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Australian territory leader dumped by own party

Xinhua, February 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

Australia's shifting political landscape claimed a new scalp in the early hours of Tuesday when Northern Territory (NT) chief minister Adam Giles was dumped by his Country Liberal party in a sudden coup.

New leader Willem Westra van Holthe said the electoral backlash in the state of Queensland last weekend, which saw the ruling Liberal National Party thrown out of office by voters, was a factor.

But he added the party had lost faith in Giles to lead the territory, which is Australia's mainland gateway to south-east Asia.

The news came as prime minister Tony Abbott continues to battle moves within his Liberal/National coalition questioning his leadership of Australia.

The Northern Territory's new leader said he began the move to overthrow Giles late on Monday night and announced he was the new leader at 1 a.m. on Tuesday.

"There are a lot of reasons why this has occurred," Westra van Holthe told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"At the end of the day, a vast number of my parliamentary colleagues simply lost confidence in the former chief minister."

"They approached me and asked me if I was interested in stepping into the position, and that sort of set the ball rolling I guess."

He said the Queensland result was the catalyst for change which had been brewing for some time, as members of the party believed Giles had lost touch with the Northern Territory people.

"This is not something that should have just been a sudden thought bubble, or just happened in the last couple of days," he said.

"This is something that has been building over time.

"As time goes by we all get messages sent to us from our community members... and I think that's resonated with our colleagues strongly enough to suggest that they thought it was time for a change in our leader."

The Queensland election result saw premier Campbell Newman lose his own seat on Saturday.

"If you look at the result of the Queensland election, government there was punished because the people of Queensland thought they had lost touch with real people," he said. Endi