Alice Springs Mayor Damien Ryan seeking to bury the hatchet with Chief Minister Michael Gunner

ALICE Springs Mayor Damien Ryan and his council have offered an olive branch to Chief Minister Michael Gunner in a bid to repair their fractured pre-election relationship.

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ALICE Springs Mayor Damien Ryan and his council have offered an olive branch to Chief Minister Michael Gunner in a bid to repair their fractured pre-election relationship.

Mr Ryan has asked the Chief Minister to put the acrimony of the past aside.

“Alice Springs council is very ready to work with the Chief Minister,” Mr Ryan told the NT News.

Mr Ryan, who narrowly missed out on winning the seat of Araluen for the CLP at the recent NT election, said he was surprised at the Chief Minister’s outburst on ABC radio when he said he was “sick of f***ing around” over the location of the proposed National Aboriginal Art Gallery.

Mr Ryan said he and the deputy mayor met with the Chief Minister before the controversial radio outburst and had walked away thinking they had had a “very good collegiate meeting”.

“It was great to have a meeting with him in Alice Springs after such a long time of the other nonsense that went on in and around the NT election period,” Mr Ryan said.

Alice Springs Maypr Damien Ryan. Picture: Emma Murray

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“I met with him in Alice Springs along with the deputy mayor and I proposed that whatever issues there were in the past, they should be put on the shelf and together work towards the benefit of Alice Springs residents.

“We discussed things like the CBD revitalisation and got some good direction there from the Chief Minister on how we can get that moving forward.

“I said to him ‘Let’s forget the past, let’s get some outcomes’. The major outcome for would be community safety.”

Mr Ryan said the Alice council has not changed its pre-election position over the community’s Anzac Oval, which the NT government has threatened to seize to build an Indigenous centre.

“We have written two letters to the NT government and are still waiting for answers to those letters,” he said.

Mr Gunner said he too wanted to get on with it and achieve the best opportunities for Territorians possible.

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“Territorians want politicians to get on with business because they want action at every level – local, Territory and federal,” he said.

“I’ve told my team to get on with the job and I’ve told our public service to do everything it can to make things easy for business and Territorians.

“I believe Territorians expect the same from local government and that’s been my message to councils over the last six months and again last week in the meeting Chansey (Paech, MLA) and I had with the mayor, deputy mayor.”