Madge Maley: waiting for the other shoe to drop

Darwin seething with suggestions as to why Peter Maley quit the bench ... Stout defence of the compromised magistrate by the CLP government came to nothing ... More to come ... Reptiles pose a list of questions to the stricken beak 

NT parliament: attorney general pressed to resignTHE word racing around Darwin is that there is much more to be revealed about the reasons for Peter Maley's sudden resignation as a Top End magistrate. 

The local edition of The Daily Rupert put 13 questions to the controversial beak on Monday (Aug. 25) and later the same day he tendered his resignation. 

The questions apparently detailed allegations of a former client. Lawyers for Maley are said to have besieged the local tissue with letters and threats, which have delayed the story getting onto the presses. 

It's not just a matter of a magistrate handing out how-to-vote cards for the government and allegedly lobbing an MP not to leave the Country Liberals. Something even more unattractive is slated for exposure. 

Let's hope News Corp's own suppression expert Ian Philip is on the case for the NT News. 

Question time in the NT Legislative Assembly on Tuesday (Aug. 26) was the traditionally rambunctious affair, with the Opposition calling for the scalp of attorney John Elferink, a close pal of Maley. 

The leader of the opposition, Delia Lawrie, was called a "grub" by the just sacked deputy chief minister, Dave Tollner, who had earlier called a government staffer a "pillow biter [and] shirt lifter". Tollner's explanation for this outburst is that his mother is gay.  

Attorney General John Elferink used his magnificent oratorical skills to attack the NT bar association, which has been calling for an inquiry into Maley's inappropriate political conduct while serving as a magistrate.  

One of the issues that concerned the bar association, and the Opposition, was Maley's directorship of Foundation 51, the fundraising arm of the Country Liberal Party. The suggestion was that party donors might have appeared as litigants before Maley, without the conflict being disclosed. 

Chief Minister Adam Giles cannot afford to have any of his CLP members quitting parliament, as he only governs by a slender single seat majority. 

Since Maleygate became a dreadfully compromising issue for the independence of the Top End judiciary the government has been in overdrive to redefine the separation of powers. 

On Tuesday (Aug. 19) the chief minister suggested that he preferred his judges and magistrates to be part of Team CLP: 

"One of the points in the question asked by the member for Fannie Bay was about - we use the word public. Peter Maley has been quite public that he was a member of the CLP. We are not afraid to hide it or show it. We are proud of the fact we have a competent, able man as a member of the CLP, and he happens to be a magistrate ..." 

AG Elferink in May also had a stab at redrafting the principle of judicial independence: 

"The good thing about this is democracy and freedom of speech. A magistrate in the Northern Territory is allowed to have a political opinion. What sort of a society are we living in? It is a fantastic society where a magistrate can have a political opinion, where he can be a member of a political party ...  It is fantastic he has rights and freedoms in a democratic society, such as the Northern Territory, to be a member of a political party. Good on him if he wants to make a donation to the member for Port Darwin... Thank you very much, Peter Maley, the magistrate who has shown an interest in the Country Liberals ..." 

This cross-pollination between politics and the bench is steadily taking a toehold in various nooks and crannies of the nation. Maley's resignation from the court may temporarily slow the process, but it's far from dead. 

There's one more ethical hurdle that faces Maley as he returns to his lucrative law shop. The Guide to Judicial Conduct says that judicial officers should wait at least a year before practising as solicitors and at least two years before appearing as barristers in the courts from which they have resigned. 

See chapter seven, Guide to Judicial Conduct  

On past form, these niceties wouldn't be of concern to a repeat offender like Peter Maley.