Trust in Govt being eroded

WHEN Chief Minister Michael Gunner campaigned for office he won the hearts and minds of Territorians by promising to restore trust in Government

WHEN Chief Minister Michael Gunner campaigned for office he won the hearts and minds of Territorians by promising to restore trust in Government.

He was on good, solid ground. The appallingly behaved Country Liberal Government did not deserve to be running the Territory. They had a trust deficit.

Trust in Government is paramount, which is why the matters involving an escaped killer in April last year and a violent offender being on the run since early December are so serious. It is unacceptable that no one in Government saw fit to advise Territorians about it. They kept it from Territorians when we all had a right to know.

Both these incidents and the manner in which the Gunner Government has handled them have seriously undermined the Chief Minister’s mantra of “Restoring trust in Government”.

It is either a deliberate cover-up or just plain incompetence. Either way it is not good enough. It is not good enough either to put it down to lazy public servants who weren’t doing their job properly.

If it is a case of not doing your job properly then that blame also falls with the Attorney-General and Health Minister Natasha Fyles, her minders and the Chief Minister’s minders. They are all negligent for not doing their job on both occasions. They are complicit in important information knowingly being kept from the public. The Chief Minister himself said yesterday that “this is information that should have been provided to the public”.

He also said the two issues were operational and it was not the Minister’s responsibility, but rather the department’s responsibility to inform the public in such cases. Wrong! It is the Minister’s responsibility to act if she knows her department is failing to do its job. In both cases, it certainly appears Minister Fyles sat idle and allowed important information to be kept from the public.