Saturday’s election in the Northern Territory produced a result to warm the hearts of incumbents the nation over, as a shambolic government presiding over a moribund economy secured what looks to have been a comfortable win.
The result may not have put mutterings about Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s hold on the Labor leadership to rest, but his one-note campaign on COVID-19 undoubtedly did the job, despite drawing attention to the fact that the government’s record had little else to commend it.
The exact scale of the win is still unclear, with at least a mathematical possibility remaining that Labor will fall short of a clear majority of 13 seats out of 25.
In addition to several tight contests, a number of seats remain in doubt because the wrong candidates were picked for the indicative two-candidate preference counts conducted on election night.
These particular mysteries should be solved when fresh preference counts are conducted today, and the likelihood is that they will push Labor’s present tally of 12 seats to 13, 14 or perhaps even 15 seats.
The Country Liberal Party (CLP) opposition nonetheless looks like restoring some normality to Territory politics, after being reduced to a rump of two seats in the debacle of 2016.
The party’s leader, Lia Finocchiaro, owed her position to the fact that there was literally no one else to fill it, with her colleague Gary Higgins handing the reins to her in February after announcing his impending retirement.
If nothing else, Finocchiaro has proved herself a luckier leader than Adam Giles, who led the party into the mincer in 2016, with most of the close races looking likely to land the CLP’s way this time.
Only five seats are in the bag, but today’s counts will more than likely add another one or two to that, and there is still a best case scenario where they make it to nine.
Each of the CLP’s gains is a reversion to type, with normally safe seats in Alice Springs, Katherine and the fringes of Darwin returning to the fold after the once-in-a-lifetime disaster of 2016.
However, Labor looks like retaining its lock on the nine seats of Darwin, holding on to a seat in traditionally unwelcoming Palmerston, and winning three or four of the five indigenous majority seats, where their competition comes from independents rather than the CLP.
With Labor back in power, and the CLP at least restoring credibility to the scoreboard, the biggest loser was undoubtedly Terry Mills, the former CLP chief minister who made a go of it with his own party, the Territory Alliance.
Mills was unceremoniously dumped in his Palmerston seat of Blain, which he won as an independent in 2016, managing only a distant third behind both the CLP and Labor.
Of the other two crossbenchers to have joined the new party, former Labor MP Jeff Collins proved uncompetitive in his Darwin seat of Fong Lim, and one-time CLP deputy leader Robyn Lambley is precariously placed in her Alice Springs seat of Araluen, which she had no trouble retaining as an independent in 2016.
The party’s place in the crowded graveyard of failed third-party ventures should serve as another lesson for independent and minor party MPs of the dangers of developing grandiose notions.
Whereas Australia’s two genuinely successful minor parties, the Greens and One Nation, have been representative of international trends in environmentalist and anti-migrant politics, Mills was the latest in a long line of political entrepreneurs offering a fresh alternative as an end in itself.
Other case studies have included Clive Palmer, whose expensively bought electoral success in 2013 proved short-lived; Nick Xenophon, a once all-conquering figure who returned to civilian life after the comprehensive failure of his bid to gatecrash the South Australian election in 2018; and Jacqui Lambie, whose party failed to trouble the scoreboard when it sought to launch itself upon state politics in Tasmania.
Like the Judean People’s Front before it, the Territory Alliance today stands condemned as mere splitters, whose only accomplishment has been muddying the conservative waters and helping to facilitate the return of a largely unpopular Labor government.
I left the NT before Clare Martin broke the CLP record run but there is nothing resembling other electoral systems in the Territory. Everyone liked Marshall Perron’s CM time, everyone hated Tuxworth’s; the change to 25 seats was traumatic; I wish my late mate John Ah Kit’s spirit peace. Ave atque vale – piss off Southerners; we’re different! And
I have one large bone to pick with NT Labor Govt William, meaning NT Govt does not enjoy an impeccable record. But clearly your opening “shambolic government presiding over a moribund economy . . . .” etc reflects deep disappointment in NT election outcome?
It is true Big Business personalities seldom find comfort in a more open democratic system led by a Labor Government?
I think the struggle of third parties has always been resources, especially people power. Independent local candidates can manage it for a single electorate – staff every polling centre with 10+ volunteers, letterbox, campaign, build momentum etc. But to repeat for an entire state/territory (let alone federally) is a mountain no party seems to have climbed yet.
Even the Greens (who have managed reasonable sustained electoral success) struggle with numbers beyond their inner city heartlands. While they‘ll often match the majors for numbers at booths/on the ground in the city electorates, it’s a very different picture at suburban polling centers (let alone regional and rural centers).
I’m disappointed William hasn’t given any real indication of who the successful, or probably successful indigenous members/candidates are. In particular, what impact is the election outcome likely to have on Indigenous aspirations for improved Govt policies on the age of criminal responsibility, Aboriginal incarceration rates in juvenile and adult institutions, justice reinvestment, treaty rights, and consultation with indigenous organisations and affected groups over key development projects and Government policies?
Government in the NT, both ALP and CLP, has always been a failure and the steady decline of a Territory that should be going ahead while Aboriginal communities continue to suffer demonstrates a fundamental problem. The problem is that there should not be a Northern Territory. While there is no easy solution to the problem of the NT a start could be made by carving up most of it into perhaps three or four Aboriginal majority territories along the lines of Nunavut, properly resourced from the Federal Government, with Darwin and Alice Springs excised. Darwin could become a “free port” and Alice Springs might become an exclave of South Australia.