THE man who attempted to snatch control of the Northern Territory’s political leadership last week says he stands by the actions that resulted in a farcical coup to oust Chief Minister Adam Giles.
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At 1am on February 3, Member for Katherine Willem Westra van Holthe held an extraordinary press conference to announce he was the “chief minister apparent” after the Country Liberal Party parliamentary wing voted to remove Mr Giles from the top job.
The government was thrown into further chaos when Mr Giles refused to resign.
The CLP party room met for three hours that afternoon to resolve the situation, with Mr Giles and Mr Westra van Holthe eventually emerging from Parliament House to tell journalists they were the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister respectively.
Only hours after moving into the Deputy Chief Minister’s office on February 6, Mr Westra van Holthe sat down with the Katherine Times to explain what had transpired since the ill-fated leadership spill.
“I’m really just getting on with the business of government now,” he said.
“Look, there’s no doubt that earlier this week, there were a number of colleagues who didn’t support the Chief Minister to be the chief minister any longer, and that was for a whole bunch of reasons.
“But moving forward, now that we’ve reached a very sensible resolution, I think that, rather than me being the same sort of person or the same sort of style as the chief, we complement each other, because I’ll be quite different.”
Mr Westra van Holthe said he believed that, despite strong public sentiment, unity was possible for the government, but would not provide details on the hours leading up to his 1am press conference.
“I’ll be doing everything I possibly can to make sure we’re a strong, unified team going forward,” he said.
“I don’t know that any purpose is really served by going into the fine detail of this.
“It’s in the past now, as far as I’m concerned.
“I know that we’d like to move on from this.”
During the leadership challenge, Mr Giles slammed Mr Westra van Holthe’s ability, stating that he did not believe the Member for Katherine had the “capacity, capability or the tenacity, or the professionalism, to be the chief minister.”
Less than 12 hours after the scathing assessment, Mr Westra van Holthe said he was “110 per cent” behind the Chief Minister.
The Deputy Chief Minister told the Katherine Times his comments were sincere but admitted there was friction within the parliamentary wing.
“I think when you put 14 different personalities in a room, many of whom come from completely different backgrounds, there’s going to be some friction, I don’t think you can avoid that,” he said.
“What’s been unfortunate, I guess, is the friction between our party members has become so public.
“In hindsight, publicly airing our dirty laundry is not a good thing.”
When asked if he still believed the attempt to wrestle the leadership from Mr Giles was the right thing to do for Territorians, Mr Westra van Holthe paused for several seconds before he responded.
“Look, I don’t think that there’s an answer to that that would satisfy anyone,” he said.
“The decision on [February 2] was based on a set of circumstances that existed at the time.
“I stand by the decision that was made at the time.
“I have to accept responsibility, being a part of that group of people who decided to take that course of action.”
With controversy continuing to plague the government amid internal tensions between supporters and opponents of Mr Giles, the Deputy Chief Minister avoided the question of whether or not he believed Territorians would be subjected to another leadership spill before the next scheduled election in late 2016.
