2024 Northern Territory Election Live

Postcount tracking is continuing here. 

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START POSITION ALP 14 CLP 7 IND 4 (1 IND retiring)

POLLS HAVE CLOSED.  Massive swings to CLP, CLP has won a majority

EXPECTED WINS (some may not be absolutely certain) CLP 14 ALP 4 IND 2

Expected seats changing

Expected CLP gain vs IND (vacancy): Goyder, Blain

Expected CLP gain vs ALP : Karama, Fong Lim, Drysdale, Wanguri, Port Darwin, Sanderson

Seats in doubt:

Barkly: CLP likely to hold vs ALP

Casuarina: CLP likely to gain from ALP

Johnston: IND appears very likely to gain from ALP

.Nightcliff: Likely ALP hold

Fannie Bay: ALP vs Greens (outside chance CLP), Greens ahead.

If all current leaders/favourites hold, CLP 16 ALP 5 IND 3 Green 1

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Updates scrolling to the top  - refresh every 10 mins from 6:30 on for new comments

Northern Territory Election 2024: Prospects and Polling

Welcome to my coverage of the Northern Territory 2024 election, which has snuck up on us all with just four weeks to go til polling day as I write.  NT politics often attracts derision among election-watchers for its tiny/barely inhabited electorates, crazy seat swings, frequent MP defections and elementary ethics fails.  Despite that though, I reject the view out there that NT elections deserve no more attention than a medium-large council.  NT elections are somewhat like state elections in their own unusual way, and are informative.  This one is something of a prelude to Queensland as the first chance for one of Labor's seven state and territory dominos to fall on PM Albanese's watch ... but will it, and how heavily if so?  Beyond this article, my coverage of NT 2024 will include a live article and a post-count piece (a la this, but they will be separate articles this year) and there may be prospects updates if there is anything to see.  

General properties of NT elections

The history of NT elections since self-determination splits neatly into two halves, 1974-1997 during which the CLP frequently changed Chief Ministers but invariably won, and 2001 onwards which, starting from Labor's first win under Clare Martin, has been a rollercoaster.  The 2020 election with a 2PP swing of 3.9% against the then Gunner Labor Government was in fact the most placid this century, with the five before it having swings (ALP) of 6.0, 11.1, -9.2, -5.1 and 13.3.  

The Northern Territory is affected (see bottom of article here), much as the states are, by what I call "federal drag" - all else being equal, incumbent governments are more likely to be whacked when the same party is in power federally.  2020 was one case where the swing went to the side in power federally, but that was off a ridiculously low base and still an easy win for Labor anyway.  

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).  

JSCEM's Strange Case For Extra Territory Senators

Yesterday saw the release of the final version of the Joint Standing Committee into Electoral Matters report into the 2022 election.  Following the somewhat lightweight and culture-war afflicted 2019 report it was good to see a return to substance, but that is not to say that everything is wonderful.  There are various welcome aspects of JSCEM's findings and proposals that I may comment on later but for now I wanted to deal with JSCEM's recommendation to increase the number of Senators for the ACT and Northern Territory from two to four apiece.  (I'm also considering a longer article about the current push for "truth in electoral advertising" laws, and the extent to which that movement is being fanned by naive support arising from the Voice failure and the rise of Donald Trump style candidates.)

Increasing the number of Territory Senators can be done by legislation and could in theory very well happen before the next election, while an increase in the House of Representatives is likely to be a second-term project for the Albanese Government, assuming that it gets a second term.   As the support of Labor, the Greens and David Pocock for expansion appears highly likely, the Government would only, for instance, need the support of either Lidia Thorpe or the Lambie Network (or even someone to abstain or be away) to pass the change.  In theory an expansion could be challenged in the High Court but the prospects for any challenge would seem dim.  The Constitution allows the Parliament to create Territory representation on whatever terms it likes and so long as there's some reasonable argument rather than it just being an out-and-out stack, it's hard to see on what basis the Court could say no. 

2020 Northern Territory Election Live And Post-Count

Election over - ALP 14 CLP 8 TAP 1 IND 2 

ALP returned with reduced majority 

2PP Estimate 54.1 to ALP (Mulka excluded; effective 3.1% swing to CLP)

Final 2PP 53.3 to ALP (Mulka excluded; effective 3.9% swing to CLP)

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LIVE COMMENTS 

Live comments will appear below the line once counting starts.  Comments scroll to the top - refresh every 10 minutes or so once the count is well underway for latest comments.  Scroll down to intro section at the bottom for links, important disclaimers etc.

