Territory Coordinator and ICAC set to dominate NT parliament this week

Controversial Territory Coordinator laws and the ICAC report that sank Police Commissioner Michael Murphy are set to dominate sittings, with reforms to long service leave, the debt ceiling, and public housing also on the cards.

NT parliament returns on Tuesday for two weeks of sittings. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Controversial Territory Coordinator laws and the ICAC report that sank Police Commissioner Michael Murphy are set to dominate sittings, with reforms to long service leave, the debt ceiling, and public housing also on the cards.

Protests against the reform are planned before parliament resumes on Tuesday morning; a last-ditch effort before the Bill is expected to be debated and passed within the fortnight.

It is also understood that Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro wants to table the full ICAC report that ultimately lead to NT Police Commissioner Michael Murphy going on leave.

However uncertainty remains as to whether ICAC will allow this to happen.

The topic is still expected to figure during question time and other avenues of debate.

The Country Liberal government will also move to scrap the portable long service leave scheme – an initiative introduced by Labor this time last year allowing Territorians working in the community services sector to take their leave benefits with them when changing jobs.

Leader of Government Business Steve Edgington. Picture: Gera Kazakov

Leader of Government Business Steve Edgington said the scheme was “costly” and “rushed”.

“Childcare centres told us this would cost them $50,000 extra a year, a cost that would be directly passed onto parents in the form of increased fees,” he said.

Greens member for Nightcliff Kat McNamara said scrapping the scheme was “a slap in the face to care workers and to employers who are crying out for skilled workers”.

“It’s a disingenuous and offensive claim that the increasing costs of childcare is because of

portable long service leave entitlements for care workers,” she said.

“If the CLP government really cared about supporting families, they would invest far more money into publicly owned and operated childcare rather than leaving it up to for-profit providers to look after our kids.

“The care sector has a high proportion of women and migrant workers … (they) deserve the same benefits and entitlements as workers in other sectors. Portable long service leave is available all over Australia for tradies, public servants, and community service workers.”

The government will also remove the Territory’s $15bn debt ceiling, after economic forecasts revealed debt is expected to blow past the “farcical” cap in the next four years.

“If the debt cap was to remain in place, savings of around $1.8bn, or $450m per annum over four years, would need to be found across the budget and forward estimates,” Mr Edgington said.

“This is something the CLP government will not do because the only way out of our debt mess is by growing our economy.”

Mr Edgington said changes to public housing would also be outlined this week.

“Anti-social behaviour and serious incidents of crime in public housing have been allowed to spiral out of control for far too long,” he said.

“The time for excuses and rolling out the red carpet for repeat offenders is over.”

Opposition Leader Selena Uibo said Labor’s agenda would be “holding the CLP government to account on the issues which matter to Territorians”.

“From the government’s fundamentally flawed Territory Coordinator bill to Lia Finocchiaro’s failure to address crime and anti-social behaviour – community expectations are not being met,” she said.

Ms Uibo said she would call on the Chief Minister to “come clean” on the Police Commissioner scandal: “for over two weeks we have been talking about this and yet many key questions still remain unanswered”.

Originally published as Territory Coordinator and ICAC set to dominate NT parliament this week