1 Territory too fixed on opposition to fracking: Lambley

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p1937-Terry-Mills-1502592 Robyn Lambley (ABC pic) OKBy ERWIN CHLANDA
 
MLA for Araluen Robyn Lambley (at right) says she and fellow independent Terry Miller (at left) are not negotiating with the 1 Territory party “possibly because of their rigid anti-fracking position.
 
“I am no proponent of fracking but I think the NT government has taken the right, practical approach by implementing a strong regulatory framework within very defined areas, starting in the Beetaloo Basin,” she says.
 
“To completely ban fracking at this point would destroy business confidence in the NT and further diminish our already very sluggish economic growth.
 
“As far as I can tell One Territory only have one distinguishable policy and that is anti-fracking.
 
Ms Lambley and Mr Mills – both ex-CLP parliamentarians – are planing to form a new political party.
 
Meanwhile 1 Territory, also with a CLP background, says its membership is nearing 1000.
 
Ms Lambley says she and Mr Mills, Chief Minister in 2012 and 2013, want to establish “an alternative conservative party in the NT that links the northern regions of Australia, something like a North and Central Australia party.
 
“We have been approached by numerous minority parties from across the country, asking us to join them and we have been in discussions with the National Party of Australia.
 
“People have been asking us to do just this. They have turned their back on the CLP. They are frustrated with the lack of a functional conservative party that truly represent their interests.
 
“The CLP have failed to rebuild. The old regime is still in control and nothing has changed. It’s time to move on,” says Ms Lambley.
 
“We must have a change of Government.
 
“We literally cannot afford another four years of Gunner, they are sending the Territory broke. Their naïve and incompetent approach to Government is costing us all dearly. Putting it simply, we aim to win the next election.”
 
She says the new party would “include some old faces but a lot of new, intelligent, energetic people that want to make the Territory great again”.
 
 
 
 

16 COMMENTS

  1. Fracking, you are for or against: No compromise, no soft or hard approach. Not convinced? Read studies done all around the world.
    But NT is like a teenager who wants to have it his/her way.

  2. Seems like a missed opportunity for TM and RL to say to Territorians “we are serious about a new type of governance and democracy for the Territory and this is how we are different to Labor and the CLP …”
    Because no matter how fracking is dressed up, it is an activity that is not supported by the people of Territory.
    It was the decision to overturn the fracking moratorium that is the Gunner Government’s peak breaking-of-the-faith-moment.
    (The only moment possibly as significant was the shocking GST funding pressure applied by ScoMo and Co on the NTGov to support fracking … and Gunner’s rapid capitulation.)
    Now more than ever, we need leaders who are prepared to put the principles of these matters front and centre for Territorians.
    Have a rethink, RL and TM!

  3. Unfortunately for us Territorians Terry and Robyn don’t represent answers, a way forward for Territorians.
    They do in fact represent the leftovers of the failed Mills / Giles Government who escaped the judgement of the people by jumping ship, turning their backs on their own Government, distancing themselves from the infighting, claiming victim hood, bla bla bla, while in fact they themselves were amongst the very worst worst offenders!
    Examples: The massive 30% jump in energy prices completely.
    Another Mills infliction is the Last Resort Home Insurance Scheme which has just about destroyed the Home Building Industry.
    The withdrawal of nearly all youth funding and putting nothing back in the desperately needed space. Bad decisions like these didn’t come from CLP policy! They came from Terry and Robyn.
    Now, instead of making themselves useful holding government to account as independents, they attack the CLP opposition, of two!
    Why? Not because they are looking after the interests of Territorians, that’s for certain.
    It’s because they envy the extra funding that goes to the Opposition – their argument, so that they “can be more effective”!
    How’s that? By replacing a party Opposition of Two, with two sworn independents.
    Yeh, but they’re willing to forgo the independent stuff to form another, perfectly believable party so they can!
    Looks like the ego driven infighting that destroyed our last government; looks like the rats that jumped overboard found each other and surprise, surprise, the resulting interaction produces exactly the same outcome!
    The last thing the Territory needs is another party headed by a megalomaniac intent on personal glory!
    The last CLP government wasn’t ripped apart because people disagreed about direction. It was ripped apart by egotistical wankers who believe they should be leaders!
    A huge amount of the damage done to the party was by one Terry Millis attempting to hold on to, then to regain his leadership without the slightest regard for the damage done to the lives of Territorians in the process.

  4. There is another option. In the 1980s in the early years of ACT self government, Dennis Stevenson formed the Abolish Self Government party.
    If enough members were elected to form a quorum, the pary would voluntarily dissolve the Legislative Assembly and return the ACT to the former territory administration.
    The former administration ran the territory brilliantly, providing first class road rubbish and rates services.
    Of course, the major parties, whose members had all been hangers-on office staff on Capital Hill but were now big shot politicians and Ministers for this and that, and the Canberra media, ganged up on poor old Stevo, ostracised him as only vicious self-seeking pollies and media can do, so he lasted only one term.
    But heck, a lot of people voted for him.

