CLP opts to widen race for Senate

THE CLP has extended its deadline for senate preselection nominations and fast tracked membership applications for prospective nominees from outside the party.

Tim Cross has since announced he is not in the running for the CLP Senate spot.

THE CLP has extended its deadline for senate preselection nominations and fast tracked membership applications for prospective nominees from outside the party.

The move will open up nominations to those who might have left the party in recent years or to high-profile nominees from the wider community.

Party president Ron Kelly said yesterday the decision to push back the deadline for preselection nominations until February 28 was prompted by a desire within the party to get the best possible candidate to take Senator Nigel Scullion’s spot at the top of the senate ticket and represent the Territory’s interests in Canberra.

The party’s management committee made the call over the weekend as the previous nomination deadline loomed.

The Territory has sent one Labor and one CLP senator to Canberra since 1975, effectively making each party’s top-of-the-ticket nominee a shoo-in for a seat in the upper house.

“Barring some significant change in voting habits … the person that we ultimately preselect — I won’t say guarantee because that’s not a word we use in politics — but they will be one of the Territory’s representative’s in Canberra,” Mr Kelly said.

He said the party had never been in a situation such as that prompted by Mr Scullion announcing in January he would resign at the next election.

Mr Scullion had already been endorsed for the top of the ticket, and the party was focused on campaigning for the upcoming election.

The NT News earlier this week reported eight party members had taken candidate nomination forms, although Mr Kelly said party rules meant neither he nor the party management committee knew who had put their manes forward as a candidate.

Mr Kelly said extending the deadline for nominations was no reflection on those who might have already nominated, and said it was also partly prompted by the need for potential political candidates to now comb through their family background and ensure citizenship issues don’t jeopardise their eligibility.

The CLP’s new-look senate ticket will be announced following a meeting of the party’s central council meeting in March.

The election is all but guaranteed to he held before May 18.