It’s been another week to wallow in the misdeeds, malfeasance and asinine behaviour of our elected leaders and explore that sweet corruption-incompetence nexus that makes us all feel at home in the Great Territory Lifestyle. Find out the most clownish deeds committed in the NT this week.
TELL us what you have seen happening in Clown Town at news@ntindependent.com.au
Not a likely story
CLP MLA for Barkly and the party’s domestic violence spokesman Steve Edgington was forced to resign from that role after it was revealed in The Australian that his electorate officer Darius Plummer, 43, had been charged and jailed twice last year for breaching a domestic violence order and had faced NT courts 27 times in the past four years for breaching bail and contravening a domestic violence order.
The next day, it was also revealed Edgington had started a property-buying business with former CLP president Jason Newman in 2016, just three months after Mr Newman pleaded guilty to aggravated assault against his wife, and before Edgington went into politics.
Edgington first claimed that he did not believe Plummer’s domestic violence breach involved violence and said while he was aware Plummer had been charged and jailed last year before hiring him, he was not aware of all the other offences.
His claim that he did not know about Plummer’s domestic violence background seems inconceivable, considering the size of the town, how long Edgington has been there, and the succession of prominent roles he held, having been the mayor, head public servant for the Barkly, and the top cop in the Barkly.
To say domestic violence is one of the NT’s worst problems is an understatement, while Edgington’s claim of giving Plummer a second chance is a laudable idea but not a great one when that second chance is to be given in a politician’s electoral office where everyone needs to comfortable dealing with the employees.
For a self-proclaimed “strong advocate” for ending domestic violence, it seems inexcusable he would go into business with a man who had just pleaded guilty to beating his wife, regardless of your attitude towards second chances.
Alice Springs-based domestic violence academic and researcher Chay Brown used it as an opportunity to tell the ABC the decision to employ Plummer showed NT parliamentarians “aren’t taking domestic, family and sexual violence seriously” and said neither party had made addressing domestic, family and sexual violence a key election issue.
While his decisions were flawed, at least Edgington resigned, unlike Brent “Potsie” Potter, Deputy Chief Minister Chanston Paech, and multiple other Labor MLAs who should have done so at any time since 2016.
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, or so we thought.
The very recent past is a lot, lot longer ago than previously believed by science.
In the manipulation of time, CLP president Shane Stone is taking his cues from Chief Minister Eva Lawler. The NT News reported that the recently announced CLP candidate for Fong Lim Dr Tanzil Rahman was a member of the Labor Party from August until January 26. And that his resignation came two weeks after he went to the ALP about preselection for Wanguri. The party reportedly did not respond so Rahman did not progress a formal application.
The paper reported that Stone said Rahman had fully disclosed his membership with the red shirts and described it as “a non-issue”.
“It’s all just a bit of past history,” Mr Stone said.
If January 26 is past history then Stone’s chief ministership ending in 1999 is perhaps the Dark Ages then.
Stone is certainly bolstering his clown credentials in the lead up to the general elections.
Time as a kaleidoscope
Perhaps we need to consider Stone’s comments against the special prescriptive period in the Territory that sets the maximum time after an event within which consequences may be initiated.
This is called the Lawler Statute of Limitations (LSL). Stone obviously gets it, but he’s a studied-up law-talking guy. For normal Territorians, trying to understand the LSL is like trying to understand quantum mechanics in its complexity.
Lawler dismissed the toxic and derogatory social media posts of Potsie, her Minister for the Determination of Good Nazis and Bad Nazis, aka Brylcreem Brent, and Donald Trump Jr, as being made a long time ago – five to 11 years ago – and not relevant now for any consequences.
She said they did not reflect “the Brent Potter of today”.
But when it came to revelations of racist awards being handed out by the the NT Police’s Territory Response Group with certificates from 2012 and 2013 presented to the Kumanjayi Walker coronial inquest, the space-time continuum shattered under the LSL.
Clown Town can absolutely guarantee readers Lawler did not say the certificates were from a decade ago and they did not reflect those TRG members of today.
SEE: Clown Town: Labor announces new NT Ministry for Nazi Propaganda
Political Swiss Army knife
Rahman’s political adaptability reminded us of something said by Potsie.
It came after Potsie tried to explain why he was such a remarkably changed man, following the revelation of his toxic social media posts, including quoting a Nazi World War II general in which he later tried to secretly brief journalists to suggest the general was not a Nazi at all, and when caught out doing that, he at first said it was “a typo”, and when forced to explain it again a few days later, changed his explanation to an “editing error”.
