‘It had blown right up’: NAAJA chair Colleen Rosas details loss of trust in CEO Priscilla Atkins

Colleen Rosas told a court on Thursday how the situation ‘had blown right up’ after Priscilla Atkins ‘deserted her job’ as the head of the Aboriginal legal aid agency.

North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency chief executive Priscilla Atkins outside court in Darwin. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency chairwoman Colleen Rosas has told a court how a dispute with the organisation’s chief executive had “blown right up” after she “deserted her job” last year.

NAAJA CEO Priscilla Atkins is suing the agency in the Federal Court after its board tried to sack her following an allegation she had forged Ms Rosas signature to give herself a raise.

On Thursday, Ms Rosas told the court the board had resolved to terminate Ms Atkins’ employment in January because “we felt we had lost trust” and “there was too much water under the bridge with it”.

“There were these emails that were being sent across the country making defamatory remarks about a lot of the board directors,” she said.

“There was a person named as being corrupt that had never had anything to do with NAAJA in her life, an Aboriginal lady from community.

“It had blown right up, there was no trust anymore between the board and Ms Atkins, she had deserted her job.

“The rumours started running around, we couldn’t negotiate, we couldn’t talk, there was a whole lot of reasons, the board made the decision that they didn’t want to work with her anymore.”

Under cross examination by Ms Atkins’ barrister Malcolm Harding SC, Ms Rosas denied she “wanted her dismissed” or that she engineered an audit report to that end.

NAAJA chairwoman Colleen Rosas said a report into alleged misconduct by the agency’s CEO ‘had to be handed to the police’.

“I wished there was some other way to work through this but we had an investigative report done, it had to be handed to the police,” she said.

“There were directors that wanted her terminated immediately and I said there’s a process to go through here, we had to advise, provide the report to both Attorney-General’s departments and then after advising them as our funding bodies we would then go to the police.”

No criminal charges have been laid.

Ms Rosas also denied she supported her sacking because she was seeking to protect the agency’s chief financial officer Madhur Evans and “needed (Ms Atkins) out of the office”.

But she agreed the board had resolved to sack Ms Atkins before sending her a letter saying it would consider her response to the allegations.

“You would agree with me that that’s completely inconsistent with the decision that you have said was reached in January, isn’t it?” he said.

Ms Rosas replied: “Yes.”

The trial continues before Justice Natalie Charlesworth in Darwin on Monday.

Originally published as ‘It had blown right up’: NAAJA chair Colleen Rosas details loss of trust in CEO Priscilla Atkins