NT chief minister Natasha Fyles resigns following conflict of interest claims

Natasha Fyles has resigned over her shares in a manganese mine that as health minister she declined to investigate.

Northern Territory Labor’s factions were scrambling on Tuesday night to find a new leader eight months out from an election, after Chief Minister Natasha Fyles quit over undisclosed shares in a mining company.

In an emotional press conference, Ms Fyles said her undisclosed shares in South32, the world’s biggest manganese producer and majority owner of the open-cut mine on Groote Eylandt off the Territory’s northeast coast, had fallen short of her own standards. “I can assure Territorians that no decision I have made was affected by that small shareholding,” she said. “It is clear I have failed to meet the standards that are set for us and the standards I set for myself.”

NT Treasurer Nicole Manison returned from holiday in Bali on Tuesday to stand for the leadership, saying she would “be asking my colleagues for their support to be chief minister so that I can serve you”.

“As always, Tash (Fyles) has put the Territory first. This is a difficult day and I am proud of her for putting Territorians first,” Ms Manison said.

Infrastructure Minister Joel Bowden – a former Richmond AFL player – and NT Attorney-General Chansey Paech, the nation’s first gay Aboriginal MP, were also in the leadership mix.

The ousted Chief Minister’s 19-month rule had also been dominated by her government’s struggles to deal with the NT’s education and youth crime crises.

Ms Fyles oversaw the massive boom in youth crime in Alice Springs earlier this year after the sunsetting of alcohol restrictions, and was widely criticised for her response. She also failed to tackle the shortfall of $214.8m a year for NT schools, which disproportionately affects the country’s most disadvantaged students under the attendance-based funding model that operates nowhere else in the country.

Earlier this year, Ms Fyles, also the NT Health Minister, responded to concerns about potential manganese dust from the South32-owned mine by saying her government would not investigate air pollution levels on Groote Eylandt.

It was a second unwelcome news story about Ms Fyles’s shareholdings in as many months and proved too much for colleagues.

At a press conference in Darwin, she became emotional as she told reporters of her decision to step down. She said not declaring the small shareholding in South32 was an error and not intentional. She intended to remain in parliament.

She said she had had shares in BHP since she was a child, a gift from her late grandmother. Her South32 shares, estimated to be worth less than $2500, were the result of a demerger in 2015.

Ms Fyles’s resignation is the fourth by a Labor leader in just over six months, following the departures of former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk a week ago, former WA premier Mark McGowan in June and former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews in September.

The Australian has been told Ms Fyles had been under pressure from within her own caucus to resign since Monday morning when it was reported she owned 745 undeclared shares in South32.

In November, Ms Fyles had caved in to pressure to divest her shares in Woodside Energy, which had left her open to claims of a conflict of interest as her government committed to expansion of the Territory’s gas industry.

Indigenous Territorians are among those who have for years called for government testing on the mine’s possible health impacts.

Whereas the three recently departed former premiers had all served as Labor leader for more than 10 years, Ms Fyles’s stint at the helm lasted just 19 months and she never faced the voters as leader at an election.

Ms Fyles did not answer questions from The Australian at Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning ahead of her resignation.

She was escorted by a Qantas staff member out of the Chairman’s Lounge in Sydney on to her Darwin-bound aircraft, refusing to acknowledge or answer questions including why her shares had not been declared.

Former Labor member and now independent Mark Turner on Tuesday morning wrote a letter to NT ICAC Commissioner Michael Riches calling for an independent review into Ms Fyles and her cabinet’s refusal to address a previous allegation of corrupt conduct, in which she had lobbied for the development of the Middle Arm industrial precinct while holding shares in gas company Woodside.

“At the moment it seems journalists are doing the work of the ICAC and the parliament, which leaves us in a very precarious position in the Northern Territory,” Mr Turner told The Australian on Tuesday morning.

Independent MP Robyn Lambley told The Australian Ms Fyles’s behaviour was “unethical”. “It truly beggars belief that she has not fully declared her interests. She has continued to conceal, and you can only conclude it is deliberate,” she said.