Last night’s election results were very decisive, and the result became clear quite early on. In hindsight I realise I never bothered to actually call the result on my live blog.
The CLP has won a substantial victory – they currently lead in 16 seats – but it’s not that rare an outcome. Out of the eleven elections held for a 25-seat assembly from 1983 to 2020, the winning party won 16-19 seats on seven occasions. Indeed the last (and only) time the CLP won an election with less than 16 seats was in 1990, when they won 14 seats.
The more remarkable feature of the result is the scale of the ALP’s defeat. Right now they are leading in just five seats, including just one urban seat (Nightcliff, held by former chief minister Natasha Fyles). While the CLP has been reduced to less than five seats on two occasions (in 2005 and 2016), Labor hasn’t had such a poor outcome in the 25-seat era. Their previous worst results was six seats in 1983 and 1987.
The difference is in the results for minor parties and independents, a majority of whom are taking votes and seats that would have otherwise gone to Labor in a straight two-party contest.
The geographical pattern of results far more resembles pre-2001 CLP victories than their last victory in 2012. The 2012 election saw the CLP come to power by winning five regional electorates and made absolutely no progress in recovering ground in the northern suburbs of Darwin, which had swung to Labor when they won power in 2001.
This time Labor has largely held its own outside of Darwin and Palmerston. Indeed they increased their margin in Gwoja, Arafura and Daly (which they won in a by-election in the last term). Swings to the CLP were relatively small in Barkly and Arnhem.
This map shows three layers – you can see the 2CP swings, who has either won or likely to win in each seat (with undecided seats in a different shade) and finally a map showing who has won each seat with seats that have flipped highlighted.
The first takeaway is that not much has happened outside Darwin and Palmerston. Swings are small, seats have largely stayed with the party who previously held them, except in Goyder where the sitting independent retired.
If you zoom into Darwin and Palmerston the picture is different. The CLP currently has a 2CP swing of over 20% in three northern Darwin seats and two Palmerston seats.
Indeed Labor hasn’t definitively won a single seat in the region. They are likely to win Nightcliff and could come from behind in Fannie Bay, Johnston or Casuarina. But for now, that’s it. It’s hard to see them winning all four of those seats.
Apart from the geography of the result, the other main story is Labor’s hit on its left flank. The Greens had a good result. They did run one more candidate than in 2020, but that doesn’t explain them almost doubling their vote, up 4% to 8.3%. They currently seem likely to make the 2CP in three seats – Braitling, where they absorbed most of the non-CLP vote and reduced Labor to a distant third; Nightcliff, where they are third but should gain a lot of preferences from a fourth-placed independent; and Fannie Bay, where the Greens are narrowly ahead of Labor and thus should benefit from Labor preferences.
The NT has always been a tough area for the Greens, but if they can win a seat and become to main non-CLP party in another seat that might give them a toe-hold for future success.
Likewise a left-leaning independent Justine Davis seems likely to win Johnston with the preferences of the Labor incumbent. Her website gives a bit of a teal vibe.
The number of crossbench seats in the NT Legislative Assembly won’t be unprecedented. The 2016 election produced a crossbench of five seats when the CLP was at a low point. But it is very different to previous CLP victories in the 1990s or in 2012, when there was no more than two crossbenchers, and thus allowed Labor to still have 7-9 Assembly seats despite the CLP winning a large majority.
If all of those crossbench seats went to the stronger major party, the result would be 17-8, which would be similar to past Labor defeats. The well-targeted vote for the Greens and independents may have turned a conventional Labor defeat into one of their worst.
Indeed the total size of the minor party and independent vote is not exceptionally high. It is slightly lower than in 2016 and 2020, as well as 1987 when the Nationals jumped into the race. But this vote is now coming from a different place.
In 2020, the others vote was dominated by the Territory Alliance, who polled over 12% but only won a single seat narrowly. Their vote was not well targeted and largely dissipated where they couldn’t win.
That TA vote also came more from the CLP side of the pendulum than the Labor side. Another way to look at this is to look at the difference between the Labor and CLP primary vote and their 2PP vote. This includes quite a bit of assumptions about where preferences flow, particularly for 2024, but is still interesting.
There isn’t an enormous lean one way or the other, but a majority of the others vote this time is coming from sources likely to flow to Labor as 2PP. 2020 was the only election since 1997 where a majority of the other vote was favourable to the CLP on the 2PP.
In one sense this is a theoretical question, but it also reflects that Labor lost ground more than just to the CLP. The CLP consolidated the right-wing vote while the progressive vote splintered, and in two seats it means Labor is not likely to win.
One final point is about the predictability of last night’s result. We have had two polls in the last year: a Redbridge poll in November and a Freshwater poll in May. Both showed the CLP winning the 2PP comfortably. The Redbridge poll is actually pretty close to the current 2PP estimate. Yes we needed to take this with a grain of salt but a lot of the local political experts I saw were treating the election as being far more uncertain than those polls would suggest. Indeed that was what I was told on my podcast.
I wasn’t as familiar with local NT politics so I tried to stay away from predictions, but in hindsight those polls seem to have done a good job and should probably have been taken more seriously. I didn’t see much contradictory evidence to suggest anything but a substantial CLP victory.
