Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Independent Member for Blaine, Mark Turner, has referred two
matters relating to the Chief Minister and her office to
the Northern Territories corruption watchdog. That's according to a report
by the ABC yesterday. He issued a statement on Tuesday
saying that he'd received confidential legal advice in the wake
of a lack of response from the cabinets to alleged
(00:20):
serious issues. Part of mister Turner's referral to the Northern
Territories EYKAK. In part of it, he said that it
related to Jared Richardson's consultancy position as a political advisor
to the Chief Minister Natasha Files. Now Mark Turner, the
Member for Blaine, joins me in the studio right now.
Good morning to you, Mark.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Good morning Katie.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Oh hang on, I've got.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
The wrong microphone on. Let's try that once again. Good
morning again.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Good morning Katie.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
How can here?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Now? Thank you so much for your time this morning.
Now tell me what's the concern here.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
It just doesn't pass the pub test and I've tried
to do this the right way for your listeners benefit.
The IKAK shouldn't be the go to for absolutely everything.
They just don't have the stuff but one of the
rules under the IKAC Act is that they let the
Territory Parliament deal with its own issues as need be.
(01:12):
But that hasn't happened. You know, it's been probably a
month since I written to the Territory Cabinet saying you've
got these issues. Territory Cabinet handbooks really clear on how
we should deal with them. We just need to deal
with them so that the public have integrity in our process.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
So you have questioned, you've questioned. You've also questioned whether
this actually needs to be referred to the police. What
is it that you think might need to be referred
to the police.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So under the Criminal Code Act, there's offenses around. You've
got your general capsules of corruption and the like, but
there's also offenses of advancing secret personal interests. I think
the last time that these offenses probably came up was
during the travel issues with our previous police commissioner, and
they were well ventilated in the courts. But it's the silence,
(02:00):
you know, why not just deal with it, move on
with it, And it's we're seeing exactly what happened with
the turf club all over again.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So well, I guess for some people listening, they're going
to be wondering how and why, because, like you're talking
about I suppose the Chief Minister's shares, she's now divested
those shares, but the shares aspect, but also staffer Jared
Richardson being the co owner of a consultancy firm, Brookline Advisory,
which has listed gas company Tambora and Resources as one
(02:30):
of its clients on the Federal Lobbyist Register since November eight.
So is it both of those issues that you are
worried about or what you know? Like, what exactly are
you worried about?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah? The first the shares fiasco was a mess. It
wasn't a good look and there's proper ways to deal
with it. Having your senior advisors being the registered lobbyists
for gas companies, you just can't do it. And again
it's not something that would happen anywhere else in Australia.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And so do you think it's enough now?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Obviously don't think it's enough that the Chief Minister's divested
her shares and that mister Richardson has indeed, by the
look of verse, well he registered himself as a lobbyist
for Brookline Advisory as well.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
No, I don't think it's enough. I've got constituents in
my electorate who I know have gone through internal matters
where they've been told off for doing things like volunteering
as it being a conflict of interest, you know, cleaning
the neighbor's house being a conflict of interest from the
department going through their emails or network drives. And we've
(03:39):
got public servants seeing here going why is it do
what I say?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Not as I do now I know the Opposition leader
Leafanocchio has now promised, according to a report on the ABC,
to establish a lobbyist register for the jurisdiction if elected
to government next year. That pledge does indeed come after
you'd refer the Chief Minister to the Northern Territory's corruption
watch dog.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Do you think that that is a good move?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Very, It's what needs to be done. Transparency is the
best form of disinfectant. And if you've got a lobbyist register,
and I believe there's been push from the Independence in
Canberra to do it as well. It was certainly on
my radar. So no. Ten out of ten to the COLP.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I never thought i'd say that, no, how would it work?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Like you know, would it just be a situation then
where absolutely everything has to obviously be there and in
front of mind.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I think so, And I think, you know, politicians shouldn't
be shy about what they're getting involved in. You know,
if the Chief Minister is a massive fan of oil
and gas and loves oil and gas, just come out
and say I love oil and gas and my chief
advisor's lobbying for oil and gas. What people don't like
is the whiff of dodginess about it that I want
(04:59):
to say this to one group, I'm going to say
this to another group, and I'll say this to another
group because I want to get re elected.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Now, I know that you know that you had previously
really called for an emergency cabinet meeting to take place.
You had said, you know that we had sent a
letter to the Attorney General saying that the Chief Minister's shareholding, well,
it constituated an apparent breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct.
In terms of where this is all at now as
(05:25):
we lead into Christmas, what do you think needs to happen?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well, if you're following the rule book, and I've put
it up on my social media and it's actually an
open access document for everybody to read. They should have
called the cabinet meeting. The cabinet should have decided if
they're not going to do that. There's very few avenues
to push them, apart from territorians at the ballot box.
