Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hopefully we've got her on the line now, some tech
issues in the studio. The member for Johnson and Justine Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Good morning to you, Hey, Katie, how are you going?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Really good? Sorry about the tech issues now, Justine. We
have obviously been speaking extensively this week about the situation
that's unfolded last week with the IKAC delegate Patricia Kelly
finding Michael Murphy committed unsatisfactory conduct. We know he then
outed himself late on Thursday, which we spoke quite extensively
(00:31):
about on the week that was. But then the events
that have followed have seen the Chief Minister make the decision,
of course, to begin the process to terminate Michael Murphy's contract. Justine,
do you believe she's made the right decision here?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I mean, I think it's clear that it was untenable
for him to continue in that position, and so I
mean he's come out and revealed himself as the person
the Chief Minister has taken made a response to that.
I think that as you've started to talk about there
there's an ongoing issues from this, and I think what
(01:10):
I'm hearing from the community is that there's still a
lot of doubt, a lot of questions about what's going
on in the place force. More broadly, what's going on
in terms of our response, what the government's response is
when these things happen and people are feeling like it's
not good enough, too little, too late, and there's a
lot of sense of uncertainty in the institutions that should
(01:34):
be there to look after us and the institutions that
we need to trust.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Justin we know that Martin Dole APM is now the
acting Police Commissioner. Some are questioning this after the Chief
Minister confirmed on the show that he was on the
same selection panel as Michael Murphy. Now there is no
suggestion that he's done anything wrong here, but the acting
Commissioner then of course confirmed that he was at a
(01:58):
press conference on Monday. I mean, what do you make
of that situation?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, I think, as you said, I mean, I don't
want to get into the details of people, whether whether
or not people are in the appropriate jobs, etc. And
the details of that. But I think the question here
is that this sends a message to people and people
are feeling a lack of a lack of trust and
lack of accountability. What else People are coming up to
me and saying what else is there to find out
(02:25):
in this story? And you know, particular, I want to say,
particularly for police on the ground. I've been meeting with
our local police frend things that are happening in our community.
We all know they do such a tough job every
day and they deserve to have trust in their leadership,
as does the whole community. And in addition to that,
(02:46):
they need to know that when things go wrong, they're
going to be addressed appropriately. And I think in this situation,
I CACT did exactly what they were set up to do,
and in fact, if they hadn't done their job, probably
we would have never known this. And what they're job
is is to do an investigation, make a report and
then give that report to a responsible entity, in this
case the Minister for IKAK and the Minister of the Police,
(03:08):
the Chief Minister, and they it's then their job to
take action to address it. And that's in my view.
There's a lot of dumping on IKAQ in relation to
all of this, and there things definitely to look at
in IQQ, But in this situation, I think ika did
exactly what they were set up to do and if
that wasn't enough, then what we need to do is
look at strengthening IQAQ, not dumping on it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Do you think that there needs to be some changes
so when you look at, you know, the naming of
public servants or high level public servants.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
In terms of whether or not I CAAK can Yeah, yeah,
I mean I think, as I said, I think we
need to have a really good look at ikak. I'm
as I've said on your show before, I'm a very
big fan of having a robust independent Commission against corruption.
I think it's really important. I think there are big
challenges in having an institution like that in a small
jurisdiction like we have here in the territory, and I
(04:03):
think it's important that we look at what our best
model is going to be for happening here. That may
be naming public servance, which does happen in some jurisdictions,
but there are lots of other things we can look
at too. And I think the issue for people here
wasn't so much about the naming of someone. It was
about there's something that's gone wrong here in the our
(04:25):
kind of most important public institution, the police, and we
don't know that anything's been done to fix it up.
And so I think I don't want us to get
distracted by naming individuals. I think what we need to
look at is the systems that are in place and
what we can do to ensure that they're doing their job,
that the community can trust them, that there's transparency and
(04:46):
accountability within our whole system.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
It's a really interesting discussion because I feel like when
the IKAC kicked off, people had so much trust and
faith in the KAC, and a lot of that's been
lost the years, rightly or wrongly. And now, of course
we've got the Chief Minister revealing the ika's cost the
territory taxpayers thirty five million dollars since it started operating,
(05:10):
and I do think that people are sort of starting
to question whether it is as effective as it should
be in it and I think you're right. You know,
in this situation, the IKACKS acted exactly as they should
have in terms of this report, but there seems to
be an increasing lack of faith. I guess in the
(05:31):
IICAC is potentially the right words, rightly or wrongly, just
after watching how things have happened over the years since
it began operation, and some even going so far as
to suggest or we either need to be funding it properly,
or do we need to be outsourcing some of these
issues to an IICAC maybe in another state where there
(05:52):
isn't any you know, any concerns over sort of conflicts
or not that I'm suggesting there is with the ICAC,
but you know, where there isn't any concerns, do we
need to you know, maybe outsourced to another state.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah. Look, and my understanding is that IKAK often actually
does outsource their investigation to other states, you know, because
of issues of conflict, because of our small jurisdiction. I'm
not an expert in it, but that's what I understand
they do. And I think you're right. I mean, I
don't think this can be a quick answer of this
is what we need to do. You know, people aren't
happy with what's happened up to her now. You know,
(06:27):
there's been a lot of that. ARCAK has been in
the news a lot over the last couple of years
in particular, and we definitely need to look at it.