I think Labor can blame themselves for being too reactive, not visionary and just plain ineffective in implementing policies that resonate with the NT. Crime, housing, cost of living were on top of everyone’s mind yet Labor failed to act upon that. Two curfews (which shouldn’t really have happened if the right policies or intervention were in place) in Alice Springs speaks volumes of how bad it’s gotten. They need to regroup and start afresh. Don’t just look over the shoulder at the CLP, do something different. Obviously community safety and crime prevention should be bipartisan, but on economic issues they need to be their own, not CLP-lite. Had they not backed things like fracking and inner-city development they probably wouldn’t have lost Johnston or Fannie Bay either, but it is what it is.
Lawler is a nice person but very ineffective as Chief Minister. Fyles shot herself in the foot with all her undeclared shares but if she didn’t have that she’d probably only lead them to a smaller defeat rather than a wipeout, same with Nicole Manison given both have experience of leadership compared to Lawler. A time of reflection is sorely needed for NT Labor.
Crime was a critical issue in the major centres. When Fed Labor ministers played down the federal implications, they said it was a local crime issue. I’m sure fracking was also an issue as was integrity and cost of living.
The inner and middle suburbs of Darwin as well as Alice Springs and Katherine, happened to have Greens or teal-ish independents running and there were major swings to them. It’s also worth noting that this was strongest and most funded NT Greens campaign ever and they had target seats.
atm im gonna call Lingiari as a probable loss and Solomon is now a tossup
Green votes increased as many ALP voters who wanted to send the ALP a message would not send their vote to the CLP and this was the only place to go. Less options for protest votes so they coalesced in the one place.
The ABC has changed Fannie Bay’s status from “CLP ahead” to “CLP likely”.
It’s about damn time!
But this still means that Fannie Bay and Nightcliff are in doubt, but I’ve already called them. Interestingly the Greens came second in both these seats (and in Braitling too).
@Votante Katherine is not teal territory, it’s a country town with a high Aboriginal population. I’ve found that in major towns like Alice and Katherine the Aboriginal people still mostly vote the same ways as the white people and other races/ethnicities in town.
Katherine voted 61.3% against the Voice, Katherine East voted 62.0% against it and Tindal voted 62.4%. The Katherine PPVC actually voted 72.3% No to the Voice.
Why do I keep using the Voice as examples when I voted No? Because I think it’s a good indicator of how open an area is to progressive social causes (which does not necessarily make it a socially progressive area). In the Territory and remote areas it’s more difficult because of the large (and often, in remote areas, less educated and politically active) Indigenous population but in the major centres it’s comparable.
The truth is a lot of Indigenous people didn’t know anything about the referendum other than it was happening, it was about an Indigenous Voice to Parliament and was supported by Labor and the Greens. Remember, we’re talking about some of the lowest socioeconomic towns in Australia where life is unfortunately not as advanced as in the rest of Australia. I’ve been to remote Indigenous communities in Australia and villages in the Pacific Islands so I know this.
Funny how the combined “left” vote in Fannie Bay is almost 60% yet they elect someone to the right, just proves that politically NT Labor is closer to the CLP than the Greens.
@Nether Portal, yes, Katherine isn’t a teal electorate but an independent came second. She did say that crime is a top issue but she is also anti-fracking. She once spoke at a Greens event.
She benefited from the withdrawal of TA and those who wanted to swing away from Labor but wouldn’t vote for the CLP.
About Fannie Bay, it seems that the Labor to Greens preference flows are not as strong as in the states. It’s either Labor voters are conservative, or forgot or didn’t realise that the Greens were on the ballot paper, or didn’t think the Greens would beat Labor and thought their preferences were “useless”.
A big oops for the Greens who popped their champagne corks too early.
It’s an awfully small sample size, I wouldn’t draw any broader conclusions about this being unique to the NT. But yes it could indicate that the remaining rump of Labor voters were more conservative than Labor voters you’d find in the inner cities of the big east coast cities.
its likely they were soft labor voters or of the right and dont like the greens
I have calculated that Labor preference flows to the Greens in Fannie Bay was between 61.7% and 76.0%. Even a 76% preference flow (assuming independent Leonard May’s preferences flew 100% to the CLP) from Labor to the Greens is too weak. Labor to Greens preference flows in three federal QLD Greens seats were all above 82%. It is a powerful demonstration of how the remaining Labor voters in Fannie Bay and possibly across Darwin are much more conservative than Labor voters in the inner suburbs of Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne. This is consistent with the federal division of Solomon having much higher “No” votes in the Voice referendum than that of the divisions of Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne. Solomon voted 63.73% No, while Brisbane voted 56.01% Yes, Sydney voted 70.90% Yes and Melbourne voted 77.21% Yes.
@Tommo9 I do agree that NT Labor has been too conservative. Former Chief Minister Natasha Fyles’ pro-fracking stance is at odds with her own NT Labor Left faction members. Fyles has even faced a motion from NT Labor Left calling for her expulsion. During the last term of NT Parliament, NT Labor did not come up with a single progressive policy besides raising the age of criminal responsibility to 12. NT Labor did not have a coherent policy to tackle crime leading up to the election and did not provide a convincing alternative to the CLP’s policies. Now in Opposition, NT Labor must oppose the CLP’s policy of lowering the age of criminal responsibility back to 10 and develop concrete policies to address the root causes of crime as an alternative to CLP’s approach to lock up more disadvantaged and mostly indigenous kids.