Selena Uibo named as new Labor leader after election loss

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Northern Territory Labor party has named its new leader following its wipe out at the election. Selena Uibo is the first Indigenous woman in Australia’s history to serve as leader of a major party.

Transcript

00:00Selena Yubo has spoke to herself today at a press conference as a born and bred Territorian

00:07who hails from part of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory's top end. Prior to politics,

00:13prior to entering politics, she was a school teacher in 2016. She successfully ran for

00:18the seat of Arnhem Land and then for the seat of Arnhem, apologies, and then went on to

00:23join the cabinet in 2018. She served in a number of different roles, including as Attorney

00:27General, as Health Minister in the last couple of years, and in a number of senior portfolios

00:33across the government. Now after Labor's landslide election wipeout ten days ago, Ms Yubo was

00:39considered one of the top two contenders for the leadership alongside Chansey Paik, and

00:44today it was announced by Territory Labor that she was successful in that. Of course,

00:48given the wipeout that her party has experienced, she has a long way to go to rebuild her party

00:53and get it back into a form where it can contest the next election.

00:57So it's a formidable path ahead. What will be her first task as leader?

01:01Well, today at a press conference she was saying that she really wanted Territory Labor

01:06to get back to listening to people. That challenge will be most crucial in urban parts of the

01:11Northern Territory. Territory Labor have five seats in this new parliament, are on track

01:15to have five seats, the counting is still underway, and that's, I guess, contrasted

01:20with 17 seats that the country Liberals have. They have an outright majority and will form

01:24the next government. So for Labor, there's a long way back. Ms Yubo saying that she wants

01:29to get back to listening to Territorians, particularly in those suburban parts of the

01:33Territory where Labor only have one seat. In Darwin, for instance, that's if Natasha

01:38Files holds on to her seat. This is how she was, I guess, when she was asked that question

01:43of how she wants to go about this rebuilding process, this was what she said today.

01:47It's absolutely going to be a difficult challenge. There's no understating that, but it's one

01:51that we're up for. We're going to work hard, particularly Bush members. We're used to rolling

01:55up our sleeves and getting in and doing the best that we can. That's not going to change

01:59now in this role. We're going to continue to do that as local members, but we're also

02:04going to do that at the higher level in the leadership role as the opposition.

02:10Now many of the federal members in the Northern Territory, or two of the federal members for

02:13Labor in the Northern Territory, Luke Gosling and Mariam Skrindja, will be looking closely

02:18at a review that Territory Labor and the federal ALP will be taking into this massive election

02:23loss that Labor copped two weeks ago in order to get some lessons away about what they need

02:28to do, because obviously a federal election is just around the corner. It has to be called

02:32before May next year. For those two sitting MPs, both of whom belong to Labor, they can't

02:38afford to lose their seats without throwing the Albanese government into a minority either.

02:42This result is having federal ramifications and they'll be paying very close attention to it.

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