.
But don’t be surprised if, at some point in the future, the university announces he is leaving effective immediately, to “take that long motorbike ride to be closer to his family on the east coast”.
Then again, Paul Henderson is the man responsible for appointing and disciplining the vice clowncellor, and that gets difficult once your subordinate has publicly soiled himself in defence of the greater good – or in this case, your own personal good. The conflicts abound.
Both clowns know this is the Territory. It doesn’t matter how it looks. Or even how it is. Consequences rarely follow, even after you’re exposed.
The NT government is a bit like the bug lamp that I bought last week. It attracted som colourful moths and about a million other pests that clogged it up and littered about 3 square metres around it. I had enough of these dead and dying useless pests that I had to get rid of. In the end I switched it off. Is there a similar switch in government or perhaps a tap to turn off the cash flow?
The NT would be the laughing stock of Oz politics if it wasn’t for Albos clown team outclowning the Northern clowns daily.
“The Territory has the best gas in the world…”
Attention Lea’s media minders: gag your boss til September!!
Not capable of landing a single blow on the ALP when they are on sinking on the TITANIC!!!!!
Is there no one else who can be Opposition Leader?