In less, the KA Commissioner, and I steadfastly respect his
(05:53):
independence in the role, makes a decision that it's going
to be in his ballpark to deal with.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I guess so often, you know, there are investigations that
then we really sort of don't even see the details
of either, do we. So it's going to be hard
to know exactly where this goes to from here.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Well, this is why you should and this is why
you know. When the IKAC legislation went through, the hearing
should be in private. But if there is a public
interest aspect to it, and especially when you're talking about
the highest offices in the Northern Territory, it should be
public because people should know about it now.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
One of the other issues that's been bubbling along this
week is the calls from Robin Lamley or the concerns
I guess raised from Robin Lamley about some information not
sort of coming to light to the public around different
incidents that that are going on with well crime in
the Northern Territory.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Where do you stand on this?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Do you think that we are really receiving all the
information that we should be from the Northern Territory Police.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I can tell you you're not receiving all the information
that you should be. Obviously, I've got quite a lot
of connections and we're in this really weird situation where
it appears to be a marketing and exercise more than
a government department. And again, I've never seen anything like
this in twenty years of policing.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
So you think that information is being withheld? I mean
the opposition leader yesterday is sort of questioned, I guess
whether that is coming from the top i e.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
The government?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
You know, whether that information then is not coming out
because the government's concerned about the impact that it's going
to have on them. But surely the police, you know,
surely they are acting in a way that they should
be where public safety is the first concern.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
You've worked in the media, Katie. The from what I
can gather, the atmosphere has changed drastically from when we
were in the AD building. So it's going it's difficult,
and you saw I don't know. I had it on
Saturday night. I was sitting there for hours waiting for
(07:58):
a police van because we had somebody threatening to be
old ladies in Blaine, just down the corner from my house.
I called in a DV about eight nine o'clock, got
a phone call at one thirty. Nobody had attended. Got
a call back a day later, still nobody had attended.
You can't do something with nothing, but by the same token,
(08:20):
you don't want the public to be fearful, but they
deserve the truth.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah, Look, I think it's a tough juggle.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
And as you mentioned, you know, twenty years ago I
worked in the police media units. I actually worked out
at the PETERM. Cauley Center. That's how long ago it was.
So that was a long long time ago. And look,
I don't know that the resourcing level has changed much
in that twenty years, but we do know that the
crime levels have increased over that.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Period of time astronomically, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And I do think that there is that concern at
the moment from members of the public. There is some
information that simply is not coming out. We did ask
the acting Assistant Commissioner about it yesterday. He said, there
are thirty five thousand call outs I believe a month,
and so there is a lot. You know, there's a
huge volume of information that they're trying to get through
(09:08):
and they can't send a pressure ace out about everything.
And I understand that, but when you're talking about very
serious offenses, that's when the public expect to know.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Oh definitely, you think I spent what was it three
four minutes on hold triple zero. The calls are supposed
to be answered in five to ten seconds. You look
at the DV figures and they're through the roof. You
look at the child sexual assault figures, they're through the roof.
It's we saw this when we had the coronial on
and you had the poor sergeant come out and tell
(09:38):
the truth and then get what appeared to be a
public excoriation for it, and then they had to backtrack
because he was telling the truth. And luckily the coroner
went down to comms and saw it happen. But that's
why people smell a rat and again, just be open,
tell the truth. You know, people can see it out
the front doors. It's same as the whole wear and
tear thing.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I mean, does it just come down to it well
though our police at the moment are absolutely overworked. I
mean you and I have spoken about this on so
many occasions. You'd called for a Royal commission into police resourcing.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Is that what it comes down to as well?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Again, it's a complicated one. We've got more police per
one hundred thousand than anywhere else in the country. It's
so somewhere around seven hundred and thirty. Your average things
between one hundred and eighty two hundred and fifty. So
we're obviously doing something wrong. But the police that we've got,
we don't know where they are. And again, the electronic
rostering system something I keep going on about. It's not difficult.
We've got at my Sunday school. The governments still haven't
(10:32):
managed to implement it. But we don't know where our
people are. So if we've got all of these police officers,
and I know the minister's telling the truth, we've got
record funding, So where is it going? And unfortunately, like
you said about resourcing, the Order a General doesn't have
the resources because hers have never gone up to do
an order on the Big three of health, education and police.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Mark Turner, we are going to have to wrap up.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But tell us mate, you're definitely running as a as
an independent next year at the election.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yes, I'm The feedback from my community has been absolutely
emphatically yes, please do it. So as long as I've
got their backing and my wife doesn't put her foot down, well.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Well we'll be able to have you on the week
that was sometimes next year as well. You'll have to
wrestle with Keesy Apuric to get in here. She is
obviously a regular on the show. But yep, we'll no
doubt have you on the show on the week that
was next year.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Brilliant. Thank you very much, Katie.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Thank you appreciate your time this morning.
