TWO years ago, Matthew Grant, the general manager in the Office of the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption, made some disturbing claims to the ICAC Inspector, Bruce McClintock SC.

According to an ABC report, Mr Grant told Mr McClintock that of 16 whistleblowers who had come forward within NT government departments, all 16 had subsequently had reprisals taken against them.

“It has been suggested to me that some agency staff are reluctant to refer matters to the ICAC because of fear of reprisal despite the statutory requirements to do so,” Mr McClintock wrote in a preliminary report.

“If that is the case it is highly regrettable, and action should be considered by way of amendment to strengthen whistleblower protection.

“If, as the [NT ICAC] general manager [Matthew Grant] has informed me, 16 out of 16 whistleblowers have had reprisals taken against them, it is extremely disturbing.”

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Extremely disturbing indeed. But no surprise to anyone familiar with the operations of the NT public service over the past four decades.

The hope, of course, was that the establishment of the ICAC would change this disturbing trend.

That same year the Commissioner, Ken Fleming, wrote in his annual report:

“Whistleblowers play a critical role in the push to restore integrity in public administration … I believe the NT, as with other jurisdictions across Australia, must do more to protect whistleblowers from reprisal,” he wrote.

“My office is committed to pursuing reforms in the NT that will further protect whistleblowers from reprisal.”

It is curious then that after a whistleblower went to Mr McClintock to report allegations of improper conduct within the ICAC itself, Mr Fleming launched a public attack on that person before a parliamentary committee.

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His performance before the Budget Estimates committee on Tuesday was nothing short of extraordinary.

The Commissioner had already embarrassed the ICAC through ill-informed comments at a Black Lives Matter rally in Alice Springs a day after a police officer had been charged with the murder of an Indigenous man.

And again, last month, when his office damned two women – one with a finding of corruption – without affording them natural justice.

Yet, concerns over whether Mr Fleming should hold his position – the more powerful role in the Northern Territory – only grew on Tuesday.

A day after telling Sky News he was unable to comment on allegations the ICAC had awarded lucrative contracts to a company owned by the boyfriend of its Director of Investigations, Mr Fleming chose to criticise the person who had raised concerns about this issue.

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Then he publicly threatened to use his extraordinary powers to haul Sky News before a closed hearing and force us to give up the sources of our story, asserting that the usual protections that apply to journalists and the protection of sources don’t apply to the ICAC.

If an organisation which has the job of investigating allegations of improper conduct raised by whistleblowers treats such a person in the way Mr Fleming has, what confidence will any whistleblower in the NT now have in coming forward?

Mr Fleming has done the reputation of the Office of the ICAC severe damage.

He should consider his position today.