In his own words, the man chosen to become the next administrator of Australia’s Northern Territory is not the sort to worry about causing offence.
“I’ve been called ‘bigoted’, ‘racist’, ‘homophobic’, ‘transphobic’, ‘elitist’, ‘prejudiced’, ‘[a] destroyer of the environment’, ‘[a] torturer of animals’, ‘discriminatory’, ‘biased’, ‘intolerant’, ‘chauvinistic’, ‘small-minded’, ‘old’, ‘grumpy’ and ‘useless’,” David Connolly told the Northern Territory Cattleman’s Association conference in 2023.
“Some of those last ones may have just been from [my wife] Sue at home. At any rate, none of that worries me.”
Three years later, the prominent pastoralist is eight days away from moving into NT Government House, and at the centre of a local firestorm for past comments and social media posts, including about First Nations people.
In one post published in the NT News, taken from a public account in which he reportedly said “my personal account, my personal views” in the bio, Connolly made a joke about the Greens with a reference to domestic violence.
“I was out fighting fire again last night. According to the Greens I was supposed to go home and committ [sic] domestic violence. Lucky I was too rooted.”
In another, published in the NT Independent, he said: “We fight Indigenous lit bushfire indiscriminately and illegally lit in our paddocks every year. There is no science, it is arson. If a white man did it he would be severely fined. After experiencing this, you cannot convince me they are doing good for the country.”
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Guardian Australia has also revealed that Connolly, in a 2024 speech, levelled a series of insults at the prime minister, Anthony Albanese.
He said in the same speech, referring to crime, that “the main group of people perpetrating these criminal actions have been in Australia for 60,000 years”.
The role is the territory’s equivalent to a state governor – the nonpartisan representative of the crown in the Top End. It comes with Darwin’s best bit of real estate; the oldest European building in the territory, a gothic villa that has stood through bombing raids and cyclones.
Indigenous leaders and Labor politicians have called for the appointment to be rescinded.
Conflict at the heart of land rights
This week, Labor’s three federal MPs in the territory – the Indigenous Australians minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, Marion Scrymgour and Luke Gosling – released a statement calling Connolly’s social media posts “reprehensible and offensive” and saying that he should apologise.
Those calls stopped short of suggesting Connolly’s appointment should be rescinded – the official line remains that the federal government supports the territory’s right to choose its own administrator.
There are few things that play worse politically in the Top End than the idea that Canberra is calling the shots.
The chair of the Northern Land Council, Matthew Ryan, and the Aboriginal Peak Organisations of the NT went further and called for Connolly to be blocked from taking the role.
“I can tell you now I’m not going to talk to him if he gets appointed,” Ryan told the ABC.
Robyn Smith, a lecturer in colonial history at Charles Darwin University, says there is a bigger symbolic issue at play for First Nations people in the NT.
Indigenous rights cover about 78% of the land mass of northern Australia; pastoral use covers about 60% of the same area.
Smith says the conflict between the interests of pastoralists and First Nations people has long been at the heart of the land rights movement.
The selection of an outspoken pastoralist – someone who has opposed the voice referendum and the treaty process – sends a clear signal.
“The [Country Liberal party] has always been about land and money,” Smith says.
“That’s what the administrator-designate represents, the pastoral interest on that land.”
Connolly has previously spoken in critical terms about Aboriginal land rights. In a 2022 speech he said the 1975 hand back of part of Wave Hill station to the Gurindji people – where Gough Whitlam had poured sand into Vincent Lingiari’s hand – had created a series of unintended consequences for Aboriginal people that ultimately forced them off the land and into communities.
“He couldn’t foresee the trouble he was going to cause to the cattlemen and the land owners and the people of Australia.
“It’s easy to give away things you don’t own to people you don’t know so you can keep another group of people happy.”
Past administrators have also faced accusations of being political appointees. The incumbent, Hugh Heggie, the former chief health officer, apparently submitted pro-Labor political views to the ABC before the 2024 federal election. A spokesperson for Heggie said at the time the administrator “does not publicly express political preferences or engage in political activities”.
One of his predecessors, John Hardy, who ran an aviation business, had previously made donations to the CLP.
But Smith says the appointment of Connolly appears to be the current government “pushing the envelope” even further, by choosing someone who had been particularly controversial.
She says that while the administrator’s job is largely ceremonial and nonpartisan, they could engage in “soft diplomacy”.
“He can do it by hosting events, or advocating for the industry, as he already does.”
‘A fierce advocate’
One thing Connolly cannot abide is hypocrites.
He called the Australian cricket captain, Pat Cummins, a hypocrite for voicing climate concerns but “jet-setting around the world in gas-guzzling aeroplanes” in a 2022 speech.
“Hypocrisy knows no limits.”
In 2024 he said: “Direct talking and honest discourse are no longer a matter of pride and principle, but of scorn and subjugation.
“I am yet to be accused of not speaking my mind directly, of the truth as I see it.”
On Monday, he struck a new tone. In a statement released to local media outlets, Connolly said it had not been his intention to cause offence.
“I fully understand and appreciate the expectations of the community and my role as administrator,” he said.
“I have always been a fierce advocate for the bush and will now be a fierce advocate for all Territorians.
“My former social media posts are exactly that, and were done at a time when having the honour and privilege of being the administrator was not even in my wildest dreams.”