But I don't think the answer is to do an
unthought through response saying Okay, we just need to get
rid of it. I think we need to look at
it properly, like I think we need to do about
everything we do in the territory. We need to look
at it properly. We need to look at the evidence.
(06:49):
We need to look at what's going to work best
for the territory, and then we need to put that
in place.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Justin What would that look like? Do you think like
a parliamentary review or how could you potentially look into
the and how we could do it better.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, that's certainly one option. You know, we could do
a parliamentary review, we could set up a slate committee.
There's lots of different options for it. I don't have
a quick answer to that, but I think it's there's
definitely an appetite for looking at it. We know so,
and I think that we While I'm saying we can't
(07:23):
act hastily, I don't think that means we should delay actions.
I think, you know, this is something that we do
need to look at now because we need to, as
I said, no, that our public institutions we can trust
as a community, and if there's questions around that, we
need to look at what we need to do to
address those questions and bring trust back.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Parliament obviously resumes next week. Is this something that's going
to be high on the agenda for you.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It's a very busy two weeks of Parliament coming up.
There's a lot of things that are going to be
competing for attention, but it's certainly something that I think
not only me, will be bringing to the floor next week.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Justin can I just ask quickly, you know we were
talking about the whole situation and continue to of course
with the police. Do you think there needs to be
a review into the executive appointments that you know that
happened under Michael Murphy's tenure.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, I've seen calls for that. I'm not sure. I mean,
I think you know, to be you know, perfectly honest,
I'm not I'm not an expert in what's going on
in the police and in HR and how those things happen.
I think i'd probably give just the same answer that
we need to do whatever is going to give the
police force, the working police, confidence in their leadership and
(08:39):
the community. And if that means having more transparence in
accountability via some kind of review, then that's what we
should do. Yeah, there are probably other options that we
could we could look at. I think it's really important
that we don't do anything that undermines the work that
the police are doing right now, and that whatever we
(09:00):
do is in a way that is continuing to support,
you know, the important work that we've talked a lot
about on your program, a lot about domestic violence. Incredibly
important and under resource work that's happening in that place.
We don't want, we don't want to be distracted from
that work on the ground by these things. But we
need to make sure that the institution is operating properly well.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Justin Davis, the independent member for Johnson, I always appreciate
your time. Thank you very much for joining us on
the show today.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
No worries, Katie, have a great day.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Ask you too. Thank you
Hopefully we've got her on the line now, some tech
issues in the studio. The member for Johnson and Justine Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Good morning to you, Hey, Katie, how are you going?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Really good? Sorry about the tech issues now, Justine. We
have obviously been speaking extensively this week about the situation
that's unfolded last week with the IKAC delegate Patricia Kelly
finding Michael Murphy committed unsatisfactory conduct. We know he then
outed himself late on Thursday, which we spoke quite extensively
(00:31):
about on the week that was. But then the events
that have followed have seen the Chief Minister make the decision,
of course, to begin the process to terminate Michael Murphy's contract. Justine,
do you believe she's made the right decision here?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I mean, I think it's clear that it was untenable
for him to continue in that position, and so I
mean he's come out and revealed himself as the person
the Chief Minister has taken made a response to that.
I think that as you've started to talk about there
there's an ongoing issues from this, and I think what
(01:10):
I'm hearing from the community is that there's still a
lot of doubt, a lot of questions about what's going
on in the place force. More broadly, what's going on
in terms of our response, what the government's response is
when these things happen and people are feeling like it's
not good enough, too little, too late, and there's a
lot of sense of uncertainty in the institutions that should
(01:34):
be there to look after us and the institutions that
we need to trust.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Justin we know that Martin Dole APM is now the
acting Police Commissioner. Some are questioning this after the Chief
Minister confirmed on the show that he was on the
same selection panel as Michael Murphy. Now there is no
suggestion that he's done anything wrong here, but the acting
Commissioner then of course confirmed that he was at a
(01:58):
press conference on Monday. I mean, what do you make
of that situation?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, I think, as you said, I mean, I don't
want to get into the details of people, whether whether
or not people are in the appropriate jobs, etc. And
the details of that. But I think the question here
is that this sends a message to people and people
are feeling a lack of a lack of trust and
lack of accountability. What else People are coming up to
me and saying what else is there to find out
(02:25):
in this story? And you know, particular, I want to say,
particularly for police on the ground. I've been meeting with
our local police frend things that are happening in our community.
We all know they do such a tough job every
day and they deserve to have trust in their leadership,
as does the whole community. And in addition to that,
(02:46):
they need to know that when things go wrong, they're
going to be addressed appropriately. And I think in this situation,
I CACT did exactly what they were set up to do,
and in fact, if they hadn't done their job, probably
we would have never known this. And what they're job
is is to do an investigation, make a report and
then give that report to a responsible entity, in this
case the Minister for IKAK and the Minister of the Police,
(03:08):
the Chief Minister, and they it's then their job to
take action to address it. And that's in my view.
