The Northern Territory's Country Liberals have just two weeks to shore up their numbers in parliament.
Following a bizarre night during which Speaker Kezia Purick was fired and rehired, Territorians woke on Wednesday with things just as they left them the previous day.
However, the government wounded itself during the process to remove the independent Member for Goyder and is now struggling to make its policy message stick in the face of a looming no confidence motion over the affair.
Fellow independent Gerry Wood said on Wednesday he was very thankful to the anonymous government MP who backed Ms Purick in regaining her job 13 votes to 12 after the position was declared vacant.
Mr Wood said parliament was "a miserable place to be", accusing the minority Country Liberals government of taking an "us and them" approach to passing legislation, trying to push things through on urgency while Labor and independents fought for more consultation.
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"They will do anything to try and retain power," he told reporters.
He said the "idiosyncratic" Speaker's reported offences of tweeting and Facebooking about her colleagues may have been problematic but not hanging offences.
"Even if there are some problems you don't go for the jugular straight away; you might say, `hey, look, I think we need to sit down, we've got some issues here'," Mr Wood said.
"(The government) weren't willing to do that. They went the whole hog and for that they look like a bunch of dills."
He said he was considering backing a Labor no confidence vote in the government, as is Ms Purick, with the opposition announcing its intention to bring forward the motion at year-end sittings in a fortnight.
To pass it and call an early election would need all seven Labor MPs and all six independents or five and one government MP if one could be persuaded.
Environment minister and Purick ally Gary Higgins would not comment on whether his was the dissenting vote which ensured her reappointment.
Asked if he was disappointed someone broke party ranks to reverse the original vote to dump her, he would only say: "I'm very happy with the democracy that was displayed."
Chief Minister Adam Giles during question time on Wednesday ridiculed Labor's call for his resignation over the "vicious and ultimately botched" attempt to execute the Speaker.
He said the move was not a mistake and she now had his full support.