“But I found a group of people that I best align [with in Territory Labor],” he said about one of the motivations to change.
Yes, he found himself in a nest of other opportunists who wear red shirts but don’t believe in Labor values. Rahman could say he found the same in the CLP, people who he bests “align with”, and by that we mean people who would pre-select him.
People decry the lack of suitable candidates to run in the election – and a lack of suitable people already elected – and here was someone, on the surface at least, who seemed well-educated with ability, who was overlooked by Labor for a union hack; but then we see his political leech-like qualities.
We reckon Rahman seems like the sort of bloke who will fit in well in NT politics, finding many like-minded people.
Part of the problem
Maybe it is the system that is ultimately at fault. Maybe people like Rahman don’t believe they can get elected if they don’t choose between Labor and the CLP.
And maybe if the electorate was more willing to vote for independents we would have politicians more interested in representing their community than covering up colleagues’ wrongdoing, and we would break the grip of the two-party duopoly and ease our fight for survival under a continuing kakistocracy of alternating political colours.
Clown Town recommends reading Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, by Brian Klaas, to understand how we get the wrong people into power – and the role political party pre-selection plays – and how our poorly designed systems allow corruption.
It looks at why some people don’t want power at all, and others are drawn to it out of psychopathic impulses. It also suggests we should try harder to convince the former to be our leaders.
Everybody has their own story; everybody has their own journey
Potsie, who has repeatedly refused to resign as Police Minister and Veterans Affairs Minister, has provided a long an meandering list of explanations and excuses for his posts, changing direction as much as the Adelaide River, in the 19 days since the NT Independent inconveniently revealed his past, a past conveniently covered by the LSL.
“I’m sorry for those comments,” he said. “I can’t change what has been done. I can’t change the fact that I’ve hurt people. But I’ve absolutely gone on a journey.”
Four TRG members made sworn statements to the coronial that the Nooguda award, which ex-cop Zach Rolfe gave evidence was known as the “coon of the year award”, was not racist. That didn’t work out so well for them this week when the suppression order on the publication of the award certificates was lifted and one had the Aboriginal flag as a backdrop.
Clown Town thinks the TRG officers should use Potsie’s line that the flag was just a typo, which is about as believable as when Potsie used the excuse himself.
But could the TRG members not have “absolutely gone on a journey” of their own? We can imagine some riot cops sitting around doing an ayahuasca ceremony in the Bat Cave HQ, chanting some Peruvian medicine songs, and beginning to understanding their past that made them racist, and breaking on through the illusion of selfhood. The TRG is just like, the collective consciousness, man. The TRG is just like a state of mind, man.
Unfortunately for them, no one does hypocrisy like Potsie, who called on the NT Anti-Discrimination Commission to investigate the racist award certificates.
Potsie believes he is the only one who can go on a journey.
Guru Clown Town says remember, we are all on our own journey, man: “The shortcut to happiness is truth, dude. Can’t you see that?”
The Fresh Fraud People
Politicians would turn up to a dog crapping on the footpath in “I heart dog crap” T-shirts and matching caps if they thought it would get them in the media.
We had Disabilities Minister Ngaree Ah Kit and Education Minister Mark Monaghan in Woolworths caps giving the thumbs up in a photo at the opening of the Territory’s first “Mini Woolies” which replicates all aspects of a Woolworths supermarket, including baskets, shelving for groceries, ticketing, signage, and Woolworths-branded uniforms for students. Even dumped minister Lauren Moss was there, although she seemingly chose not to wear the cap.
It opened at Henbury School, and is part of its speciality school curriculum to support young people living with disability, and in this case the school says it will help students build confidence, independence, literacy, and numeracy. Which is a fine aim and will surely come with benefits.
But Clown Town is pretty sure that having one of Australia’s biggest retailers with branding in schools and students wearing its uniforms is a bad idea, even if the kids themselves dig it.
Particularity when that retailer was accused in a recent Four Corners report of price gouging and uncompetitive practices, with former Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims saying that Woolies and Coles have likely used their market power to increase prices higher than necessary during a cost-of-living crisis and that the government should consider reforming merger laws to limit their dominance.
The federal government is getting the ACCC to do a 12-month price inquiry into the supermarket industry, including how they treat farmers.
So, hopefully the kiddies also learn the finer points of destroying competition, price gouging, and screwing over farmers, before the industry is cleaned up too much and those valuable skills are lost to Australia.
Maybe NT schools could get Mini Thirsty Camels, and some of the kids could be trained to be mini-PALIs.
If any jurisdiction in Australia is primed to outsource all government services to companies willing to provide them on the cheap, in exchange for the indoctrination of children, or for cheap labour, it is the NT.