The Independent Member for Blaine, Mark Turner, has referred two
matters relating to the Chief Minister and her office to
the Northern Territories corruption watchdog. That's according to a report
by the ABC yesterday. He issued a statement on Tuesday
saying that he'd received confidential legal advice in the wake
of a lack of response from the cabinets to alleged
(00:20):
serious issues. Part of mister Turner's referral to the Northern
Territories EYKAK. In part of it, he said that it
related to Jared Richardson's consultancy position as a political advisor
to the Chief Minister Natasha Files. Now Mark Turner, the
Member for Blaine, joins me in the studio right now.
Good morning to you, Mark.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Good morning Katie.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Oh hang on, I've got.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
The wrong microphone on. Let's try that once again. Good
morning again.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Good morning Katie.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
How can here?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Now? Thank you so much for your time this morning.
Now tell me what's the concern here.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
It just doesn't pass the pub test and I've tried
to do this the right way for your listeners benefit.
The IKAK shouldn't be the go to for absolutely everything.
They just don't have the stuff but one of the
rules under the IKAC Act is that they let the
Territory Parliament deal with its own issues as need be.
(01:12):
But that hasn't happened. You know, it's been probably a
month since I written to the Territory Cabinet saying you've
got these issues. Territory Cabinet handbooks really clear on how
we should deal with them. We just need to deal
with them so that the public have integrity in our process.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
So you have questioned, you've questioned. You've also questioned whether
this actually needs to be referred to the police. What
is it that you think might need to be referred
to the police.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So under the Criminal Code Act, there's offenses around. You've
got your general capsules of corruption and the like, but
there's also offenses of advancing secret personal interests. I think
the last time that these offenses probably came up was
during the travel issues with our previous police commissioner, and
they were well ventilated in the courts. But it's the silence,
(02:00):
you know, why not just deal with it, move on
with it, And it's we're seeing exactly what happened with
the turf club all over again.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So well, I guess for some people listening, they're going
to be wondering how and why, because, like you're talking
about I suppose the Chief Minister's shares, she's now divested
those shares, but the shares aspect, but also staffer Jared
Richardson being the co owner of a consultancy firm, Brookline Advisory,
which has listed gas company Tambora and Resources as one
(02:30):
of its clients on the Federal Lobbyist Register since November eight.
So is it both of those issues that you are
worried about or what you know? Like, what exactly are
you worried about?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah? The first the shares fiasco was a mess. It
wasn't a good look and there's proper ways to deal
with it. Having your senior advisors being the registered lobbyists
for gas companies, you just can't do it. And again
it's not something that would happen anywhere else in Australia.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And so do you think it's enough now?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Obviously don't think it's enough that the Chief Minister's divested
her shares and that mister Richardson has indeed, by the
look of verse, well he registered himself as a lobbyist
for Brookline Advisory as well.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
No, I don't think it's enough. I've got constituents in
my electorate who I know have gone through internal matters
where they've been told off for doing things like volunteering
as it being a conflict of interest, you know, cleaning
the neighbor's house being a conflict of interest from the
department going through their emails or network drives. And we've
(03:39):
got public servants seeing here going why is it do
what I say?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Not as I do now I know the Opposition leader
Leafanocchio has now promised, according to a report on the ABC,
to establish a lobbyist register for the jurisdiction if elected
to government next year. That pledge does indeed come after
you'd refer the Chief Minister to the Northern Territory's corruption
watch dog.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Do you think that that is a good move?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Very, It's what needs to be done. Transparency is the
best form of disinfectant. And if you've got a lobbyist register,
and I believe there's been push from the Independence in
Canberra to do it as well. It was certainly on
my radar. So no. Ten out of ten to the COLP.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I never thought i'd say that, no, how would it work?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Like you know, would it just be a situation then
where absolutely everything has to obviously be there and in
front of mind.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I think so, And I think, you know, politicians shouldn't
be shy about what they're getting involved in. You know,
if the Chief Minister is a massive fan of oil
and gas and loves oil and gas, just come out
and say I love oil and gas and my chief
advisor's lobbying for oil and gas. What people don't like
is the whiff of dodginess about it that I want
(04:59):
to say this to one group, I'm going to say
this to another group, and I'll say this to another
group because I want to get re elected.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Now, I know that you know that you had previously
really called for an emergency cabinet meeting to take place.
You had said, you know that we had sent a
letter to the Attorney General saying that the Chief Minister's shareholding, well,
it constituated an apparent breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct.
In terms of where this is all at now as
(05:25):
we lead into Christmas, what do you think needs to happen?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well, if you're following the rule book, and I've put
it up on my social media and it's actually an
open access document for everybody to read. They should have
called the cabinet meeting. The cabinet should have decided if
they're not going to do that. There's very few avenues
to push them, apart from territorians at the ballot box.
