Council boss wanted $30k after Senator’s ouster claims
By MIKLOS BOLZA
A Liberal Senator refused to pay $30,000 in damages to the head of one of the NT’s biggest Aboriginal land councils over claims members wanted him sacked.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is being sued by Central Land Council chief executive Lesley Turner over a media release in July 2024 that claimed there had been a failed no-confidence motion against him.
Council chair Matthew Palmer earlier issued his own release including the same allegedly defamatory claim, which was picked up by Senator Nampijinpa Price and reported by the News Corp-owned NT News and the ABC.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price arrives at court for her continuing defamation trial.
Just over a week after the releases, Mr Turner sent a concerns notice to the senator asking for an apology, the retraction of her statements and a payment of $30,000 in damages plus his legal fees.
As the trial stretched into its fifth day on Friday, the Federal Court heard Senator Nampijinpa Price’s media team initially said they could not take down her statement without confirmation there had been no motion against him.
But Mr Turner did not request audio or a transcript of a men-only meeting on July 18, 2024 in which his dismissal was discussed, the court heard.
As an uninitiated man, it would have been “inappropriate” to ask what went on at the meeting as it was deemed a cultural matter, Mr Turner said.
Nothing was ever passed onto Senator Nampijinpa Price’s media team and her press release remained online.
He denied in court the meeting had included a motion to dismiss him, saying that nothing had been formally read or finalised.
The Senator’s barrister, Peter Gray SC, took Mr Turner to a settlement with the NT News, which paid him $5500 in damages and $4500 in legal costs.
Peter Gray SC said the NT News “weren’t retracting one single thing that they’d said”. (Lloyd Jones/AAP PHOTOS)
The two articles on the matter were also taken down and an apology issued.
Mr Turner had initially sought $60,000 in damages.
Mr Gray pointed out the media firm had not explicitly admitted wrongdoing.
“Did you actually think that was a genuine apology? They weren’t retracting one single thing that they’d said, were they?” he asked.
“It was an apology,” Mr Turner replied.
NT News said it would reconsider its offer to Mr Turner if it could independently verify that no motion against the chief executive had actually taken place.
Instead, it had just taken the land council chief “at his word”, the court was told.
Again, nothing else was passed on confirming what went on at the meeting.
The media company suggested Mr Turner direct his criticism towards Mr Palmer, who had issued the allegedly defamatory statements in the first place.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said she’d felt intimidated by a man being close to her in court. (Mick Tsikas/AAP PHOTOS)
Further details were also released on Friday about a man, Keith Gregory, who derailed the trial on Tuesday by sitting in the Darwin court and causing a “security concern”.
“I felt given our history that he had located himself deliberately to be close to me to intimidate me,” Senator Nampijinpa Price wrote in an affidavit.
Mr Gregory approached her years earlier to discuss an app, but it never got off the ground and she cut contact in 2021 after becoming concerned about his mental stability, the senator said.
After repeated visits and calls to her electoral office throughout 2024, Australian Federal Police attended his home, she said.
In a letter to the court, Mr Gregory apologised for disrupting the trial, saying he did not mean to make the Senator feel unsafe or threatened.
Justice Michael Wheelahan made orders preventing Mr Gregory – who has not been charged – from entering the courtroom.
The trial continues.
