On the wall of my home office in a leafy Canberra suburb hangs a framed front page of the Northern Territory News of which I’m perversely proud. Over a photograph of a journalist, me, being strangled by a politician, Max Ortmann, a headline proclaims MAX DIDN’T TUG HARD ENOUGH.

Back in 1993 I was working for the 7.30 Report based in Darwin and, in early August that year, was celebrating the birth of our son Harry and enjoying the paradise that is the top end in the dry season.

But I’d heard a rumour that Max Ortmann, the Minister for Works in the Country Liberal party NT Government was handing out favours to people who had helped him attain office. The stories had it that a committee of local businessmen had backed Max – and backed him solidly with substantial amounts of money – during the last election. I had checked the back issues of the NT News and discovered that Max was the only individual candidate who had advertised extensively in the paper during the election campaign, but that’s about as far as my digging had progressed.

Chance threw up an opportunity to advance the story when we filmed a little piece on a couple of young blokes who were having no luck getting government approval to set up a paragliding business; the relevant minister was Max Ortmann, so I teed up an interview on the subject with him at his earliest convenience, scheduled for two days later, Thursday August 11 at 1pm.

Not wishing to waste the opportunity I started asking around about this rumoured committee; finally, a CLP stalwart admitted cheerfully that he was a member, that “we got Max up” and gave me the names of a couple of other members. What was intriguing was that one of these men, Mr X, was the developer of a highly controversial canal residential suburb on the pristine Darwin harbour, and the other, Mr Y, was a member of the firm constructing a second highly controversial harbourside development. Both developments were approved by the Minister for Pubic Works, Max Ortmann.

So the obvious questions I wanted to put to him were: did these men help you, financially, in your election campaign? Did you subsequently, as minister, approve developments that would advantage them financially? If so, is such conduct proper for a minister of the crown?

In the lift, on the way up to Max’s office on the fifth floor of Northern Territory House, I briefly filled in cameraman Gerry Meyer and sound recordist big Bill Simmons on the interview, telling them it was going to be more than just the paragliding story. Gerry raised his eyebrows.

We set up, one microphone on a stand on Max’s desk and another – called appropriately a “neck mike” – clipped to my shirt, lights on, camera rolling. I asked Max about the paragliding matter; he’d been nicely briefed and deflected my questions easily. Then, the time honoured phrase “on another matter, minister”. I began asking the planned questions – but never finished them. Max grew clearly agitated and angry as the line of questions continued, seizing the desk microphone and hurling it across the room. Rising, he advanced around the desk and tore off a page of my notepad, crumpling it and throwing it to the floor.

Then, as I removed the neck mike from my shirt, Max grabbed at it and tried to jerk it from its socket in the video recorder. He couldn’t, so from behind he wrapped the cord around my neck and gave it a good solid jerk.

What does one do under these circumstances? I left the room. David Hill, then head of the ABC, told me later I should’ve “jobbed the prick”.

A few minutes later Gerry and Bill joined me outside with the good news that they’d kept rolling during the brief attack. The bad news was that I’d left my bag in Max’s office, the bag that contained documents and other material I wouldn’t want that government to see. Gerry gallantly retrieved it for me.

The ABC is only a few hundred meters from Northern Territory House. I almost ran, tape in hand, and immediately had one of the videotape editors to copy the tape and secrete three copies around the station. Paranoid? Maybe, but after a few months in the Territory I would not have been surprised if the government sent in the troopers if they so chose.

What followed was, for a journalist, very instructive. Suddenly I was in the position that people who are pursued by journalists find themselves. A highly newsworthy event had occurred and everyone was on the phone wanting an interview. But I had an advantage not enjoyed by most in that I knew who was worth talking to and who was not, so I confined my comments to the ABC, some newspapers and a couple of commercial outlets of repute, giving the tabloid current affairs shows and the talkback jocks short shrift. I must confess it was good to call the shots to the bottom-feeders of our industry.

Among the journalists I spoke to only two, Andrew Olle and Liz Hayes, brought up the possibility that I may have acted unethically; that I arranged the interview under false pretences, requesting it to canvas one topic while really laying an ambush on another. If so, it wasn’t a planned ambush. It was only after the paragliding interview was granted that I even began thinking about the developers and their dollars. Should I have then called Max’s office and told them about my new line of questioning? I knew that there was no way the interview would then proceed under those circumstances. I also believed, and still do, that the public has a right to have the conduct of their elected representatives put under scrutiny and that a minister should be able to field any questions of propriety put to him or her.

It wasn’t long before a more famous “ambush” took place – also on the 7.30 Report – when Kerry O’Brien stunned then opposition leader John Hewson live on air with the results of secret Liberal Party polling which showed Hewson was on the nose and on the skids. I can’t recall much criticism of Kerry’s approach at that time, but for John Hewson it was finish.

No less instructive were the reactions of other players after the event, including that of the Chief Minister, Marshall Perron, who defended Max with vigour. “I can understand the frustration that is felt by politicians who are faced with people who conduct themselves like animals,” Mr Perron told ABC radio, “We saw an example of arrogance and bad manners which this journalist is not unknown for.”

David Hill, much to my pleasure, wrote to Marshall saying, “I believe your comments have inaccurately and unfairly defamed ABC journalists” and informing the Chief Minister that I had been informed of my legal rights.

I had indeed been informed of my legal rights and the law of assault. Legal eagles told me that in case of such a public assault, televised even, that the NT police force would charge Max with assault. Four days passed with no move from the police so I filed a complaint… which later I regretted. Although Max had clearly assaulted me and, at the time, I harboured fears for my safety, in the end it was really no more than part of the job.

Max pleaded guilty and was placed on a three-month good behaviour bond, lost his job in the ministry and, later, lost his pre-selection. His political career was over, but I don’t believe the Northern Territory was any the poorer for that.

On October 19, 1993, Max appeared on the tabloid Channel Nine show, A Current Affair, telling the reporter of the fullsome support he’d had for his assault in the community. “The one thing they’re telling me that I did wrong was that I didn’t tug hard enough. Ninety-nine percent of the people I talk to say,’well, it was a normal reaction’.” Hence the headline that adorns my Canberra office.

The Max Ortmann affair, and the events that lay behind it, is just a small vignette of the political landscape of the deep north. Those of us who have worked there have seen a system of government and the use of public monies that is deeply disturbing and can only be resolved by a Royal Commission with wide terms of reference.

Editor’s Note: Jeremy Thompson has also worked as a political reporter in the Federal Press Gallery for the Seven Network and was one of a group of journalists shown the door by Kerry Stokes at Today Tonight after a brave attempt to re-introduce investigative reporting to TV current affairs. The last straw for Kerry was an examination by Thompson’s team of Jeff Kennett’s share dealings, which threatened various commercial relationships Kerry had in Victoria.