19 Results

Adam Giles has to restore credibility to the troubled CLP government, which last week he described as “divided” and “in crisis” under former Chief Minister Terry Mills.

It took a little longer than originally planned but Adam Giles has taken power in the NT. So how did Australia’s first Aboriginal political leader make it to the top? It wasn’t easy.

Newly-appointed NT Treasurer John Elferink has banned departmental staffers from supporting their minister during Estimates hearings. Will this shed more light on government processes or draw a veil across democracy in the NT?

Terry Mills has travelled to Japan to find some gas for the NT and promote the NT economy. Will he still have a job when he gets back?

For mine, Anderson used “boys” and “little boys” as dog-whistles to the broader Aboriginal community in the NT to send a barely-encoded message that the pretenders to the Mills throne are no more than boys, uncircumcised (or sub-incised) grown men unworthy of consideration as men.

Yesterday afternoon the slow moving train wreck that is the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party government led by Terry “Freckles” Mills drove itself over a cliff. Just six months old and riddled with in-fighting and struggling to get a message — any message — across, the CLP may soon split into a smattering of fringe [...]

Port Darwin MLA and Attorney-General John Elferink will go to the back-bench. Drysdale MLA Lia Finnochario, new to the parliament but very impressive, will get a ministry. Speaker Kezia Purick – dumped by Mills in favour of Lambley six months ago and better-connected to business than any of her colleagues – will be bought back into the fold.

The hottest tickets in Darwin and Alice Springs later this week will be to the public community briefings by Olga Havnen on her report – and more. If the CLP government thought that they could silence Havnen by sacking her on Monday and that this would stop her running public forums on her work later in the week then they have underestimated her resolve and commitment.

Olga Havnen Almost a year ago I wrote here of the magnitude of Olga Havnen’s job as the replacement for Bob Beadman in the key role of Northern Territory Coordinator-General for Remote Service Delivery: The most challenging part of Havnen’s new job will be to renew the shattered faith and trust in governments as service [...]

Bess Price, CLP candidate for the massive seat of Stuart (think Victoria plus Tasmania), kicked off her election campaign with an attack on local Amnesty International workers and a senior Aboriginal activist that smacked more of Pauline Hanson’s politics than the sedate election campaign conduct we are used to in Territory politics. Price went on national TV to join a debate that for most in the NT had long faded into history — intra-racial envy.