EDDIE Obeid is the biggest name to fall foul of the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Among other things, he corruptly lobbied colleagues to gain lucrative concessions over cafe leases at Circular Quay that were owned by his family.

In Victoria, the anti-corruption watchdog has been investigating claims a developer paid City of Casey councillors with bags of cash in return for favourable planning decisions.

But here in the Territory, our first big ICAC scalp didn’t go down for greasing the palms of developers or using her power over public officials for personal financial gain.

Instead, Kezia Purick has been found to have engaged in corrupt conduct for playing a game of political mischief while sitting in the Speaker’s chair.

Since his stunning report was handed down on Monday, some have mused whether ICAC Commissioner Ken Fleming has set the bar incredibly low when it comes to determining what amounts to corruption in the NT.

If trying to screw over your political rivals and then lying about it when you get caught amounts to corruption, then there should be more than a few very worried members of the Legislative Assembly.

(Lying to the ICAC Commissioner under oath is a different story and this is where Purick could be in some serious trouble).

But perhaps this ICAC report was the reset this Parliament desperately needed.

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For politics in the Northern Territory has been broken for a long time.

Gone is the vision from the early days of Self Government, replaced with a pursuit of power for power’s sake alone.

The day after the Giles Government was turfed from office, former CLP leader Jodeen Carney wrote this in the Sunday Territorian:

“With perhaps one exception, none of the members I served with until I retired late in 2010 were able to articulate exactly why it was they wanted to be in Government. All they knew was they wanted to be. They wanted what Labor had.

“Being called ‘Minister’, having a chauffeur-driven car and regular overseas travel are for some politicians simply part of the job. But for most members of the newly elected government these signalled that they had arrived at their political pinnacle. They had done enough and over the next four years they were going to enjoy themselves.

“It seemed not to occur to them that once in power they had to govern. They needed to think, work and lead.

“Divisions and hostilities regularly surfaced and they seemed more determined to plot against one another than focus on governing.”

The plotting between Carney’s former CLP colleagues Purick and Mills continues — and the ICAC report won’t put an end to it.

It’s a game that began over who got the spoils of office — Mills promised Purick the job as deputy chief minister, then it was given to Robyn Lambley — and continues now through petty acts of retribution over past wrongs.

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Far from being immune to this kind of game-playing, Labor has become the master of it. Their skills in the dark arts have been honed through years employed as part of the machine, working towards the eventual goal of a seat in the parliament.

They too have appear more interested in obtaining — and holding on to — the spoils of office than using their position to advance the Territory’s best interests.

Labor’s favourite topic is talking about the CLP — and not just in the heat of an election campaign. For almost four years the Government’s media releases have been littered with political propaganda, all paid for by you, the taxpayer.

Some had no doubt hoped the new Territory Alliance Party might be different.

“If the Territory is a can-do place, then we can do politics differently,” its motto promises.

But its decision this week to ban fracking smacks of political opportunism.

Territory Alliance wants voters to believe it cares about the environment. Yet when it briefly seized opposition in March one of the first people leader Terry Mills tried to hire was Rod McGarvie.

McGarvie is a former Family First senate candidate who once proposed a Royal Commission to determine if climate change was a hoax. One on the things he wanted examined was “whether the BOM and CSIRO have allowed political agendas to compromise scientific rigour and integrity”. He seems an odd choice for a party now claiming to be our great environmental guardian.

The fracking decision could be the beginning of the end for Mills and the Alliance, who have been exposed as an outfit willing to promise anything to anyone in their naked pursuit of power.

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As the parliamentary circus flew into overdrive this week, there was one MLA who seemed to remember why he was meant to be there.

Wedged between the insults came a question from Yingiya Mark Guyula, the Independent Member for Nhulunbuy. He wanted to know why there were not enough Telstra towers in the remote parts of his electorate to allow his constituents the same access to a reliable phone and internet service enjoyed by people in Darwin or Alice Springs.

The Yolngu leader must shake his head in disbelief at the antics that go on within the ridiculously extravagant Parliament House — now being renovated with money sent from Canberra in large part to address indigenous disadvantage — while his constituents make do with third-world infrastructure.

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A day before the damning ICAC report that forced Kezia Purick’s resignation, it was revealed her office had spent tens of thousands of dollars on alcohol in this term of office. It’s symbolic of the grand sense of entitlement that overcomes almost every person who enters that place.

Kezia Purick is no Eddie Obeid. But her fall from grace has provided a long overdue reminder about whose interests our politicians are meant to be serving.