Clown Town can envisage a host of Gina Rinehart Academies in remote schools where Indigenous kiddies get to learn how to read for an hour after a 12-hour shift in a mine while being paid minimum wage (at most) while having Gina indoctrinate them to think they are lucky to have jobs.
Looking corruption right in the eye, then looking the other way
Stern, yet very trusting and forgiving, more of a mentor, nay a gently guiding cool older brother figure, desperate to mould young minds, than an authority figure; Michael Riches has been more like a primary school principal than a corruption commissioner.
Riches is also like a Corruption priest, hearing confessions of public service sins and never speaking another word of them, taking it to the grave and the blessed afterlife with him.
The motivation behind his latest corruption stunt is harder to understand than the Lawler Statute of Limitations, and would surely keep any of the invitees to his Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption Conference, up at night wondering WTF?
We will break it down for you as simply as we can.
A 474-page report – which has never been made public – was delivered by an outside agency in 2019, following an investigation into credible corruption allegations in the Department of Infrastructure’s Katherine office.
Last week, Riches revealed he had presented a 14-page ‘letter’ based on his at least 22 month-long “review” looking at practices, policies and procedures in the office, instead of an investigation looking into individuals who committed wrongdoing, despite him saying his office received “a number of reports of alleged impropriety” before commencing the review.
He found staff weren’t declaring conflicts of interest and that managers did not check, that “gifts” had been secretly given to staff who made decisions on tenders, that confidential information about tender bids was being shared, and that companies were quoting “well below anticipated costs” and later getting contracts varied.
In one instance, he wrote that the review identified “a number of contract variations” that could not be explained, after previously stating this could be done to award a contract at a lower bid and then varied to pay the company more money later.
Instead of actually doing anything about it, he seemed to have instructed all DIPL staff involved, to stay back after 4:21pm and to write out 100 times on a blackboard: “I will not be corrupt”.
Not really, but something equally as ineffective at countering corruption, he offered up 18 “recommendations” to DIPL, presumably similar in tone to Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
18 Recommendations for Downplaying Corruption: A Continuation of Chaos, by Michael Riches, Esq.
He is like a corruption launderer, he takes your filthy corruption allegations and washes them clean, with nothing but a few recommendations and a “thank you for trying to do better” coming out the other side.
Riches is our rolled gold Clown of the Week, and is quickly becoming King Clown, clown above all clowns. It really is time to go back to Adelaide champ. You would be in great demand in the Mafia.
And what would Andrew Kirkman do? Most likely nothing
The department boss Andrew Kirkman, who is currently acting as the Department of Chief Minister and Cabinet CEO, aka head public servant, has known about the findings of the original investigation since he got his mitts on it in 2019 and before, when he ordered it.
DIPL refused the NT Independent’s Freedom of Information application in 2020 for the report, stating that releasing the information to the public may “erode trust within the agency”.
Kirkman refused this week to answer questions from the NT Independent, instead referring questions to an unnamed DIPL spokeswoman who said the review – which remember was not an investigation – made “no findings of fraud against individuals or the department” and that the “ICAC commissioner welcomed DIPL’s proactive release and management of the report and findings”.
We don’t know if St Mick needs this explained to him, but you cannot find fraud against individuals or the department if you specifically go out of your way to make it impossible to find fraud by doing a “review” rather than an “investigation”.
With the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Education, he purposely never released an investigation report that had been written, and instead conducted a review where be recommended people “do better’.
So Kirkman, who has seemingly done nothing about what was found in the 474-page report close to five years ago, gets a pat on the back from our Most Holy Absolver of Corruption Pope Michael Riches.
Is Kirkman holding onto the details of the serious corruption issues at the department’s Katherine office, to release in his memoir, Lettin’ It All Hang Out?
He did have an odd relationship with this report. In Estimates hearings in 2022, Kirkman told the committee he had no knowledge of the 2019 report, and after claiming no knowledge for more than 10 minutes, he changed his story to say he could “recall one matter where we had an individual investigation done”. This was before then-infrastructure minister, now Chief Minister Lawler shut down the questioning by contradicting Kirkman’s newfound recollection and stating that the department did not hire a third party to investigate the issues at the Katherine office.
Now she is Clown of all the Land She Commands and he is her boss mandarin.
Sadly no one is surprised at anything this government & cohorts do, hopefully a new government will do better
Hopefully, a reinvigorated Parliament with effective crossbench representation will keep a keen eye on proceedings going forward.
Throw party politics out the door and get better people’s politics into power.