For months, speculation has been rife about whether, or when, Northern Territory Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker would move on from his role as the territory’s top cop.
Rumours spread like wildfire through police, government and media circles every time the commissioner travelled, and, over the past 12 months, government ministers — including Northern Territory’s chief minister, Natasha Fyles — have been forced to reaffirm their confidence in him, whenever whispers about a potential dismissal became too loud.
However, lately, those whispers have become a national conversation and no government minister has made any effort to quieten the speculation.
On Saturday, April 1, media outlets began reporting that the commissioner had been asked to resign.
An unusual press conference with the police force’s head of communications revealed that the commissioner was on pre-arranged Easter leave until April 19.
For days after that, the only line from the government was that Commissioner Chalker was on leave, with long-time deputy Michael Murphy acting in his place.
Ms Fyles continuously threw fuel on the fire of speculation by refusing to answer questions about whether she still had confidence in Commissioner Chalker.
Then Commissioner Chalker hired a high-profile Sydney legal duo — the same barristers who represented Christine Holgate through her employment dispute with Australia Post — and, without saying a word, essentially announced he was not going to go quietly.
April 19 has now come and gone, while arguments about Commissioner Chalker’s tenure have reached boiling point in the Supreme Court.
And it has quickly become an embarrassing, expensive, public spectacle for a government with an overworked police force, trying desperately to tackle a crime crisis.
A secret letter full of ‘allegations’
At the centre of it all appears to be a letter sent by Ms Fyles to Commissioner Chalker around the end of March, which made out a series of allegations against him.
The letter has not been made public, and there will undoubtedly be efforts to keep it that way.
However, Commissioner Chalker’s lawyer, Arthur Moses SC, revealed in court on Monday that, among the four allegations made out in the letter, is an accusation that the commissioner called the Australian Defence Force for help with controlling increasing crime levels in Alice Springs.
It was later conceded, the court was told, that the accusation should have been about the Australian Federal Police but, even that, according to Commissioner Chalker’s lawyers, was untrue.
The government’s intention in sending the letter is unclear.
Perhaps someone thought it could all take place behind closed doors.
However, it is hard to keep a secret in the Northern Territory, and even harder to start a fight with someone, without anyone finding out.
Ms Fyles has said the government is continuing to negotiate with Commissioner Chalker “in good faith” and that she hopes a resolution will be found quickly.
However, on Monday, the commissioner’s lawyers told the Supreme Court there had been “resistance” from the government to engage in mediation meetings, as they sought a court-ordered injunction on Commissioner Chalker’s potential dismissal.
Court documents show that Commissioner Chalker wants the judge to find that the government has no power to sack him at all.
They also reveal he does not want Ms Fyles nor Police Minister Kate Worden involved in any decisions about the future of his employment.
Ms Fyles refused to comment on why that might be.
A difficult tenure at the top
As for the other allegations in the letter, it is impossible to know exactly why the government would attempt to sack its police commissioner and risk the pricey, public fight that’s now unfolding, rather than have him ride out his contract until November.
However, the government is facing intense pressure to do something about relentless crime in the community, and Commissioner Chalker certainly has not had a smooth tenure at the top of the force.
He walked into the job in 2019, days after one of his officers had shot and killed an Indigenous man in Central Australia.
Zachary Rolfe was ultimately cleared of all criminal charges.
In 2020, came COVID-19, which left Commissioner Chalker’s already overworked frontline stretched across the most remote parts of the Northern Territory, as they bore the brunt of the government’s pandemic restrictions.
NT Police’s handling of mental health and disciplinary issues within the ranks have also been the subject of formal reviews, which found changes needed to be made.
A NT Police Union survey in August last year revealed that around 80 per cent of the 1,044 respondents did not have confidence in Commissioner Chalker.
At the time, Commissioner Chalker said he had been “aware of the sentiment” and had no plans to resign, while government ministers and the opposition leader voiced their support for him.
With private mediation now seemingly untenable for the commissioner and the chief minister, the Northern Territory Supreme Court has now set aside three days in early June for the fight to happen in an open courtroom.
Commissioner Chalker’s lawyers have already flagged their intention to cross-examine Ms Fyles and Ms Worden.
However, sources have suggested to the ABC that they may never get that far.
Closed-door meetings and settlement agreements potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars could be made before anyone fronts the Supreme Court on June 7.
The public may never get to know the full extent of exactly what has broken down between the government and the police commissioner but, ultimately, as crime continues to plague the community and the police force remains overworked, the public will be the ones to pay the price.