NT politician Steve Edgington suspends staffer jailed for domestic violence offences

ABC NEWS (Australia)

An electoral liaison officer who worked for the NT's shadow family violence minister has been suspended after it was revealed he spent close to three months in jail for domestic violence offence and bail breaches.

Transcript

00:00 All prompted after it emerged the opposition's shadow Domestic Violence Minister employed

00:07 a man in his office who has been found guilty of numerous domestic violence related charges.

00:12 Steve Edgington says Darius Plummer had told him of two offences before being hired.

00:18 He accepted responsibility for those and served his time prior to being employed in my office.

00:24 The staff are now suspended with pay as a criminal history check is conducted into scores

00:29 of other domestic violence related offences he allegedly didn't disclose.

00:34 Now that this further issue is raised yesterday through the media those matters are currently

00:39 under investigation.

00:41 And with the NT having the worst domestic violence rates in the country advocates say

00:45 more needs to be done.

00:47 I think it shows that we still have parliamentarians in the Northern Territory and in this country

00:51 who aren't taking domestic, family and sexual violence seriously and this is something that

00:56 they should know better.

00:57 But Leah Finocchiaro is standing by her embattled shadow minister.

01:01 The member for Barclay has been explicitly clear that had he had the information he had

01:06 today he would never have hired Mr Plummer in the first place.

01:10 Nearly every question asked in parliament this afternoon by Labor was on the issue of

01:14 domestic violence allowing its ministers to go on the attack against the CLP.

01:19 It's a sign of a potentially ugly election campaign just around the corner.

01:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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