Ms CARNEY - 2007-06-19
After Greg Andrews first appeared on Lateline in 2006, you feigned shock and called an inquiry. When your Mutitjulu memo was subsequently obtained, you were caught out. On 11 October 2006, in parliament you said:
Yet last night, you told Tony Jones:
that is, Greg Andrews:
Chief Minister, which statement is true? See if you can really test yourself and tell the truth on this one. Which one is true? Was your 2004 Mutitjulu memo based on information passed on by Greg Andrews or was his 2006 Lateline appearance the first reporting you received from him?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, the issue of the project manager for Mutitjulu has become one that, obviously for a program like Lateline, is key to the story they put together. Quite properly, I said to Tony Jones, that I was pretty taken aback when his Mutitjulu story last year had this character sitting in the dark saying he was a youth worker who was under threat in the community. You could not see his face and you had to listen very carefully to what he said. It was very shortly after that he was identified as Greg Andrews. He was not a youth worker at Mutitjulu. He was not a third party commentator on what was happening at Mutitjulu. It was the first time I had actually seen him in the flesh.
I took the point up with Lateline, as did other media in newspaper and electronic, that it was an inappropriate use of someone like Greg Andrews in that report. One paper, the National Indigenous Times, was enormously critical of the deception – and it was deception - of someone like that appearing in the story.
I previously had received reports, unsourced; I was not told they were specific to Greg Andrews. The memo I sent to the Police minister did not identify Greg Andrews. I found that out subsequently. Quite properly, that memo indicated that, as Chief Minister, I was taking action. I was asking my Police minister to take action on allegations that had been made about Mutitjulu - quite properly, Madam Speaker.
You say: ‘You have been outed with a memo’. I was outed taking action on an issue that had been presented to me by my department. That is a very different thing from Lateline saying that they ran a story …
Ms Carney interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms MARTIN: Lateline runs a story about Mutitjulu, that has an employee of the Northern Territory masquerading as a youth worker and pretending he is not at the heart of trying to tackle the issues at Mutitjulu. I was not the only one surprised by that. Media outlets across the country were surprised, and I do not back off the fact that I took it up with the ABC and asked them to explain why that had happened.
- I say again, much of the information passed to me by someone I trusted, that is the project manager of Working Together, Greg Andrews …
Yet last night, you told Tony Jones:
- The first reporting I get from him …
that is, Greg Andrews:
- … is anonymously through your program.
Chief Minister, which statement is true? See if you can really test yourself and tell the truth on this one. Which one is true? Was your 2004 Mutitjulu memo based on information passed on by Greg Andrews or was his 2006 Lateline appearance the first reporting you received from him?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, the issue of the project manager for Mutitjulu has become one that, obviously for a program like Lateline, is key to the story they put together. Quite properly, I said to Tony Jones, that I was pretty taken aback when his Mutitjulu story last year had this character sitting in the dark saying he was a youth worker who was under threat in the community. You could not see his face and you had to listen very carefully to what he said. It was very shortly after that he was identified as Greg Andrews. He was not a youth worker at Mutitjulu. He was not a third party commentator on what was happening at Mutitjulu. It was the first time I had actually seen him in the flesh.
I took the point up with Lateline, as did other media in newspaper and electronic, that it was an inappropriate use of someone like Greg Andrews in that report. One paper, the National Indigenous Times, was enormously critical of the deception – and it was deception - of someone like that appearing in the story.
I previously had received reports, unsourced; I was not told they were specific to Greg Andrews. The memo I sent to the Police minister did not identify Greg Andrews. I found that out subsequently. Quite properly, that memo indicated that, as Chief Minister, I was taking action. I was asking my Police minister to take action on allegations that had been made about Mutitjulu - quite properly, Madam Speaker.
You say: ‘You have been outed with a memo’. I was outed taking action on an issue that had been presented to me by my department. That is a very different thing from Lateline saying that they ran a story …
Ms Carney interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms MARTIN: Lateline runs a story about Mutitjulu, that has an employee of the Northern Territory masquerading as a youth worker and pretending he is not at the heart of trying to tackle the issues at Mutitjulu. I was not the only one surprised by that. Media outlets across the country were surprised, and I do not back off the fact that I took it up with the ABC and asked them to explain why that had happened.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016