Eva Lawler is surprise chief minister for NT

Former schoolteacher Eva Lawler will be the next chief minister of the NT after being elected unanimously by the Labor caucus.

Eva Lawler has been chosen as the Northern Territory’s next chief minister. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Former schoolteacher Eva Lawler will be the next chief minister of the Northern Territory after being elected unanimously by the Labor caucus on Wednesday night.

The NT’s long-serving Deputy Chief Minister Nicole Manison, who missed out on the leadership to Natasha Fyles when former chief minister Michael Gunner resigned, had been considered by many ­inside the party to be an ­obvious successor to Ms Fyles, who resigned on Tuesday amid a scandal over mining shares.

However, Ms Lawler, the NT Treasurer, soon emerged as a ­contender with Attorney-General Chansey Paech as her proposed deputy.

A statement from the NT Labor Party said Ms Lawler and Mr Paech would be sworn into their new positions on Thursday.

Ms Manison announced on Wednesday night that she was withdrawing from the race.

“Despite receiving very strong support to run as chief, I have ­decided to support Eva,” Ms Manison wrote on her Facebook.

Ms Manison also resigned from cabinet.

She was gracious and highly complimentary of Ms Lawler in her post but a senior source told The Australian that Ms Manison felt betrayed.

“She’s broken,” the source said. “Eva was her most trusted confidant.”

Ms Fyles’ announcement on Tuesday that she would go to the backbench was a relief to detractors inside and outside caucus, who came to believe she was unhelpfully preoccupied with managing perceptions of herself in the media, according to Labor sources. The Australian has been told those detractors associated Ms Fyles’ 18-months of leadership with insufficient regard for public concerns, especially about soaring crime and domestic violence.

Her party supported her over a shareholdings scandal last month but was unwilling to do so again this week when online news outlet NT Independent revealed she had undisclosed shares in South32, the manganese mining giant she had declined to investigate over air quality concerns on Groote ­Eylandt.

However, Ms Fyles’ departure brought the government new problems. Just nine months from the next election, NT Labor operatives were desperate to install a leadership team that could ensure it retained government by holding on to the crucial Darwin seats known collectively as the northern suburbs.

One strategist told The Australian the NT government’s best chance of winning the northern suburbs was to choose Ms Manison, who holds the Darwin seat of Wangari, as leader. Her deputy would have been Joel Bowden, the former Richmond defender who holds the Darwin seat of Johnston. This pairing was considered to have had clear support from unions, industry and a probable majority of rank-and-file members.

The Labor caucus, however, appeared to be leaning towards Ms Manison’s surprise challenger.

Ms Lawler is from an established NT family and holds the seat of Palmerston outside Darwin. Mr Paech, who holds the bush seat of Gwoja and is the first openly gay Indigenous member of any Australian parliament.

By 6pm AEDT on Wednesday, Ms Manison made an announcement that avoided the damage of a drawn-out vote.

If more than one government MP had nominated as leader at the caucus meeting on Thursday, the NT party’s rank-and-file members would have had a say in who the next chief minister should be. That process would have taken about a month under party rules introduced as a direct result of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years.