NT Country Liberals president says he will not ask disgruntled MP Robyn Lambley to resign
NT Country Liberal Party (CLP) president Jason Newman has hosed down speculation the CLP will ask Robyn Lambley to resign at a Territory-wide meeting of delegates in Katherine today.
The central council meeting in Katherine is the first since the botched coup against Chief Minister Adam Giles in early February.
Meetings are held four times annually and are the only forum in which the party can sack a member.
The scheduled meeting comes amid historic internal division in the party.
In Parliament this week, Ms Lambley, a senior member of the party and former deputy chief minister, called for Mr Giles to resign, declaring she did not believe in his leadership nor that of Treasurer Dave Tollner.
Earlier in the month, after being dumped from Cabinet, she said Mr Giles was lacking "honesty, integrity and respect".
According to Mr Newman, after this first attack Ms Lambley had promised the party she would not criticise the Chief Minister again in public.
"She told the party she wasn't going to do it," he told the ABC.
Despite this apparent broken promise, however, Mr Newman said he would not be asking Ms Lambley to resign.
But he would not rule out the possibility of another member proposing such a motion.
"We would have preferred she not make public comment," he said.
"I don't think the party will respond in any way. The party will be frustrated and people will voice that frustration.
"I think that everybody can have a future with the party, we're a very broad church and we can forgive and forget and move on.
"It's something that we have to work on and she certainly has to work on as well, and as long as everybody comes together and keeps talking you'd like to think time heals all wounds as they say."
If the party sacked Ms Lambley, it would have only a single seat majority in the 25-seat Legislative Assembly.
It would also risk other disgruntled CLP parliamentarians going independent, which would probably lead to the dissolution of Parliament and an early election.
"It's been a big mess," Mr Newman acknowledged of the party's recent divisions.
"I think [the party's members] have been let down by all 14 of our politicians unfortunately."
