Territory politics
Tollner then contested the 2008 territory election,winning the new seat of Fong Lim and defeating Labor minister Matthew Bonson. [4] He was re-elected at the 2012 election,and upon the CLP's victory was appointed Minister for Health,Minister for Alcohol Rehabilitation and Policy,and Minister for Housing. [5] In March 2013,Mills expelled Tollner from his cabinet after a heated disagreement between the two at a party meeting. According to former MLA Daryl Manzie,Tollner swore at Mills and threw a stack of cabinet papers at him before walking out of the room. [6]
Tollner was appointed deputy chief minister of the Northern Territory on 13 March 2013. He caused controversy in August 2014 when he referred to the gay son of fellow CLP MP Gary Higgins as a "pillow biter" and "shirt lifter". [7] [8] As a result,it was announced that Tollner's resignation as deputy leader of the CLP had been accepted. [9] Despite that,Tollner said a few days later that he wanted to be restored to his former position or he would quit the party,leaving it in a precarious position on the floor of the Legislative Assembly. [10] On 1 September,Chief Minister Adam Giles threw open the leadership and deputy leadership to a party room ballot. Giles was re-elected as CLP leader,and Peter Chandler was voted in as his deputy. [11] Furthermore,he has also been accused of making racist comments;in 2014 he was accused of calling two women "lubras",which is a racial slur targeted at Indigenous women. [12]
A redistribution ahead of the 2016 election all but erased Tollner's majority in Fong Lim,slashing it from a fairly safe 7.3 percent to an extremely marginal 0.2 percent. Tollner tried to transfer to the newly created seat of Spillett,which had absorbed much of the eastern portion of Fong Lim. However,he lost a November 2015 preselection battle to Lia Finocchiaro,the member for neighbouring Drysdale. His senior advisor,Tim Dixon,was pre-selected for Fong Lim, [13] [14] but lost the seat to Labor.
The Country Liberal Party of the Northern Territory (CLP), commonly known as the Country Liberals, is a centre-right political party in Australia's Northern Territory. In local 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.
The Division of Solomon is an Australian Electoral Division in the Northern Territory. It is largely coextensive with the Darwin/Palmerston metropolitan area. The only other division in the territory, the Division of Lingiari, covers the remainder of the territory.
Terence Kennedy Mills is an Australian politician who is the founder and leader of the Territory Alliance. He served as Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from 2012 to 2013 as a member of the Country Liberal Party (CLP).
Fong Lim is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory.
The Parliament of the Northern Territory is the unicameral legislature of the Northern Territory of Australia. It consists of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly and the Administrator of the Northern Territory, who represents the Governor-General. It is one of three unicameral parliaments in Australia, along with those of Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory. The Legislative Assembly replaced the previous Legislative Council in 1974. It sits in Parliament House, Darwin.
Peter Glen Chandler is an Australian politician. He was a Country Liberal Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, and held the seat of Brennan from 2008 to 2016. He was Deputy Chief Minister from 2014 to 2015 and a minister under both Terry Mills and Adam Giles. He lost his seat at the 2016 general election. Chandler lives in Palmerston with his wife, Robyn, and four children.
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 was the first Indigenous Australian to serve as a head of government in Australia.
Michael Patrick Francis Gunner is an Australian politician and was the 11th Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from 2016 to 2022. He is a Labor member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, having held his seat of Fannie Bay in Darwin since the retirement of then Chief Minister Clare Martin at the 2008 election.
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.
Gary John Higgins is an Australian former politician. A member of the Country Liberal Party, he was elected to represent the seat of Daly in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly at the 2012 election. After the 2016 election, the CLP was reduced to only two members in the Legislative Assembly, with Higgins becoming party leader and Leader of the Opposition. Following health problems, he resigned both positions in favour of Lia Finocchiaro in February 2020, and retired at the 2020 election.
Nathan Barrett is a former Australian politician who represented the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly seat of Blain from 2014 to 2016.
A leadership spill of the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory occurred 2–3 February 2015.
Spillett is a division of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in Australia. It was created in 2016, for the 2016 general elections, and surrounds Palmerston. It is named for Peter Spillett, a historian and former member of Darwin City Council.
Jeffrey David Collins is an Australian politician. He was a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 2016 to 2020, representing the electorate of Fong Lim. He was member of the governing Labor Party, but was one of three MPs excluded from the Labor caucus on 21 December 2018 over alleged criticism of the government, and resigned from the party on 8 February 2019 to sit as an independent. In March 2020 he joined the Territory Alliance as its second MP.
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).
A by-election in the seat of Fannie Bay in the Northern Territory was held on 20 August 2022, following the resignation of Michael Gunner, the MLA for Fannie Bay and former chief minister, on 27 July 2022. Early voting started on Monday 8 August.
