A change of leader before the election may be just what the CLP needs, writes MATT CUNNINGHAM

GARY Higgins has been great for the CLP party but it’s time the party sheds its old boys club reputation and let Lia Finocchiaro take them to the election as leader, writes MATT CUNNINGHAM

Deputy leader of the opposition Lia Finocchiaro and opposition leader Gary Higgins.

THE Country Liberal Party comes to an important crossroad as it heads to its Central Council meeting this weekend.

After its disastrous four years in office between 2012 and 2016 the party has been trying to rebuild and reunite.

But behind the scenes the CLP is still fractured. Divisions that arose during the Mills/Giles era still run deep and the threaten to bubble to the surface at any moment. Even this week, as the party gets set to preselect its first set of candidates ahead of next year’s election, the internal division that has dogged the CLP was still playing out.

According to sources within the party, there was a huge blow-up during the week between former director Jason Riley — now the chief-of-staff to CLP Senator Sam McMahon — and party president Ron Kelly.

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The dispute related to an unpaid invoice, but allegedly ended with Riley — who was listening in to a management committee meeting via phone from Canberra — calling Kelly a word that rhymes with runt. Neither man would comment on the altercation when contacted yesterday but they also refused to deny it when given the opportunity to do.

That wasn’t the only meeting the CLP held this week that gave an insight into its ongoing division.

The party had to hold a special meeting to preselect its parliamentary leader, Gary Higgins.

Higgins would normally be recommended for preselection by his branch, but the Litchfield branch wants to get rid of him, so he had to be moved to the party’s central register.

You know a party is divided when it can’t even get behind its own leader.

All of this division comes before you include the spectre of Terry Mills and his Territory Alliance.

This weekend presents the final chance for the CLP to wipe the slate clean ahead of next year’s poll.

It has some strong candidates who are likely to be endorsed at the Central Council meeting, including Alice Springs Mayor Damian Ryan (Araluen), Josh Burgoyne (Braitling) and Marie-Clare Boothby (Brennan). They could form the rump of a strong team representing the new face of the CLP in next year’s election campaign.

But there’s one other thing the CLP should consider as it tries to present a new image in 2020.

Now might be the time for Gary Higgins to hand the party’s leadership over to Lia Finocchiaro.

The deputy opposition leader’s performance this week was impressive. With Higgins away due to health issues, Finocchiaro took on the government single-handedly in parliament.

She’s come a long way from the first press conference she held with Higgins after the CLP’s defeat in 2016, when she all but ran away from the cameras in the face of some tough questions.

Both in the chamber and in front of the media her performances were sharp and to-the-point.

Then yesterday morning, when she’d have been forgiven for curling up in bed with a good book, she was out in force again, taking on the Government on The Week That Was on Mix FM.

Being an opposition leader during an election campaign can be an exhausting task. This week, Finocchiaro showed she has the energy to do the job.

Of course leadership changes are usually messy affairs — just ask Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. Here in the NT, the ghosts of Terry Mills and Delia Lawrie are still haunting the major parties.

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But in the CLP’s case, an orderly handover from Higgins to Finocchiaro could be a move that unites, rather than divides the party.

And Higgins is one of the few politicians who might be capable of allowing such a transition to happen.

He was a reluctant leader to begin with, taking over when the party was on its knees in 2016.

Since then he’s done an admirable job in difficult circumstances. But unlike many politicians, Higgins is not driven by ego.

Politics is not his be-and-and-end-all and I suspect he would sleep quite comfortably at night if the words “Chief Minister” never made it on to his CV.

If the CLP can manage an orderly transition from Higgins to Finocchiaro by the end of the year its electoral prospects will be enhanced.

What better antidote to the long-held view that the CLP is an old boys’ club, than to head to an election with a young woman as its leader, particularly when Labor is grappling with its own “jobs-for-the-boys” issues.

Of course it won’t matter who leads the CLP to the next election if the party remains divided behind the scenes. That might be something to think about when the party faithful gather in Darwin today.