Chief Minister wants disgraced Labor MP caught in sex scandal gone from Party

THE disgraced Member for Blain Mark Turner’s days as a member of the Labor Party are numbered if Chief Minister Michael Gunner and his caucus colleagues have their way

Mark Turner in Parliament ... the Member for Blain‘s days as a member of the Labor Party are numbered if Chief Minister Michael Gunner and his caucus colleagues have their way. Photograph: Che Chorley

• Chief Minister Michael Gunner sets sex scandal record straight, blaims Blain MLA for failing to front up with truth
• Bushranger: Cocaine sex scandal special edition

THE disgraced Member for Blain Mark Turner’s days as a member of the Labor Party are numbered if Chief Minister Michael Gunner and his caucus colleagues have their way.

Mr Gunner, still seething over the magnitude of the lies and deceit Mr Turner, a former policeman and father of five, engaged in to try and cover up an affair he was having, was firm in his response when asked if he would be recommending the Member for Blain be stripped of his Labor Party membership.

“We took some pretty strong action this week in excluding the Member for Blain from the Labor Parliamentary team and I consider that a recommendation to the Party around his Party status,” Mr Gunner said.

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“There is a profound lack of trust in the Member for Blain and we have made it clear to him he is no longer welcome the privilege of our party room.

“I’ve let the president of the Party know that the Member for Blain’s exclusion from the Labor Party Parliamentary team could be considered by the president as a recommendation.

“I am extremely disappointed by how this week evolved and how his story changed during the week.

“It would be fair to say that the anger is shared by my team. The Member for Blain was not straight with us and was not straight with Territorians and the people of Blain.”

Mr Gunner was also angry at the way the Member for Blain handled issues raised in text messages he received where the person discussed having had a bad batch of coke.

“I believe that being a former police officer there was no one in a better position to know how to handle that information and there was no one who knew better how to put that forward appropriately through the police,” Mr Gunner said.

CLP Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro said Labor must now kick out Mr Turner to send a strong message that “this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated.

“The slow and inadequate response of the Chief Minister to investigate or address the scandal is being matched by the Labor Party’s silence about the Member for Blain’s Party membership,” she said.

“Every day Mark Turner stays in parliament he is a visible symbol of Michael Gunner’s failure of leadership on Labor’s cocaine, sex scandal.”

Mr Gunner defended the way in which his senior staff attempted to get honest answers out of Mr Turner and a fifth floor staffer, who was also embroiled in what has been dubbed a sex and cocaine scandal.

The NT News is not alleging either man engaged in criminal wrongdoing.

“We did everything in our powers to test those rumours and they were strongly denied,” Mr Gunner said.

The fifth floor staffer has since resigned, but Mr Gunner said had he not done so he would have been sacked.

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“He wasn’t entirely forthcoming with us about the extent of his relationship with the private citizens involved and that was troubling and he wasn’t up front with us,” Mr Gunner said.

The NT News has asked the NT Labor Party president Erina Early for a comment on the Member for Blain’s future as a Labor Party member.