Children’s Commissioner told ’govt wanted to replace her with Aboriginal candidate’

Lawyers for Colleen Gwynne say she was told months before she was charged her contract would not be renewed because the government wanted to appoint an Aboriginal commissioner.

Northern Territory Children’s Commissioner Colleen Gwynne was told seven months before she was charged that her contract would not be renewed because the Government wanted to appoint an Aboriginal commissioner, her lawyers say.

A letter sent to Chief Minister Natasha Fyles by Ms Gwynne’s lawyer Sean Bowden details a meeting Ms Gwynne was called to attend with Department of Chief Minister chief executive Jody Ryan on December 10, 2019.

“(Ms Ryan) advised Ms Gwynne that she was not going to be considered for a further contract, that Cabinet had voted unanimously to recruit an Aboriginal Children’s Commissioner and that Ms Gwynne’s contract would not be renewed,” the letter says.

“Ms Ryan advised that the then Attorney-General (now Chief Minister Natasha Fyles) had asked her to convey that message to Ms Gwynne.

“In a later discussion Ms Gwynne raised the issue directly with the then Attorney-General and was told that there was no Cabinet decision.

“Ms Gwynne knows that Ms Ryan’s advice was not correct. Indeed, Ms Gwynne entered into a new contract in June 2020 which was signed by the then Attorney-General.”

The Territory’s Children’s Commissioner Colleen Gwynne.

Ms Fyles has refused to comment on the specific issues raised in the letter.

“The Children’s Commissioner is a matter that is being dealt with and I won’t be providing commentary through the media,” she said.

Ms Gwynne was charged by police on July 16, 2020, over allegations she had sought to appoint her friend Laura Dewson as assistant children’s commissioner.

A police investigation was sparked following a complaint made by Nicole Hucks – an applicant for the position who had been deemed unsuitable by an independent panel – to an employee at the Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment on November 21, 2018.

Within eight days Ms Hucks’ complaint was sent from the OCPE to the Public Interest Disclosure Commissioner and on to police, who began an investigation.

Ms Hucks, who is Indigenous, was later appointed assistant children’s commissioner when the position was readvertised under “special measures” provisions, which give preference to Aboriginal applicants if they meet the selection criteria for an advertised position.

Natasha Fyles. Picture: PEMA TAMANG Pakhrin

Ms Gwynne has been on paid leave since she was charged in July 2020.

Ms Hucks was appointed Acting Children’s Commissioner in January 2022.

Last month a jury was ordered to find Ms Gwynne not guilty after Justice John Burns ruled the Crown could not prove Ms Gwynne’s conduct was criminal, rather than poor practice.

Ms Gwynne had conducted several own-initiative investigations that led to damning reports into the Northern Territory Government and its departments after her appointment in June 2015.

In September of the same year she released a damning report into the “inappropriate” and “illegal” treatment of children at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.

She was scathing of the NT government’s child protection services in a report into the rape of a two-year-old Aboriginal girl in Tennant Creek in 2018.

Matt Cunningham Sky News dinkus

Ms Gwynne found the girl and her siblings had been the subject of 52 notifications to the child protection department over more than a decade including reports related to sexual abuse, physical harm, neglect, emotional harm, family violence and parental substance abuse, yet nothing was done to keep the girl safe.

The last Own-Initiative Investigation made public by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner was a report conducted by Ms Gwynne into the mistreatment of children in foster care published on June 9, 2020, just over a month before she was charged.

Another report was completed in October 2020 but has not been made public due to confidentiality concerns.

Matt Cunningham is the Sky News Northern Australia Correspondent