An inquiry into the Norfolk Island Regional Council is underway this week.
In December 2020 the Australian Government suspended the five person regional council after an independent audit into the council's financial viability.
The assistant minister for Regional Development and Territories, Nola Marino, put a manager in place to run the council's services, stressing activities would continue as they had done.
Norfolk Island Photo: Wikipedia
In February Ms Marino appointed an expert in corporate governance, Carolyn McNally, to undertake an inquiry into the council.
She is on the island this week and her inquiry team says they will examine critical challenges facing the council and whether it and the councillors were meeting their responsibilities, particularly with regard to finance and asset management.
Ms McNally's team said the success of the inquiry will depend on the active involvement of the community and allow different points of view to be aired.
Prior to the move by Canberra the council had discovered it was as many as AU$10 million in the red after the tourism based economy had been shattered by the pandemic.
The assistant minister's actions sparked complaints about the denial of democratic rights, but this did not deter her from delaying, for more than a year, scheduled council elections.
In March the Norfolk Island Council of Elders wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, calling on him to restore the level of democracy that the island had enjoyed up to 2015 when Canberra assumed direct control.