Independents Guyula, Lambley, Mills move to seize Opposition from CLP

INDEPENDENTS Robyn Lambley, Yingiya Guyula and Terry Mills have moved to seize Opposition status from the Country Liberal Party.

Independants Robyn Lambley, Yingiya Mark Guyula, Terry Mills Rally have met with the Speaker Kezia Purick to formalise becoming the NT Opposition.

INDEPENDENTS Robyn Lambley, Yingiya Guyula and Terry Mills have moved to seize Opposition status from the Country Liberal Party.

The trio met with Speaker Kezia Purick yesterday to formalise the arrangement, which will see the two-member CLP stripped of the resources and privileges of the Opposition. That would mean CLP Leader Gary Higgins and Deputy Lia Finocchiaro would be relegated to the status of members of a minor party.

But Ms Purick declined to sign off on the arrangement, leaving it up to the parliament to decide potentially as early as next week.

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Mr Mills and Ms Lambley — who previously served as chief and deputy chief minister, respectively, of the former Country Liberal Party government — announced their plans to form a new conservative party in October.

That hit a snag when the National Party’s federal executive blocked their bid to use the Nationals branding for the new entity. The CLP is already affiliated federally with the Nationals CLP members who serve in federal parliament sit in the Nationals’ party room in Canberra.

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But the new Opposition-in-waiting would operate as a coalition of independents and follows advice from the NT Solicitor-General that a coalition of non-government members could act as the official Opposition, if those members had demonstrated “a public commitment to act co-operatively based on aligned ideologies”.

Proof could be a written pledge to act collectively with detail of likely policy positions.

However, the advice related to coalitions of “political parties”, not independents.

IN OTHER NEWS

Chief Minister Michael Gunner Labor wouldn’t be distracted by the opposition sideshow.

“We are completely focused on the concerns of Territorians — creating jobs, cutting crime and delivering generational change,” he said.

“Terry Mills, Robyn Lambley and the CLP are squabbling over the spoils of opposition and only focused on themselves.”