Delia Lawrie makes decision on the 2020 NT election

After much speculation and with less than a year to go to the NT election, former Labor leader Delia Lawrie has made a major announcement.

Former Labor leader Delia Lawrie said, “sometimes you’ve got to break your heart to listen to your soul’. Picture: Elise Derwin

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FORMER Labor leader Delia Lawrie has ruled out a return to politics after landing a new job with a non-government organisation.

Ms Lawrie has been appointed as the first NT manager of Child Wise.

The former Opposition Leader said many people had encouraged to run as an independent at next year’s election, but she had now decided her political career was over.

“I recognised the support I had in the community and that people would like to see me recontest the next election,” she said.

“But I was guided by a saying I saw recently. It said ‘sometimes you’ve got to break your heart to listen to your soul’.
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“It’s heartbreaking to say to so many people in the community that I won’t be running but my soul has always wanted to help tackle the trauma that some children in the community go through.

“Now I get to do this through a globally recognised NGO.”

Child Wise is a social enterprise that sits under the umbrella of national organisation Save The Children.

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Ms Lawrie said Child Wise would deliver education programs to make children safer.

“We deliver a range of training programs to deal with abuse, neglect and intergenerational trauma that help you to minimise risks to children and raise awareness of intergenerational trauma and the cycles of abuse and neglect,” she said.

Ms Lawrie’s appointment will be met with relief by some in the Labor Party who had feared she would stand as an independent in her old seat of Karama — a seat many believe she would have had a good chance of winning.

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Ms Lawrie left politics after narrowly losing Karama to Labor’s Ngaree Ah Kit in 2016.

The former Treasurer and Deputy Chief Minister was appointed Labor leader after the party’s election loss in 2012.

But she lost the leadership after a failed Supreme Court challenge against the findings of a CLP-initiated inquiry into her role in the Henderson Government’s decision to grant Unions NT a rent-free, 10-year lease at the historic Stella Maris site. She was replaced as leader by Michael Gunner and then quit Labor after the party pre-selected Ms Ah Kit to run in her seat.

She has recently been working as a casual staffer in the office of dumped Labor MLA Jeff Collins.