Another week in the Territory and a further slide into terminal decline, so no better time than now 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

You are all the clowns

You, dear readers, are the clowns of the week. And you have really earned it just by living in Clown Town and not leaving. We are all one of those sideshow clowns now, eyes staring in disbelief, heads moving mechanically side-to-side, mouths open in perpetuity, waiting to swallow whatever is thrown our way.

The press conference on Wednesday involving Police Commissioner Michael Murphy, Chief Minister Eva Lawler, and a seemingly mute Police Minister Brent “Potsie” Potter, made it glaringly clear, if it was not already, we have people in charge whose behaviours do not match their words at all.

And what the powerful clowns, they – as in the collective of Territory public sector leadership – have been doing over the past who-knows-how-many years with the help of federal government failures going back further, seem to be dragging us down into the truly promised land of that failed state the rest of Australia always believed we could become.

It is our education system, our health system, our financial state, our policing and crime levels, unaddressed corruption, and in a general sense, the failure to create the same opportunity broadly for Indigenous Territorians, reducing them to passive recipients of the state, which is the thing that captures attention when we see the symptoms of that, in things like, for want of a better term, rioting on the streets of Alice Springs.

But it is really us, the people of the Territory who are clowns too, because we have clown leaders with no answers, no real courage, who all seem to live in an ethical vacuum that exists to keep them in power. And when the red-shirt clown show ticket sales decline so much no one is willing to pay to see them perform anymore, the orange-shirt clowns will get their chance to juggle a few balls for a while and throw some pies in our faces.

As Stealers Wheel wrote: Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, Here I am stuck in the middle with you.

The complexities of the complexities

The Chief Minister got up and talked this week about the range of complex issues in Alice Springs – and across the Territory – that the government is working on. She seemed to forget Labor has been in power for almost eight years, and things seem to be getting worse, and since Labor were elected in the NT for the first time 22 years and eight months ago, they have been in power for all but four years.

So to hear them talk about what ex-chief minister Natasha Fyles termed the “complexities of the complexity”, and things like “generational change” it hits Clown Town in the feels. It feels like were are listening to an artificial intelligence excuse generator. It does indeed seem like there has been generation change but in the wrong direction.

There have been important federal government decision failures that have helped us get here, but Lawler herself was an education minister who underfunded Territory public schools by hundreds of millions of dollars, and that was to just reach the bare minimum for numeracy and literacy levels. At the press conference she actually tried to argue that was not the case. So what was the extra $1 billion in school funding you recently announced for Eva? Tell us that bit. There are a host of other decisions that have been made, which includes, the ending of bilingual education, the move to the super shires, which took away jobs for indigenous people in remote communities, and not planning properly for the end of the Stronger Futures legislation and the question of alcohol in remote communities. There would be countless others inflicted by both sides of politics at Territory and federal levels.

When asked by a journalist if she took responsibility for this, it was too much really for Lawler to say. Murphy at least conceded he was partly responsible for failures, even though police are really the ones being asked to deal with crime stemming from social policy failures.

Truth is a phantom, an apparition, second cousin to Harvey the rabbit, to borrow from The Shawshank Redemption.

Denial followed by a solution to what was denied

Lawler and the NT Police executive spent the morning telling the media the problem in Alice Springs was just some Indigenous families fighting on the streets in relation to a memorial for an 18-year-old man who died a few weeks back.

Then in the afternoon, they held the press conference to announce there would be a nighttime youth curfew, and they would pull the police axillary liquor inspectors from the police officer training they had just put them into, back into bottle shops. Except the bottle shops are not even open on Monday and Tuesday in Alice Springs, the second day being the day of the rioting.

Clown Town felt the press conference was a priceless moment of surrealist performance art where there was an announcement of solutions to problems we had just been told were not the problems. Eva “Dali” Lawler and Michael “Magritte” Murphy.

Then you glance over and see the clock melting off the wall.

Just doing his job

When asked why the head of southern command Acting Assistant Commissioner James Gray-Spence was still in the role despite being a former Territory Response Group member caught up in the so-called ‘coon of the year’ awards joint investigation between the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption and NT Police, Murphy said: “Because he’s (Gray-Spence) just a police officer getting on with the job”.

Gray-Spence has not been found guilty of anything. But both Murphy and the ICAC have said the TRG did indeed hold racist awards, and the acting assistant commissioner basically denied that in sworn evidence to a judge. He claimed there was no racism in the Nooguda award. And yet he is left to be responsible for policing in Alice Springs, which may well have the highest Indigenous population of any major town in Australia. Or at least it would be up there. And is surrounded by indigenous communities.

While it is right that ICAC is still investigating, sometimes people need to be stood aside because of the need for public trust in the role they are in, before a finding is made. There have been others in the force who have been suspended without pay for less.

While Murphy babbled on about stamping out racism – while not going so far as to admit he was guilty of his own drunken racist outburst at a Chinese restaurant years ago – it was just another example of words not matching actions.

He said it would take courage to address police racism and change the force, and when it was pointed out he didn’t have the courage to deal with the Chinese restaurant issue, he just babbled on with more AI generated lines.

If you remember, his high priced, taxpayer-funded barrister asked for a suppression order on his name and rank at the Kumanjayi Walker coronial inquest over that allegation, and then held a press conference the next day where he made the media and the police minister pretend one of the racism allegations was not against him.

Then, under that anonymity, made decisions about who would investigate racism in the TRG, and presumably had a say in who was going to investigate the allegation against him.

Shine the spotlight on him

Michael Riches cannot help himself but get mentioned in Clown Town. He loves the attention. While often saying he will never provide “running commentary” on his ongoing investigations, he could not help himself but put out a press release this week to provide a running commentary on the TRG investigation. It was coincidently, in a very Brent Potter type of way, the same day he was criticised on the front page of The Australian for running a joint investigation into NT Police, with NT Police.

In happier news

We understand former police commissioner Jamie Chalker has a new job with a security firm in Adelaide after his “retirement” (lol) from NT Police last year. Obviously he churned through his large taxpayer “retirement” payout with long lunches down at the Gateway Shopping Centre and now he has to get back on the tools.

Obviously, his new employers don’t know how to do a Google search.

And obviously…we wish him all the best, Wilson Security have really got themselves a valuable car park security guard there.

But Clown Town bets he wouldn’t swap his new job guarding some car park somewhere for dealing with the ongoing shitshow in the Territory. Sometimes people just get what they deserve.