There's a lot of dumping on IKAQ in relation to
all of this, and there things definitely to look at
in IQQ, But in this situation, I think ika did
exactly what they were set up to do and if
that wasn't enough, then what we need to do is
look at strengthening IQAQ, not dumping on it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Do you think that there needs to be some changes
so when you look at, you know, the naming of
public servants or high level public servants.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
In terms of whether or not I CAAK can Yeah, yeah,
I mean I think, as I said, I think we
need to have a really good look at ikak. I'm
as I've said on your show before, I'm a very
big fan of having a robust independent Commission against corruption.
I think it's really important. I think there are big
challenges in having an institution like that in a small
jurisdiction like we have here in the territory, and I
(04:03):
think it's important that we look at what our best
model is going to be for happening here. That may
be naming public servance, which does happen in some jurisdictions,
but there are lots of other things we can look
at too. And I think the issue for people here
wasn't so much about the naming of someone. It was
about there's something that's gone wrong here in the our
(04:25):
kind of most important public institution, the police, and we
don't know that anything's been done to fix it up.
And so I think I don't want us to get
distracted by naming individuals. I think what we need to
look at is the systems that are in place and
what we can do to ensure that they're doing their job,
that the community can trust them, that there's transparency and
(04:46):
accountability within our whole system.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
It's a really interesting discussion because I feel like when
the IKAC kicked off, people had so much trust and
faith in the KAC, and a lot of that's been
lost the years, rightly or wrongly. And now, of course
we've got the Chief Minister revealing the ika's cost the
territory taxpayers thirty five million dollars since it started operating,
(05:10):
and I do think that people are sort of starting
to question whether it is as effective as it should
be in it and I think you're right. You know,
in this situation, the IKACKS acted exactly as they should
have in terms of this report, but there seems to
be an increasing lack of faith. I guess in the
(05:31):
IICAC is potentially the right words, rightly or wrongly, just
after watching how things have happened over the years since
it began operation, and some even going so far as
to suggest or we either need to be funding it properly,
or do we need to be outsourcing some of these
issues to an IICAC maybe in another state where there
(05:52):
isn't any you know, any concerns over sort of conflicts
or not that I'm suggesting there is with the ICAC,
but you know, where there isn't any concerns, do we
need to you know, maybe outsourced to another state.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah. Look, and my understanding is that IKAK often actually
does outsource their investigation to other states, you know, because
of issues of conflict, because of our small jurisdiction. I'm
not an expert in it, but that's what I understand
they do. And I think you're right. I mean, I
don't think this can be a quick answer of this
is what we need to do. You know, people aren't
happy with what's happened up to her now. You know,
(06:27):
there's been a lot of that. ARCAK has been in
the news a lot over the last couple of years
in particular, and we definitely need to look at it.
But I don't think the answer is to do an
unthought through response saying Okay, we just need to get
rid of it. I think we need to look at
it properly, like I think we need to do about
everything we do in the territory. We need to look
at it properly. We need to look at the evidence.
(06:49):
We need to look at what's going to work best
for the territory, and then we need to put that
in place.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Justin What would that look like? Do you think like
a parliamentary review or how could you potentially look into
the and how we could do it better.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, that's certainly one option. You know, we could do
a parliamentary review, we could set up a slate committee.
There's lots of different options for it. I don't have
a quick answer to that, but I think it's there's
definitely an appetite for looking at it. We know so,
and I think that we While I'm saying we can't
(07:23):
act hastily, I don't think that means we should delay actions.
I think, you know, this is something that we do
need to look at now because we need to, as
I said, no, that our public institutions we can trust
as a community, and if there's questions around that, we
need to look at what we need to do to
address those questions and bring trust back.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Parliament obviously resumes next week. Is this something that's going
to be high on the agenda for you.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It's a very busy two weeks of Parliament coming up.
There's a lot of things that are going to be
competing for attention, but it's certainly something that I think
not only me, will be bringing to the floor next week.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Justin can I just ask quickly, you know we were
talking about the whole situation and continue to of course
with the police. Do you think there needs to be
a review into the executive appointments that you know that
happened under Michael Murphy's tenure.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, I've seen calls for that. I'm not sure. I mean,
I think you know, to be you know, perfectly honest,
I'm not I'm not an expert in what's going on
in the police and in HR and how those things happen.
I think i'd probably give just the same answer that
we need to do whatever is going to give the
police force, the working police, confidence in their leadership and
(08:39):
the community. And if that means having more transparence in
accountability via some kind of review, then that's what we
should do. Yeah, there are probably other options that we
could we could look at. I think it's really important
that we don't do anything that undermines the work that
the police are doing right now, and that whatever we
(09:00):
do is in a way that is continuing to support,
you know, the important work that we've talked a lot
about on your program, a lot about domestic violence. Incredibly
important and under resource work that's happening in that place.
We don't want, we don't want to be distracted from
that work on the ground by these things. But we
need to make sure that the institution is operating properly well.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Justin Davis, the independent member for Johnson, I always appreciate
your time. Thank you very much for joining us on
the show today.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
No worries, Katie, have a great day.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Ask you too. Thank you
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.