'Why don't you f..k off back to America?'

Alison Anderson with Chief Minister Adam Giles. Picture: File

WHEN Tony Abbott tried to get Alison Anderson to stand in the seat of Lingiari for this year's federal election, then chief minister Terry Mills became upset at the plan and told Abbott to leave his mate alone.

Besides, the Country Liberals had a Lingiari candidate in Tina MacFarlane, from Katherine cattle country, to contest Warren Snowdon in the election, and they didn't want Anderson spoiling the party.

She ended up staying in the NT, but maybe it wasn't such a great idea. Perhaps she should have got Abbott to do what Julia Gillard did, forcing Nova Peris on NT Labor. Because now Anderson is nowhere.

In an extraordinary piece of revisionism, ventilated this week by The Australian, Anderson is now claiming she was instrumental in moving her indigenous bush colleagues to support Adam Giles in overthrowing Mills.

"Someone else was mounting a realistic challenge and we had to move first," Ms Anderson told The Australian.

While it is true that "someone else" - understood to be Peter Styles - was working the numbers for a crack at Mills, it was not Anderson's idea to switch support to Giles.

What happened, by best inside accounts, is that her fellow indigenous members, led by Bess Price, decided that Mills was a goner and chose to back Giles.

Only a week before, Anderson had threatened to take her fellow bush members into the crossbenches to sit as independents, after Giles staged his initial coup attempt.

She was desperate that Giles - whom she had called a "spoilt brat" and a "little boy" - not get the chief minister's job.

By late Tuesday night, Anderson was on the outer, completely alone. Giles and Tollner had won over Price and Anderson no longer had any control over her bush allies.

After all her years of divisive politics, swapping sides and holding leaders to ransom, Anderson this week found herself as powerless as she has ever been in politics.

Giles didn't need Anderson to get the numbers to roll Mills; he had enough without her.

So why did he allow her to retain several portfolios?

It's worth looking at what he did.

He took from her the role of Minister for Indigenous Advancement and, in a move that could be positive if it works, cancelled the portfolio altogether and said all ministers had to from now on concern themselves with Aboriginal Territorians.

Giles allowed Anderson to keep Children and Families, Regional Development, and Women's Policy but also saddled her with Local Government - the basket case portfolio of politics after the unpopular move to break up the Northern Territory into major shires.

The first question Giles was asked as Chief Minister came from me: "Mr Giles, standing behind you nodding warmly at everything you say is Alison Anderson, who last week called you a spoilt brat and a little boy.

What guarantees have you extracted from her that she won't destabilise your government as she's done to others?" Giles said Anderson had been a friend for years, though he agreed they'd had some blues.

"Can I just say to Mr Toohey, yes, I did call him a boy, but he's a man and he's the Chief Minister," Anderson said.

"I think what's going to happen is people like yourself and people like (Crikey blogger) Bob Gosford have to stop trying to interpret what Aboriginal people mean.

"I did not mean anything to Adam in the context of Aboriginality. I meant in the context of little boys when we deal with our kids. I don't want anybody, who's not Aboriginal, trying to act Aboriginal, trying to interpret Aboriginality."

Anderson was referring to stories Gosford and the NT News had written, which claimed that calling a grown Aboriginal man a "boy" was a grave insult. I had written no such story. It is not a matter I have had any view on, ever. The first I'd ever heard of this supposed insult was in this newspaper last week.

After the press conference, when walking past Anderson, I tried to correct her error, saying I'd not written about cultural offence.

"I don't give a f*** what you write," she said. "Why don't you f*** off. F*** off back to America." (She was referring to my recent posting as News Limited's US Correspondent.)

This would not be a matter worth relating but for three things: there were several witnesses and it is no doubt a matter of conversation; I, to my discredit, told her to "f*** off" in response, and I wish I hadn't; and Giles rang me later that night to say he'd spoken to Anderson about her behaviour.

It's the last bit that's most significant. Only hours after being sworn into the new Giles cabinet, Anderson was already getting a dressing down from Giles for her poor performance.

Anderson may not be needed by Giles and his team, but she holds four portfolios.

She is needed by those citizens who require her to give attention to pressing matters. She should apply herself. Work can be rewarding.

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