The Northern Territory opposition leader, Delia Lawrie, has begun a month long battle for the Labor leadership after she refused a request to resign by a “majority” of her caucus colleagues on Wednesday.
Opposition whip and member for Fannie Bay, Michael Gunner, will run against Lawrie, who he claims has lost credibility after the supreme court found she sought to undermine an inquiry into her controversial granting of a rent-free lease to unions.
“We believe that we can not present a credible alternative to the CLP at the next Northern Territory election while Delia Lawrie remains leader,” he told media on Wednesday afternoon.
A caucus meeting on Wednesday morning – reportedly moved from Parliament House to the office of the Labor MP Nicole Manison to avoid media attention – did not hold a formal vote, but it is understood support was split five votes to three in favour of Gunner against Lawrie.
Under Labor party rules a leadership contest between the two candidates must be resolved by a weighted caucus vote and a rank-and-file ballot. The process, introduced by the former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2013, is expected to take about five weeks.
On Wednesday afternoon Lawrie said a “conversation” had led to a decision to hold the leadership ballot, which was about “settling this issue once and for all.” She dismissed suggestions the drawn out process would damage Labor’s credibility and said she will remain as interim leader during the ballot process - which covers parliamentary budget sittings.
“I’m not standing aside. There is no reason why I would stand aside. I’m getting on with the day job,” she said.
“I’ve had overwhelming support from my party members and from people across the Northern Territory community, across a whole raft of sectors, saying this is a nonsense, stay strong and get on with leading the party.”
Gunner told media on Wednesday afternoon he and a majority of his colleagues asked Lawrie to step down but she refused. A majority of his colleagues had asked him to stand for leadership, and Ken Vowles – whose announcement on Tuesday that he would potentially stand sparked the spill – had endorsed his candidacy, Gunner said.
“I want to lead a Labor team that will return trust and confidence to the Territory government,” he told media. “Unfortunately the negative findings of the supreme court mean Delia Lawrie can no longer provide a credible alternative to Adam Giles and the CLP at the next election.”
He said the caucus respects the supreme court and its “significant and serious finding” against Lawrie.
Speculation about Lawrie’s leadership had been mounting since the supreme court finding this month that she and her lawyers sought to deliberately undermine an inquiry which later found she had acted unfairly and with bias in granting a rent-free lease of a historic Darwin site to Unions NT in 2012.
Lawrie told media on Wednesday she’d been told by members of the public they saw the Stella Maris affair “for what it was - a CLP political pursuit of a strong leader,” and that “people can see the CLP desperation and whatever stunts they want to pull for what it is, and that reinforces them in their knowledge that I’m the strongest to lead the party.”
When asked if she was labeling the supreme court findings a CLP stunt Lawrie said she couldn’t comment because legal action was ongoing.
In response to Lawrie’s statements Gunner said: “I don’t believe the Supreme Court is part of a CLP conspiracy.”
Gunner has been a Northern Territory parliamentarian for seven years, but has never held a ministry. He said his 39 years of living in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and Darwin, and speaking with Territorians had given him knowledge and experience of Northern Territory issues.
“I’m asking my colleagues for their trust, I’m asking the members of the Northern Territory ALP for their trust, and I’m asking Territorians for their trust that we can provide a strong ALP government in 2016,” he said.
Gunner said he would continue to do his job if he lost the ballot, but would not rule out any further challenges.
He vowed to speak with every member of the NT Labor party over the next four weeks and said he would aim to ensure he did not contribute to a campaign “circus”.
On Tuesday Kon Vatskalis, a former Labor minister, revealed he had written to Lawrie asking her to resign “for the good of the party”.
Syd Stirling, the president of NT Labor, told ABC radio on Wednesday morning the party will formally open a 48-hour nomination process for a leader, probably at a meeting that evening.
Stirling’s predecessor, Matthew Gardiner, was stood down in January after he allegedly left Australia to fight with Kurdish insurgents against Islamic State in Syria.
Gardiner was detained by the Australian federal police when he returned to Darwin this month, but later released. Under legal advice he has refused to comment on his whereabouts over the past few months, but took to Twitter on Tuesday to comment on the leadership.
“Thought I was having a hard week,” he wrote, with the hashtag #stillnottalking.
@nedavanovac @VickiKerrigan @Dan_Bourchier @heldavidson @kathleenbruyn Thought I was having a hard week #ntspill #stillnottalking
— Matthew Gardiner (@mjgardiner513) April 14, 2015
NT’s chief minister, Adam Giles – who survived a CLP leadership challenge in February – has declined to comment on Labor’s woes.
