Mills resigned from the Legislative Assembly in 2014,but successfully recontested his former seat at the 2016 election as an independent. In 2019 he announced the formation of a new party,the Territory Alliance. He was joined by two other incumbent MLAs in early 2020,allowing the Alliance to surpass the CLP as the second-largest party in the Legislative Assembly,but lost his seat at the 2020 election.
Mills was born in Geraldton, Western Australia, and lived in the agricultural town of Mullewa for a time with his parents, Bernard and Patricia. He was educated at St Patrick's College, Geraldton (now Nagle Catholic College), before moving to Perth and gaining a Diploma of Education at the Western Australian College of Advanced Education. In 1983, he commenced teaching at a private school in Perth, and in the same year married Roslyn Matilda Serich. They had one son and one daughter. In 1989, the family moved to the Northern Territory, where Mills became principal of a Christian school.
Political career
Mills joined the Country Liberal Party in the 1990s, and in a 1999 by-election, was elected to the seat of Blain in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. Initially, he served as Chairman of Committees. In 2001, following the defeat of the Country Liberal government, he assumed the shadow portfolios of Youth Affairs, Education, Employment and Training, and Sport and Recreation. On 14 November 2003, he replaced Denis Burke as Leader of the Opposition, and assumed the portfolios of Shadow Treasurer, Asian Relations and Trade, Territory Development, Railways, Racing and Gaming. He resigned on 4 February 2005 to be replaced by Burke, who subsequently lost the 2005 election and his own seat. Mills himself suffered a 9.5 percent swing amid the massive Labor wave that swept through the Territory. He was left as the only CLP member from Palmerston, an area that has historically been a CLP stronghold. He was the only CLP member holding a Darwin-area seat in the Legislative Assembly, and one of only two CLP members from the Top End.[citation needed]
Mills served as deputy opposition leader to Jodeen Carney for three years. On 29 January 2008, however, Mills asked Carney if she was willing to swap posts with him, with Mills taking over as leader and Carney becoming his deputy. Carney turned the proposal down and instead called for a leadership spill. The vote was tied at two votes for Carney and two votes for Mills. Carney, taking a cue from the action of former Australian prime minister John Gorton in 1971, announced that a tie vote was not a vote of confidence and resigned. Mills then took the leadership unopposed on a second vote.[1][2]
At the August 2008 election, the CLP increased its representation to 11 seats (from four in the old parliament), regaining much of what it had lost in its severe beating of three years earlier. This rose further in 2012 when Labor-turned-independent MP Alison Anderson, with Mills' encouragement, joined the CLP.[citation needed]
Chief Minister
At the 2012 general election, the CLP won government on a four-seat swing, primarily due to a large swing in remote Aboriginal areas which had historically supported Labor. Mills was sworn in as Chief Minister of the Northern Territory on 29 August 2012.
When Mills was in opposition in 2011, he stated his support for an audit of the Northern Territory finances, saying that "[an audit] will be the start of a new era of transparency in government expenditure."[3] However, after coming into power he changed his mind on the issue.
In February 2013, following a large swing to Labor in the Wanguri by-election, canvassing took place within the CLP to gauge support for a challenge to Mills from his Attorney-General, John Elferink. Lacking the support of key MLAs, Elferink ruled out a challenge and offered his resignation to Mills, which was declined.[4] In early March, Mills was unsuccessfully challenged by Health Minister Dave Tollner, who was sacked from Mills' cabinet after a six-and-a-half-hour party meeting. A little over one week later, on 13 March 2013, Mills, who was overseas at the time, was ousted by Transport Minister Adam Giles in an 11–5 vote of his party's parliamentary caucus. Following the leadership change, Tollner was promoted from the back bench to Deputy Chief Minister.[citation needed] Mills could have refused to resign as chief minister, however, was not aware of the procedures surrounding handing in commission of office.
