Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Independent Member for Araluen says the NT's ICAC system is broken, and all referrals need to be outsourced interstate

Transcript

Independent Member for Araluen says the NT's ICAC system is broken, and all referrals need to be outsourced interstate · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, as we know, estimates began in the Northern Territory
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: yesterday and concerns were raised right off the bat about
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the government's decision to cut funding to the anti corruption
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: watchdog and the impact that it's going to have on
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: its ability to perform its duties. Now, the IICAQ boss
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Michael Riches has well. He was one of the first
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: up to answer questions during the process and said that
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: he was disappointed that the government rejected a bid to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: increase funding. Now joining me on the line to talk
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: more about the situation and plenty of other things, is
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the Independent Member for Ara Lewin, Robin Lamley. Good morning
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: to you, Robin, Good morning Katie, Robin. I know that
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: during last month's budget, obviously, the Office of the Independent
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Commissioner against Corruption was allocated five point four million for
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the upcoming financial year. That's apparently one point three million
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: less than previous well less than the previous year.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Robin. I know the AKAK.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Commissioner appeared obviously yesterday and raised some concerns about this.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: What exactly did he say, Well.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: He was upfront. He zoomed into budget estimates, which is
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: a little bit unusual. He was very very sick, and
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: you could tell that the way he looked and the
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: way he spoke that he was very upfront at the start,
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: saying that he was bitterly disappointed that the government had
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: decided to cut twenty percent of his budget and implied
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: that this had an enormous bearing on what he was
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: capable of doing, what the Office of the Independent Commission
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: against Corruption can do going forward, And if he needs
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: more money, apparently he's been told that he has to
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: go and beg for a treasurer a treasurer's advance, which
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: in itself is quite interesting. Does he have to go
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: and present to the treasurer a particular case and say
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: I need more money to undertake this highly confidential, possible yeah,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: that corruption case. That what I just beg his belief.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: That's something that I'd wandered as well, Robert, because I
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: thought to myself, if he's now got to go to
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Treasury to request more money, does detail need to be
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: provided about why it's a case where he requires that
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: additional funding.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Well, normally, when you ask for a treasurer's advance, you
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: have to present a fairly comprehensive case as to why
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: you need it. Look, he just couldn't breach confidentiality and
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: provide that sort of detailed a treasury, but it is
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: quite absurd. I mean, this is a news service offered
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: by the Northern Territory government, and all credit to this
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Labor government. They've got it up and running. But what
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: really presented to me yesterday was an office in crisis.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: I think this office is really at a crisis point.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: It's he said that there's a fifty percent turnover in staff.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: They have difficulty getting staff. They've got I think he said,
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: five legal cases underway in which they're defending them, so
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: they're spending an enormous amount of money on legal costs payouts,
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: and on top of that, they're trying to investigate. I
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: think he said that they've got about thirteen or fourteen
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: current investigations, yeah, which I can only assume are the
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: sort of of the most serious nature, because he's not
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: choosing to investigate the bulk of referrals made to his
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: often from what I determined, So you know, it's just
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: not working, Katie. And what came through loud and clearly
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: to me yesterday.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: It makes you question as well.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, yes, my understanding is that there are fourteen
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: significant investigations. In addition to three other preliminary inquiries. There
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: are those serious issues with staffing and indeed the issues
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: with funding which he has pointed out. So it really
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: makes you question how serious I guess the Northern Territory
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: government is at this point in terms of the IKAC
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: being able to operate the level that is required. And
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: let's not forget as well that some of the other
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: issues or some of the other bits of information that
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: were gleaned yesterday is the likes of the Home Improvement scheme.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: As I understand it, the Order to General had said
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: that that had been referred.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: To the IKAC.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: So in some cases we're actually talking about without knowing
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the detail of what those fourteen investigations are. But in
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: some cases you are talking about questions being raised about