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NT Election Final Roundup

Counting night approaches for the 2020 Northern Territory election, which I will be covering with live comments here in a separate post and follow-up comments on that thread through the post-count as required.   Normally here for an election I have paid a lot of attention to I would be posting a final polling roundup, but for the NT there's usually precious little to report in that department.  However there are a number of other things that can be commented on in setting the picture.  You can also check out the Tally Room podcast I appeared in today with Ben Raue and Duncan McDonnell.

Polling

Almost everything I had to say about polling and this election was said in my earlier piece Divergent Polling In The Northern Territory.  I contrasted a very detailed Territory Alliance internal poll by Mediareach with a lobby group commissioned poll by uComms and found that whereas the former predicted a chaotic parliament with no party likely to be near a majority, the latter was most consistent with a Country Liberal resurgence, Labor retaining a majority, and little joy for the Territory Alliance.  I did not asset that either poll was accurate (though uComms have a mostly good track record) - the truth could be much closer to one than the other, or somewhere in between, or more extreme in some direction than both polls.  Since the article was written, expectations and betting seem to have converged towards the uComms result, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's what's going to happen.

It would, however, be very consistent with my finding in the previous piece that "federal drag" theory (the idea that being of a different party to the one in Canberra helps) is a thing in the NT just as it is in the states.  As bad as the NT economy has been during the present term, a majority government thrown out after one term while the same party is in opposition federally would be a very unusual result from that perspective.  

Divergent Polling In The Northern Territory

Advance Summary

1.  There have been two massively different recent polls of the Northern Territory - a MediaReach internal poll for the Territory Alliance covering all bar four seats and a uComms poll for an environmental group covering Greater Darwin.

2. Although the uComms poll is much smaller, uComms has the better track record nationally so far (from limited evidence) while MediaReach is a mysterious pollster with a weaker public track record. Furthermore internal party polls that are released tend to favour their sponsor.

3. The MediaReach poll implies a probable hung parliament with Labor losing its majority and the Territory Alliance supplanting the Country Liberal Party as the largest conservative party, and possibly even forming government.

4. The uComms poll, however, implies that at least in Greater Darwin the Territory Alliance is unlikely to win many seats, and is consistent with Labor remaining in majority unless there are larger swings against it outside its survey area.  

5. Neither of these polls are necessarily reliable.  Media should not rely strongly on either in setting narratives for the upcoming election.

6. The history of "federal drag" - parties tending to perform best when in opposition federally - appears to apply to the Northern Territory very much as it does to state elections.

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King Of Nothing For A Day: Did Terry Mills Return As NT Opposition Leader?

Brief answer: Perhaps!

Of all the things going on in the world at present probably the least important of all is the position of NT Opposition Leader (unless, perhaps, a new conservative force starts winning NT elections and then winning federal seats).  But we all need some laughs, and so long as one doesn't think at all about whether NT politicians could have found something more constructive to do with their time right now than this, this is a rather funny story.  Not as funny as the time Willem Westra van Holthe held a late night presser to announce he was "Chief Minister apparent" only for it to turn out that he wasn't (Adam Giles who he thought he had deposed as leader threatened to bring down the government and as a result Giles was restored to the CLP leadership.)  But still, not bad.

The remains of Giles' government were slaughtered at the 2016 Territory election leaving the CLP with only two seats compared to 18 for Labor and five for a range of independents (some of them ex-CLP).  One of the independents was former Chief Minister Terry Mills, who had earlier been rolled by Giles while Mills was out of the country, just seven months after Mills had led the CLP to majority government.

NT Election 2016: How Badly Will The CLP Be Beaten?

Final result 18 ALP 2 CLP 5 IND.  Result will be declared and winners seated subject to any challenges.
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Because of fieldwork I have not had much time to follow the Northern Territory election to be counted tonight.  I'll use this thread to post comments on any aspect of the count of interest either while the count is going or in the following days.  The ABC has some very comprehensive coverage (and will have more on News 24) and there is also coverage and discussion at The Tally Room and Poll Bludger.