Mills resigned from Parliament on 20 February 2014,[5] which triggered the 2014 Blain by-election. Giles appointed Mills as the Territory's commissioner to Indonesia and ASEAN. When Giles was nearly ousted as Chief Minister by Mills' former deputy, Willem Westra van Holthe, in February 2015, Mills tweeted a picture of himself laughing in delight, prompting Giles to sack him.[6][7][8]
2016 independent comeback
Mills announced on 7 August 2016 that he had resigned from the CLP and would seek to regain his former seat of Blain as an independent at the 2016 election. He likened the Giles government to a car accident, saying, "At the scene of an accident, one has a moral obligation to render assistance."[8][9] Mills finished six points behind Labor candidate and former federal MP Damian Hale on the primary vote, pushing the CLP into third place. He narrowly overtook Hale on CLP preferences, allowing him to return to the legislature after a nearly two-year absence.[10][11]
Mills joined his original Deputy Chief Minister, Robyn Lambley, on the crossbench; Lambley had left the CLP in 2015, but easily won reelection as an independent. Ironically, at the same election at which Mills retook his old seat as an independent, the man who had rolled him as Chief Minister, Giles, became the second Majority Leader/Chief Minister to lose his own seat. In October 2018 Mills announced the planned formation of the North Australia Party, later to become the Territory Alliance.[12] He planned to become the opposition in the Northern Territory parliament after the collapse of the CLP vote left them with only 2 members in parliament.
Claim to Opposition Leadership
On 18 March 2020, Mills claimed to be the Leader of the Opposition, after Territory Alliance became the largest non-government party when Lambley joined the party.[13] On 24 March 2020, Mills presented a Shadow Ministry and was referred to as Opposition Leader by Government MLAs, but his claim to Opposition status had not been formalised by the Legislative Assembly. Later that day, CLP leader Lia Finocchiaro successfully moved a motion to declare the Opposition Leadership vacant and hold a ballot to determine it. With most Labor members abstaining on the ballot,[14][15] Finocchiaro won the ballot 5 votes to 3, and was confirmed as Opposition Leader.[16]
Despite Territory Alliance being denied official Opposition status, Mills as Territory Alliance leader took part in the leaders' debate with Finocchiaro and Labor Chief Minister Michael Gunner at the 2020 election.[17]
At the 2020 election, Mills was pushed into third place on the primary vote and was eliminated. However, his preference flowed about 62% to the CLP and 38% to the ALP which was enough to elect Labor's Mark Turner who had led the field on the primary vote.
Political views
Mills was one of four MLAs who opposed a bill that decriminalised abortion in the Northern Territory.[18]
The Country Liberal Party of the Northern Territory (CLP), commonly known as the Country Liberals, is a centre-right and conservative political party in Australia's Northern Territory. In territory politics, it operates in a two-party system with the Australian Labor Party (ALP). It also contests federal elections as an affiliate of the Liberal Party of Australia and National Party of Australia, the two partners in the federal coalition.
Denis Gabriel Burke is a former Australian politician. A former Australian Army officer, he served as a Country Liberal Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1994 to 2005. He spent two years as Chief Minister after succeeding Shane Stone, but oversaw the CLP's defeat at the 2001 election, ending 27 years of continuous CLP government in the Northern Territory. Burke later served as Opposition Leader from 2001 to 2003 before being toppled, but was re-elected as leader in 2005. He subsequently took the party to its largest-ever defeat at the 2005 election, culminating in the shock loss of his own seat.
David William Tollner is an Australian politician. He was the Country Liberal Party member for Solomon in the Australian House of Representatives from 2001 to 2007, and then served in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly as the member for Fong Lim from 2008 to 2016. He was the Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory under chief minister Adam Giles from 2013 to 2014. During his time in federal parliament, he sat with the Liberal Party.
Jodeen Terese Carney is an Australian politician. She was a Country Liberal Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from September 2001 to September 2010, representing the Alice Springs-based electorate of Araluen.
Araluen is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory. It was first created in 1983, replacing the electorate of Alice Springs, which had been abolished as part of the enlargement of the Assembly. The electorate covers a 8 km2 (3.1 sq mi) area to the south and west of Alice Springs, including the Alice Springs CBD, the suburb of Araluen, and some surrounding rural areas. There were 5,742 people enrolled in the electorate as of August 2020.