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: whether the government itself should be investigated over different issues.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: And then the government itself is determining whether the IKAK
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: receives additional funding.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Layers and layers of conflicts of interest, Katie, and you're right,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: the government is effectively determining how much influence the KAK
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Commissioner can have by restricting his budget. Of course, there
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: has to be limits put on budgets, but there is
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: a conflict of interest there which which needs to be addressed.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Look up my view all along, even when the discussions
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: were taking place planning an ICAC commission for the Northern Territory,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: My view is that the whole thing should be completely
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: outsourced to interstate icas. But the territory is just too
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: small and too incestuous to be able to carry a
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: fully independent ICAC commission. And I think we're at that
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: point now, to the point Katie where a review was
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: initiated by the now Chief Minister, then Attorney General. A
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: reviewer was initiated into IQAQ over twelve months ago, and
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: no one's even seen that report. We've had a discussion
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: paper put out on parts of the report. But Freig
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: SHANAHANQ see he undertook a complete review of IQAQ and
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: the government's with holding that from the public, and.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: My understanding was that they were going to make that public.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I was of that. I was certainly on that understanding.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: Well, they should be making it public. And the question
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: rich has been put to the Chief Minister, now why
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: isn't it being made public? And you don't seem to
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: get a clear answer to that. So there's all sorts
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: of problems within IKAQ, including scandals. We heard last week
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: that a young woman who was employed as the executive
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: assistant for the IKAK Commissioner has been referred to the
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: police for alleged breach of confidentiality or something like that.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: She's contravened something very serious in terms of the information
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: that's come to her. You know, the whole of this
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: office of Akak in the Northern Territory is in a
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: state of crisis from what I could glean from estimates yesterday,
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: and I think some serious decisions need to be made
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: about the future going for just looking at mister Richards,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: I know he was sick, but he's only been in
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: the job a year and I have to wonder if
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: he really wondered it, really knew what he was walking
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: into when he took on this job.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: So, Robin, do you think that the time has now come?
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a it's a it's a pretty you know,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: big call.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Do you think that the time has come for the
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: ika to be outsourced to another state completely?
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: And I think the model that you use is you
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: have a four or five year contract with say for example,
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: way then youw South Wales, then Queensland. You rotate it.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: So at no point can can these sort of conflicts
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: of interest built up. You're you've got a strict contract.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: They come in, they do the investigations. These days, you've
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: got you've got you know, telephones and zoom and all
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: sorts of mechanisms. They don't necessarily have to spend a
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: huge amount of time here. I think that that would
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: safeguard us from a lot of the problems that we've
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: seen in Ikak in such a short space of time.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: But how we're doing it at the moment is clearly
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: clearly not working. And the sooner the Chief Minister recognizes
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: that and looks at a different model, the better.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Robin.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Let's move along, because I know that it was revealed,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: as I understand it, by the Order to General that
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: they had referred the Home Improvement Scheme, the Northern Territory
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Government's Home Improvement Scheme to the IKAK. Was there much
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: further insight provided in that space.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: No, not particularly. I'm a member of the Public Accounts
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Committee and the Order to General raise this with us
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  Speaker 3: about a year ago, and it was made public that
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: it kind of slipped under the radar and it was
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: raised again yesterday in estimates. What she found through her
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: general auditing and analysis of the home improvement scheme was
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: widespread conflicts of interest and fraud within the home improvement scheme.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: People just did the wrong thing intentionally or unintentionally. And
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  Speaker 3: what she also found was that even the staff that
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: were employed to assess the applications the flood of applications
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: that came through often did not suitably or adequately declare
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: their conflicts of interest. So some of them or a
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: lot of them were processing applications for family and friends.
