Terry Mills to contest next election, still in talks with The Nationals

FORMER Chief Minister Terry Mills has confirmed he will contest the next Territory election, and that he’s still in discussions with The Nationals about setting up in the NT

FORMER Chief Minister Terry Mills has confirmed he will contest the next Territory election, and that he’s still in discussions with The Nationals about setting up in the NT.

There’s been renewed speculation about Mr Mills and fellow independent Robyn Lambley joining the Nationals in the wake of the Country Liberal Party’s poor showing at Saturday’s federal election.

“It’s one of the considerations absolutely,” Mr Mills told Sky News.

“But what’s actually needed if for us to have our collective efforts on the Territory Labor Government.

There’s been renewed speculation about Terry Mills and fellow independent Robyn Lambley joining the Nationals in the wake of the Country Liberal Party’s poor showing at Saturday’s federal election

“You’ve got Robyn Lambley and myself, former leader and deputy leader, we’re only independents by circumstance.

“We don’t really enjoy being independents we want to get on with the job because we’re concerned about how Territorians are feeling about this, so we’re going to carry that concern all the way through.

“We think there needs to be a response that’s satisfactory to the community so we’re working on this to make sure that it does line up with a fair and reasonable response to what the Territory community expects.”

Mr Mills and Ms Lambley first held discussions with the Nationals late last year but those talks were put on hold in the lead-up to the Federal election.

One proposal that has been discussed has been the establishment of the “Northern Nats” with a focus on Northern Australia.

Mr Mills said there was a need for a political force representing Northern Australia but said nothing had been finalised about what that might look like.

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“That’s what I would like to see but you’ve got to line up a lot of ducks here and we’re going to have to line up those ducks fairly quickly because we’ve got a Territory election coming, a Queensland election and a West Australian election and I think there’s a conversation that is very much alive but will be brought to some kind of conclusion fairly soon,” he said.

The former CLP leader said he had been willing to reconcile with his old party but there were some within the CLP who did not want him to rejoin.

“I helped (Kathy) Ganley behind the scenes but I couldn’t do it overtly but there’s something strange in that crowd, they just don’t seem to be comfortable with Robyn or I.

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“We’ve done nothing to cause them any offence I think the offence lies on our side, we’re happy to get over that but we’ve done everything that we can. What more can we do?”