BILL Shorten criticised Malcolm Turnbull for rushing the appointment of a Royal Commissioner for the NT inquiry, who was forced to quit before being replaced today.

In the Northern Territory, Mr Shorten said he hoped the “bungling which has seen this course of event in the last few days hopefully will be a lesson for Mr Turnbull and his team”.

“You can’t run Australia as a one-man band,” he said.

“The more they consult, they should talk to Labor about the decisions they make before they make them on issues as important as this. I’m sure that collectively, just as I did when I came up here to listen to Aboriginal groups and representatives, we could collectively get to better outcomes with less angst as we’ve seen with the Government trying to do it all their own way.”

Mr Shorten said he thought the Government “got themselves into a mess all on their own” when it came to setting up and appointing the right Royal Commissioner.

“I think that their failure to consult, their failure to include Aboriginal co-Commissioner was a Government decision,” he said.

“Now I believe that the royal commission can be successful. We welcome the new appointments, we acknowledge the selfless act of Brian Martin. For me, what matters, isn’t how the

Government is feeling about the issue. What matters to us is that we’ve got young people in detention right now. What matters is to make sure the shocking scenes we saw on Four Corners are not repeated.”

Mr Shorten’s comments come after Attorney-General George Brandis announced that they would be appointing two royal commissioners to replace Justice Brian Martin.

He named Justice Margaret White AO, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland and Mr Mick Gooda, who is currently the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Social Justice Commissioner at the Human Rights Commission.

On Justice White, he said: “She has extensive experience in both the civil and criminal jurisdictions and is well known and highly regarded among the judiciary and the legal profession throughout Australia.”

On Mr Gooda, he said he is “Gungulu man from central Queensland” and “is well known as one of Australia’s most highly regarded Indigenous leaders”.

Mr Brandis said “the royal commission is too important to become a political play thing”.

Justic White said they will move to hold full hearings in Darwin in October and probably in other places as well.

Mr Gooda said: “I think I may have set myself up a bit because I will be now part of that process and it’s with great humility that I accepted the offer to be royal commissioner and to take on that role.”

Mr Gooda added that in his line of work, they had heard of incidents at detention centres, but did not “understand the extent” of them until he saw it on the ABC program Four Corners.

The Attorney-General has announced 2 new Royal Commissioners: The Hon. Margaret White and Mick Gouda pic.twitter.com/C8SCxm1NvH ( JohannaMarie — Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) August 1, 2016

Margaret White says she and Mick Gooda will 'harmoniously' work together on the royal commission #auspol https://t.co/uRUej3K0AY — Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) August 1, 2016

Mick Gooda says he did not 'understand the extent' of the activities taking place at #dondale #auspol https://t.co/yBKPkc8hlS — Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) August 1, 2016

Mr Gooda is an interesting choice, after he called for the Federal Government to sack the NT Government last week.

The Federal Government has to intervene and sack the NT Government — Mick Gooda (@MickGooda) July 25, 2016

Their appointment comes after Justice Brian Martin AO announced his resignation today, after a conflict of interest was raised.

Brian Martin’s daughter Joanna Martin worked for a previous NT Labor government’s Attorney General in 2010, during the period that the Royal Commission will examine.

Justice Martin, who was a former judge in the NT, said he also faced the perception that he was in charge of the Corrections system while he was a judge.

Justice Martin said his resignation does not imply he doubted his “capacity to be both independent and competent in the role of the Commissioner”.

“Nor does it imply that I accept that there is or would be a reasonable apprehension of bias,” he said.

“Secondly, my decision to resign is solely my initiative only. My resignation does not imply any criticism of the Government, Prime Minister or the Attorney-General.”

Justice Martin said both Malcolm Turnbull and Senator George Brandis had expressed “disappointment” about his decision.

“They have demonstrated a deep concern about the issues involved and a desire to proceed efficiently and appropriately. No-one could have reasonably anticipated the matters that have been raised with respect to me personally. Both the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General have expressed their disappointment about my decision but they also appreciate my reasons and have been very supportive of me,” he said.

Justice Martin also criticised those who had got their facts wrong about him “which could have been avoided with a little home work”.

Justice Martin said he believed he would not have the full confidence of sections of the Indigenous community for the inquiry.

“As a consequence, the effectiveness of the Commission is likely to be compromised from the outset. I am not prepared to proceed in the face of that risk,” he said.

He also hit out at those who had drawn his family into the debate around his appointment.

“Quite unnecessarily, my family has been drawn into the debate. I am not prepared to allow the unwarranted intrusion into the life of my daughter to continue,” he said.

He also said those who accused him of possibly ignoring Indigenous issues as the Royal Commisisoner were wrong.

“Finally, it is appropriate to comment on the suggestion that if I was the Royal Commissioner, it is likely that I would ignore or give insufficient attention to Indigenous issues. This suggestion is wrong,” he said.

When asked why he was going if he didn’t believe there was a conflict of interest, Justice Martin said: “There is a perception amongst key people and organisations, people who have a vital interest in this matter, there is a perception and I suspect a belief that there is a conflict.

Now, in those circumstances, it undermines the effectiveness of the Commission right from the outset. There is a challenge to it, it is the sort of issue that will not go away.”

“Now, it’s more important to just get on with the job. That’s the critical issue here, not to play politics with it.”

When asked why he didn’t just stay on and have the Federal Government defend him, Mr Martin said: “That is not going to achieve anything at the end of the day. It is certainly not going to

help the Royal Commission. It’s not going to help the children who are in detention or have been in detention. It’s not going to help getting answers. I’m sorry but I have a view that once this thing has reached this point, you make a decision and you get on with it. You don’t worry about trying to point the finger at anybody for what’s happened in the space of less than a week.”

Justice Martin came under fire from a range of indigenous groups and advocates who questioned his impartiality.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda appeared to withdraw his support for Mr Martin.

“I take the view of the people in the Northern Territory. They say they don’t have that much confidence in him,” he said.

Prime Minister’s indigenous Advisory Council chairman Warren Mundine told Sky News he was only consulted after the royal commission was announced.

On Sunday, Labor senator Pat Dodson said there’s unlikely to be justice for indigenous youths in detention unless indigenous people can be directly involved in the royal commission.

The federal opposition wants two indigenous Australians to preside over the royal commission into youth detention in the Northern Territory alongside the government’s appointee.

Labor leader Bill Shorten repeated calls for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to personally head to the NT to discuss the inquiry with indigenous communities.

“For a lot of Aboriginal people, this royal commission will be a far less credible venture if they’re not being consulted with, listened to, if we don’t have an (indigenous) man and a woman as co-commissioners,” he told reporters at the territory’s Garma festival.

Senator Dodson said Justice Martin wouldn’t be able to cover all matters in the terms of reference on his own.

“Unfortunately, if it’s just left to one commissioner without any knowledge of the culture and the social norms or the backgrounds of these families, then it’s going to be very difficult for him to do justice to them,” the indigenous leader told ABC TV on Sunday.

But that looks unlikely to happen, with the Turnbull government saying it won’t be taking advice from Labor on the shape of the royal commission.