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  Speaker 3: So the whole of the home improvement scheme was referred
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: to IKAX for investigation because the order to General Julie Chris,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: who was an incredibly professional woman with the highest level
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  Speaker 3: of integrity, just said she really just opened a can
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  Speaker 3: of worms and the whole scheme was flawed from top
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: to bottom.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, So I mean looking at that and taking
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: that into accounts, I guess we don't know whether it
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: is something that the Eyekak is looking into or continuing
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: to look into. But Robin, do you think that they're
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: sort of at the very least some lessons learned. Should
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: we go through another process like that again, or what
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: do you think could happen in that space.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Well, the interesting thing about the Order to General is
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: she undertakes constant reviews and analysis analyzes of every part
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: of government, and she tables these incredible reports, I think
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: three a year, and they are so intense and thorough,
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: very heavy reading. But I don't the government is under
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: no obligation to do anything based on what she uncovers,
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  Speaker 3: and to the point where they ignore a lot of
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: what she finds. There's no repercussions. She uncovered this home
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  Speaker 3: improvement scheme scammed door of enormous magnitudes, and yet the
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: government has I don't recall ever spoken about it. Just
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: it just is ignored and pushed under the carpet. And
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: successive governments have done that. But you know that we've
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: had this labor government for the last six years, so
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: I can comfortably talk about that. But it's it's quite
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: unbelievable really that this woman and her very small team
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: of staff, only four people, uncover countless anomalies and inconsistencies
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: and examples of how the government has not delivered on
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: their promises or not spent money according to what, how
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: and when they said they would spend it and yet
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: there's no consequence.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you what.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: She would certainly be well worth having a chat to.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know how easy it is for me to
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: try and get her on, but I think she'd were
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: worth having a chat to, particularly about that home improvement scheme. Hey,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: before I let you go, I know your press for time,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: as are we. But the health portfolio was obviously looked
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: over yesterday as well, Robin. Any key bits of info
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that you sort of uncovered yesterday.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: A lot of talk about the cost of COVID and
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: the implications of interest to me. Fifty six people within
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: the Department of Health lost their jobs or were sacked
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: because they didn't comply with the vaccination mandate. There is
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: an enormous amount of money has been spent by Health
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: on overtime the hospital, particularly within the Alice Springs Hospital
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: and the Royal Darwin Hospital, twenty twelve million in overtime
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: in just the last nine months.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: That had an enormous amount of resignations within Health. I
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: think they said something like fourteen hundred staff of resign
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: over the last twelve months or thereabouts. It's incredibly hard
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: to do business in the Northern Territory as it is,
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: but when you're requiring professional people to come to the
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Northern Territory in these strange and strained circumstances, it's obviously
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: very difficult and the impact on health is enormous. The
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: other thing that was disappointing is that people might remember
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: about eighteen months ago the government decided to centralize control
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: of health back to Tawin. They took away the local
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: health service boards health services and it's all centralized back
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: in Darwin, which of course I'm not particularly in favor of.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Coming from Alice Springs. It also came to light that
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: a number of critical positions in the Berkley have been
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: cut in part because of the centralization process. So that's
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: disappointing that the reasons not getting a fair deal when they.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Should absolutely well.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Robin, one last thing, I did hear you asking a
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: number of questions yesterday as well about staffing levels on
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the fifth floor and how much money is spent on
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: communications and also social media staff.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Did you get any info?
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: No? OK, strangely enough, I didn't get any information. This
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: is something that people should know about sixteen million dollars
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: of our money, our public money, is spent on employing
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: staff on Level five of Parliament House, and the Chief
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: Minister was unable to tell me how many staff are
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: employed up there, what are the position titles and what
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: levels they're paid at. She fronted budget estimates and did
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: not have that information available to me. It's been put
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: on notice that that really says a lot about just
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: how much is hidden from the public. Now they are
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: they accounting for sixteen million dollars per year of territory
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: money being spent on Level five if did beg it
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: believe Really, I.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Think it's a fair enough question to ask and hopefully
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: they'll provide you some level of detail.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that people.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: Should not holding my bread I.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Or Robin Lamley actually before I let you go, just
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: very quickly, I have had a couple of listeners who
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: live in the Fanny Bay electorate just raised with me
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that apparently the former Chief Minister Michael Gunner has posted
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: on his Facebook that he's injured himself and that he's
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: going to have to have an operation in Queensland, and
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: just some of those people in the electorate asking what
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: period of time or what you know, how many weeks
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of leave is a local member entitled to. I guess
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: what they're getting at is you know when's he coming back,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: which you obviously won't know the answer to, but you're
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: able to give us a bit of info in terms
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of that leave for MLAs.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: You know, Katie, this is a really interesting question and
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: those people away to know that we as members of
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Parliament don't get leave. We don't get any leave at all,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: which means that we can either take none or take
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: as much as we want. Yeah.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Right, when he.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Declared a few months ago that he had taken eternity leave,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: I thought, well, why would you even do that because
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: we don't need to account for where we go and
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: what we do. The assumption is you work when you work,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: and if you go away, you go away. So in
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: answer to their question, he can be out of his
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: office for as long as he likes, but you know,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: when voting comes around, just remember it.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Well, that is really interesting because I think a lot
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: of people will be surprised by that, and look.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: There will be no leave of any sort. No, and
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: on top of that, we don't get leave loading Yeah
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Well, Robin Lanley, very interesting stuff. Always good to catch
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: up with you. Thanks, So much for your time this.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Morning, my pleasure, Katie.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you.