  5. @ John Bell (Posted December 1, 2018 at 8:21 am): It’s worth recalling that the ACT had a referendum on the question of self-government in 1978 but almost two-thirds of the electors voted against it, preferring instead to maintain the arrangement of a House of Assembly which was simply an advisory body to the Department of the Capital Territory.
    Notwithstanding that result, a decade later the ACT got self-government irrespective of whether anyone agreeed to it or not.
    @ Psuedo Guru (Posted November 30, 2018 at 8:09 am): Your comment may be much closer to the mark than anyone realises.

  6. @ Alex Nelson: Let’s face it. Self government creates more chiefs per number of mug punters.
    It is a lucrative salary and power drug that attracts would-be chiefs like bees to the honey pot.
    I lived for years in Canberra. More ministers than you can point a stick at. For a concentrated population of 250,000 to 300,000 in a small region that has every advantage and service you could ever imagine in a centre that houses our Federal Parliament.
    Their pomposity and self-importance is laughable. At least the NT, with its population spread out over huge geographical and logistical issues, has a case.

  7. @ John Bell (Posted December 2, 2018 at 11:13 pm): Entirely agree with you, John, except for your final sentence. It’s an old line that the NT’s “exceptional” circumstances of population and geography justify self-government.
    After 40 years there is more than abundant evidence demonstrating that the criticisms you direct at the ACT apply equally well to the NT.

  8. @ Alex Nelson: Why SA?! They had a go a while back and messed things up!
    Surely it is time to give Tassie or Victoria a shot at leading the North.

  9. On a more serious note, has anyone had a chance to check out the NT ICAC office launched last week? Check this out:
    https://icac.nt.gov.au/icac-differences
    “The ICAC can investigate persons / bodies previously outside the jurisdiction of Northern Territory watchdog bodies. For example MLAs, courts, tribunals, local government councils and independent officers.”

  10. @ Alex Nelson. I believe that the geographical isolation of remote NT communities is a deciding factor in supporting a self government structure with its base in the capital city of Darwin.
    It promotes a spirit of community inclusiveness with access to accountable elected decision makers who are homegrown, rather than under the control of interstate forces.
    For example, the fast developing NT economy needs local Territory policy.
    Another example is the need to understand the inclusion difficulties of isolated communities with different cultural backgrounds. I would not trust control of these areas of community concern to “offshore” states.

  11. @ John Bell (Posted December 3, 2018 at 2:49 pm): I don’t agree with you this time, John.
    Here’s part of a comment I’ve made on another media website: “A lot of food for thought from this post. My earliest recollections of politics dates from the dying days of the McMahon Government which, ironically perhaps, was a time of great progress and optimism in the Northern Territory. It capped a time of extraordinary economic and population growth in the NT from the late 1960s onwards (when McMahon was the federal Treasurer), notwithstanding the contemporary mythology now of several decades standing (justifying NT Self-government) that this was the “bad old days” of Commonwealth control and mismanagement”.
    @ Edan Baxter (Posted December 3, 2018 at 11:05 am): I have a quote for you, too: “As you say, the agreement made on 7 December 1907 between the Commonwealth and South Australia for the surrender of the Northern Territory to the Commonwealth is still in force” (Letter from NT Attorney-General, Daryl W. Manzie, 26 May, 1992). This still remains the case.
    Incidentally, it was this letter from Daryl Manzie that first triggered my interest in Territory history; and what I realised after some time back then is that all is not well with the legal basis of self-government of the NT.
    Hence my allusion to section 44 of the Australian Constitution and pointing out the Statute of Limitations does not apply to constitutional law in a recent comment: http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/2018/11/20/code-of-conduct-allegations-vexatious-frivolous-councillor/#comment-1802265

  12. @ Alex Nelson: Your view of the optimism of the McMahon era is appreciated. I went to Alice in 1967 within weeks of Harold Holt’s referendum.
    I was there when Whitlam came to power.
    There came a different type of optimism that brought with it massive influx of “sit down money”, grog, drugs, a huge human rights push (RDA of 1975) and a push for self-government that grew.
    Federal politics radically changed – was reversed – from Holt to McMahon to Whitlam. The “progressive” tide of money and anti-discrimination was unstoppable.
    The NT has always been shaped by Federal politics.
    Whatever optimism there was once under conservative government, changing politics created serious social issues, demanding responsible self-government in these terribly uncertain times.
    Federal or outside interference cannot be trusted.
    Historical facts cannot be revisited to change what is in place today.

  13. It could be argued that Central Australia already has its own government. I refer to the Central Land Council. It’s not so much what they do as it is how they regulate what others do.
    And then there’s the almost mythical Centre Corp, who not too many years ago managed to stonewall a Senate Inquiry, or whatever it was called.
    It takes some refined legal advice to pull that off.
    I wonder what the new NT ICAC will be looking at?

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