In less, the KA Commissioner, and I steadfastly respect his
(05:53):
independence in the role, makes a decision that it's going
to be in his ballpark to deal with.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I guess so often, you know, there are investigations that
then we really sort of don't even see the details
of either, do we. So it's going to be hard
to know exactly where this goes to from here.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Well, this is why you should and this is why
you know. When the IKAC legislation went through, the hearing
should be in private. But if there is a public
interest aspect to it, and especially when you're talking about
the highest offices in the Northern Territory, it should be
public because people should know about it now.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
One of the other issues that's been bubbling along this
week is the calls from Robin Lamley or the concerns
I guess raised from Robin Lamley about some information not
sort of coming to light to the public around different
incidents that that are going on with well crime in
the Northern Territory.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Where do you stand on this?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Do you think that we are really receiving all the
information that we should be from the Northern Territory Police.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I can tell you you're not receiving all the information
that you should be. Obviously, I've got quite a lot
of connections and we're in this really weird situation where
it appears to be a marketing and exercise more than
a government department. And again, I've never seen anything like
this in twenty years of policing.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
So you think that information is being withheld? I mean
the opposition leader yesterday is sort of questioned, I guess
whether that is coming from the top i e.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
The government?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
You know, whether that information then is not coming out
because the government's concerned about the impact that it's going
to have on them. But surely the police, you know,
surely they are acting in a way that they should
be where public safety is the first concern.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
You've worked in the media, Katie. The from what I
can gather, the atmosphere has changed drastically from when we
were in the AD building. So it's going it's difficult,
and you saw I don't know. I had it on
Saturday night. I was sitting there for hours waiting for
(07:58):
a police van because we had somebody threatening to be
old ladies in Blaine, just down the corner from my house.
I called in a DV about eight nine o'clock, got
a phone call at one thirty. Nobody had attended. Got
a call back a day later, still nobody had attended.
You can't do something with nothing, but by the same token,
(08:20):
you don't want the public to be fearful, but they
deserve the truth.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah, Look, I think it's a tough juggle.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
And as you mentioned, you know, twenty years ago I
worked in the police media units. I actually worked out
at the PETERM. Cauley Center. That's how long ago it was.
So that was a long long time ago. And look,
I don't know that the resourcing level has changed much
in that twenty years, but we do know that the
crime levels have increased over that.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Period of time astronomically, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And I do think that there is that concern at
the moment from members of the public. There is some
information that simply is not coming out. We did ask
the acting Assistant Commissioner about it yesterday. He said, there
are thirty five thousand call outs I believe a month,
and so there is a lot. You know, there's a
huge volume of information that they're trying to get through
(09:08):
and they can't send a pressure ace out about everything.
And I understand that, but when you're talking about very
serious offenses, that's when the public expect to know.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Oh definitely, you think I spent what was it three
four minutes on hold triple zero. The calls are supposed
to be answered in five to ten seconds. You look
at the DV figures and they're through the roof. You
look at the child sexual assault figures, they're through the roof.
It's we saw this when we had the coronial on
and you had the poor sergeant come out and tell
(09:38):
the truth and then get what appeared to be a
public excoriation for it, and then they had to backtrack
because he was telling the truth. And luckily the coroner
went down to comms and saw it happen. But that's
why people smell a rat and again, just be open,
tell the truth. You know, people can see it out
the front doors. It's same as the whole wear and
tear thing.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I mean, does it just come down to it well
though our police at the moment are absolutely overworked. I
mean you and I have spoken about this on so
many occasions. You'd called for a Royal commission into police resourcing.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Is that what it comes down to as well?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Again, it's a complicated one. We've got more police per
one hundred thousand than anywhere else in the country. It's
so somewhere around seven hundred and thirty. Your average things
between one hundred and eighty two hundred and fifty. So
we're obviously doing something wrong. But the police that we've got,
we don't know where they are. And again, the electronic
rostering system something I keep going on about. It's not difficult.
We've got at my Sunday school. The governments still haven't
(10:32):
managed to implement it. But we don't know where our
people are. So if we've got all of these police officers,
and I know the minister's telling the truth, we've got
record funding, So where is it going? And unfortunately, like
you said about resourcing, the Order a General doesn't have
the resources because hers have never gone up to do
an order on the Big three of health, education and police.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Mark Turner, we are going to have to wrap up.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But tell us mate, you're definitely running as a as
an independent next year at the election.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yes, I'm The feedback from my community has been absolutely
emphatically yes, please do it. So as long as I've
got their backing and my wife doesn't put her foot down, well.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Well we'll be able to have you on the week
that was sometimes next year as well. You'll have to
wrestle with Keesy Apuric to get in here. She is
obviously a regular on the show. But yep, we'll no
doubt have you on the show on the week that
was next year.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Brilliant. Thank you very much, Katie.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Thank you appreciate your time this morning.
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