Not-A-Poll Reset 5 of 2023: Fyles Resigns

The most recent sidebar round of the Next Leader To Go Not-A-Poll did not last very long!  It had been up just four days when NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles followed Annastacia Palaszczuk out the door.  Fyles started her Chief Minister career as a popular choice to replace Michael Gunner and seemed for a while to be going well, with her party retaining a couple of loseable by-elections on her watch.  But early this year I started to hear anecdotally that stuff was going weird up there.  Again.

The government was under the pump for failing to control a sharp rise in crime (particularly property offences and assault including domestic violence).  It also appeared to be very unpopular, though a Redbridge poll implying something like a 40-60 drubbing across most of the Territory was likely to be on the harsh side.  (Somehow, even that poll didn't by itself move betting odds that had Labor at $1.25 vs $4!) But the killer was that Fyles herself came under criticism for a string of conflict of interest scandals involving mining and gas industry interests.  The news of undisclosed mining industry shares in the last week was one "I've declared everything ... oops no I haven't" too many and Fyles had to go.

Fyles is a rare case (in modern times) of a head of government who was neither elected at nor faced a general election; other examples in the last 50 years are Tom Lewis and Nathan Rees (NSW), Mike Ahern (Queensland), Ian Tuxworth (NT) and Trevor Kaine (ACT).  Lewis, Rees and Ahern were all rolled and their parties lost the next election (in the last two cases heavily and after the previous Premier was rolled as well).  Kaine's government came and went on the floor of parliament and he faced elections as Liberal leader at both ends of the term.  The only prior NT example, Tuxworth (CLP), quit to start the NT Nationals who soon sank without trace.  In that case the government survived the election, but with a 3.8% swing against it and the loss of three seats to defectors (one of them Tuxworth, barely).  

Premiers and Chief Ministers have been a vanishing species in 2023.  Before Fyles resigned I looked at the history of state Premiers (not CMs) quitting and found 2023 was the first year with three ostensibly unforced resignations since 1901 (when four Premiers quit to move to federal politics).  It was also the first year with four changes of state Premier since 1992.  The most recent other years with four changes had been 1982 and 1968 and the last with five Premier changes was 1952 (a death, two losses of confidence, an election loss and a resignation).  The most since Federation was the year of Federation, 1901, with seven (WA was the leader with four).  Including the colonial Parliaments which were often laughably unstable, the winner is 1857 with nine.

I also had a reader question about three resignations (Andrews, Palaszczuk and Fyles) at state and territory level within three months and that too may not have been seen (excluding resignations forced by explicit loss of confidence at parliament or party level or election loss) since 1901.   These are unusual times.  

Following Palaszczuk's resignation it became the case that Andrew Barr (ACT) has been in office longer than all the other Premiers, Chief Minister and the Prime Minister combined.  His lead grew with Fyles' departure, and although they catch him at the rate of seven days per day, it will now take nearly five months for them to pass him again if nobody else quits in that time. 

After not being mentioned in initial media dispatches, Drysdale MLA Eva Lawler will become the new Chief Minister.  This is the first case of a same-party female to female head of government transition in Australia (ACT had one between different parties.)  Lawler has been MLA since 2016, her seat being formerly held by now Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro (who wisely fled to the new seat of Spillett following a redistribution.)

Not-A-Poll Scores Again!

Many voters picking Fyles to be next to depart probably just expected her to lose the election, but their bet paid off sooner than they might have thought.  It wasn't a majority but Not-A-Poll improved its plurality strike rate to, such as it is, four out of ten.

Doom doom doom doom doom

We have an exciting round ahead of us now since both Lawler and Miles inherit governments that are federally dragged, showing their age, trailing in polls and appear to be likely to lose.  But Lawler goes first, can she turn the NT mess around?  Or if she can't, could someone else (Rockliff the only contender obvious to me, though some will always be hot for Dutton's departure) be gone before late August? Voting is open in the sidebar, until next time!  

Oh and by the way Stephen Miles is in the running to be the first Premier to serve a career total of less than a year in office - the last such case was Rob Kerin (SA) in 2002.  The break since Kerin is the longest ever, just beating a gap just over 20 years between 1947-8 (Brooker, Tas) and 1968 (Pizzey, Qld).  (Terry Mills (NT) served less than a year as Chief Minister before being rolled by Adam Giles in 2013.)