The federal government has been asked to launch a full investigation into one of the country’s most powerful Aboriginal organisations, the Northern Land Council (NLC), as bitter tensions continue after the abrupt sacking of its CEO last month.
Joe Morrison was appointed chief executive in 2014, after an external review of the NLC identified a “fundamental breakdown in the governance framework” resulting in “serious failings in almost all aspects of the council’s administration.”
In 2015, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) found weaknesses in the NLC’s financial management and reporting, but by the following year reported “there was a notable energy and commitment from staff and managers to achieve the aims of the reforms over the longer term.”
But midway through November, Morrison suddenly announced he was resigning for “personal reasons”, although he would stay on in the role until March 2019.
Eight of the nine-member executive of the NLC met two weeks later and resolved to terminate his employment immediately, a move that has angered other NLC members, who claim they were not consulted on the decision and have questioned the motivation for it, in an open letter.
Members of the council have written to the Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, asking him to step in. Under the NT land rights act, the federal minister can compel the NLC’s full council to meet in order to resolve the dispute.
As well as questioning Morrison’s termination, members allege there is a perceived conflict of interest between the NLC executive and the board of another organisation, the Aboriginal Investment Group (AIG).
The AIG bills itself online as “a not-for-profit Aboriginal organisation, dedicated to creating Aboriginal prosperity through innovative investment. We are 100% Aboriginal owned and self-funded.”
The AIG owns the building in the Darwin CBD which the NLC rents for $1m a year. There have been protracted negotiations over the rent since the 10-year lease expired in April 2017.
NLC members instructed the CEO to seek an independent valuation, which said the rent was worth around $700,000 a year. On that basis, the NLC offered to take a five-year term, an approach endorsed by the full council at its meeting in Jabiru two weeks before Morrison’s sudden dismissal.
Since his dismissal, members claim, the AIG offered a new lease for a 10-year term at a rental of $1m a year.
Members claim the rental negotiations were made more complicated by the fact that NLC executive members are also the board of the AIG.
In an open letter delivered late last week to Scullion and the NLC chairman, Samuel Bush-Blanasi, the members said “this letter, and the request to the Minister to intervene, were not the members’ preference in dealing with internal business of the land council” but they felt “this is the only approach left available that may result in answers to the allegations against the executive”.
“Please provide us (your members) the evidence and motivation that resulted in Mr Morrison’s automatic dismissal and public humiliation was not based on our (full council) resolution to obtain an approximate 25% reduction in the lease agreement on the property owned by the Aboriginal Investment Group (AIG), which interestingly you and the other NLC Executive members are directors of,” the letter says.
At the time of Morrison’s dismissal, the NLC was two years into a wide-ranging reform agenda covering almost all aspects of the governance and administration of the council.
“While tangible improvements have been made to date to raise the standard of administration from a very low base, considerable work remains for the council to be administratively effective,” the ANAO report said.
The Northern Land Council’s full council is the major decision-making body within the organisation, and has 78 members elected from across the NLC’s seven regions.
Each region has one elected executive council member.
Bush-Blanasi has been sought for comment.
