The Australian: Warren Anderson fights back over... -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 8/28/2004
Last Visited: 8/28/2004
Emails provided to The Weekend Australian show the Government's chief solicitor, Tom Anderson, this week asked Mr Anderson's lawyer, Jeremy Giles, if his client would consider settling with Mr Ah Kit on the same terms as Ms Martin.
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Mr Anderson said: "I won't settle at all now.
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Mr Freeman claimed Mr Anderson had failed to provide money for feed.
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On the contrary, said Mr Anderson, he authorised repeated payments, including one of $25,000 even though his maths told him there should be more than enough fodder for the animals.
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Mr Anderson also feels he has been betrayed by the Northern Territory, a place he loved and developed, but is now fed up with.
"It's a case where no good deed deserves to go unpunished," he said.
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Mr Anderson believes the Martin Government was out to get him.He noted that rather than handling the matter with local prosecutors, it imported a high-flying barrister from down south, Liz Fullerton, who reputedly cost the Northern Territory taxpayers an extra $7000 a day in a $150,000 failed prosecution.
Mr Anderson cites four possible reasons why he was singled out.
"The first one is that John Ah Kit and that Government are dumb-as-batshit, incompetent morons, they took the word of one person," Mr Anderson said."Even that doesn't excuse them doing what they did, there was no presumption of innocence, they didn't check it out to see if it was right."
The second possible reason, he said, was that the Government had a hidden agenda.
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The biggest tragedy of all, said Mr Anderson, was what happened to the animals.He was negotiating for a neighbour to buy the creatures, causing the least stress in movement.Amid the furore created by the Government, he said, that arrangement fell through.
Mr Anderson then tried to strike a deal with British animal fancier David Gill, who operated wildlife parks in North Queensland, but Mr Gill ran into problems with Queensland authorities over entry permits.
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This, to Mr Anderson, is the "ultimate hypocrisy" of the territory Government.