A general election was held in the Northern Territory, Australia, on 18 June 2005. The centre-left Labor Party, led by Chief Minister Clare Martin, won a second term with a landslide victory, winning six of the ten seats held by the opposition Country Liberal Party in the 25-member Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, bringing their total to 19. It was the second largest victory in any Northern Territory election. The only larger majority in the history of the Territory was in the first election, in 1974. In that contest, the CLP won 17 of the 19 seats in the chamber, and faced only two independents as opposition.
Blain is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory. It was first created in 1997 and is named after Adair Blain, the second member for the federal Northern Territory electorate, and the only Australian sitting federal MP to ever become a prisoner of war. Blain is an urban electorate, covering 4 km² and taking in Palmerston suburbs of Bellamack and Woodroffe and the suburb of Moulden. There were 5,695 people enrolled within the electorate as of August 2020.
General elections were held in the Northern Territory of Australia on 9 August 2008. Of the 25 seats in the Legislative Assembly, 23 were contested; two safe Labor seats were uncontested. The incumbent centre-left Labor Party (ALP), led by Chief Minister Paul Henderson won a narrow third term victory against the opposition centre-right Country Liberal Party (CLP), led by Terry Mills. Labor suffered a massive and unexpected swing against it, to hold a one-seat majority in the new parliament.
Adam Graham Giles is an Australian former politician and former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory (2013–2016) as well as the former leader of the Country Liberal Party (CLP) in the unicameral Northern Territory Parliament. Giles is the first Indigenous Australian to serve as a head of government in Australia.
Michael Patrick Francis Gunner is an Australian former politician who was the 11th Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from 2016 to 2022. He was a Labor member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, holding the seat of Fannie Bay in Darwin from the retirement of then Chief Minister Clare Martin at the 2008 election until his resignation in July 2022.
Willem Rudolf Westra van Holthe is an Australian politician. He was a Country Liberal Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 2008 to 2016, representing the electorate of Katherine. He was Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from 6–14 March 2013 and from February 2015 to February 2016, resuming the position following a leadership challenge to Chief Minister Adam Giles, in which he was briefly the Chief Minister-designate. He served as Minister for Primary Industry and Fisheries, Minister for Land Resource Management and Minister for Essential Services (2012–2016), Minister for Mines and Energy (2012–2015) and Minister for Public Employment (2015–2016) under both Terry Mills and Giles.
The 2016 Northern Territory general election was held on Saturday 27 August 2016 to elect all 25 members of the Legislative Assembly in the unicameral Northern Territory Parliament.
Robyn Jane Lambley is an Australian politician. She is an independent member representing the division of Araluen in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, having been first elected in a 2010 by-election as a member of the Country Liberal Party. She resigned from the party and contested Araluen as an independent in 2016. She was a member of the Territory Alliance between March and October 2020.
Lia Emele Finocchiaro is an Australian politician. She has been a Country Liberal Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly for the seat of Spillett since her election in 2016. She became Leader of the Opposition in the Northern Territory after the resignation of Gary Higgins on 1 February 2020. She was previously the member for Drysdale from 2012 to 2016.
This is a list of electoral division results for the Northern Territory 2012 General Election.
A leadership spill of the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory occurred 2–3 February 2015.
A leadership spill of the Country Liberal Party (CLP) in the Northern Territory of Australia occurred on 13 March 2013, less than a year after the Terry Mills-led CLP opposition defeated the Paul Henderson-led Labor government at the 2012 election, winning 16 of 25 seats.
The 2020 Northern Territory general election was held on 22 August 2020 to elect all 25 members of the Legislative Assembly in the unicameral Northern Territory Parliament.
Territory Alliance was an Australian political party based in the Northern Territory. It was founded in 2019 by Terry Mills, an incumbent member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly and former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. He had been elected as a member of the Country Liberal Party (CLP).
The 2024 Northern Territory general election is scheduled to be held on 24 August 2024 to elect all 25 members of the Legislative Assembly in the unicameral Northern Territory Parliament.
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