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.
How does one calculate the territory-wide 2PP when Labor didn’t contest Mulka?
I think that’s the first time I’ve seen a fed/state/territory seat without a major party candidate.
@Votante last time Mulka had two candidates: Yingiya and Labor. This time it’s him and the CLP.
Who’s next for labor leader there are only gonna be 5 members and one files surely won’t reconnect since she’s damaged goods and will probably retire
What we know:
* This is Labor’s second-worst seat total in Territory history (the worst was when they won zero seats in 1974, the first general election in the Territory).
* The Greens have likely won their first ever Territory seat.
* The CLP have won in a landslide.
* The CLP have a majority in Darwin for the first time since 1997.
* Labor has lost its control of the mainland. 519 days ago, Labor won minority government at the 2023 NSW state election.
* Labor only has one seat in Darwin, Nightcliff.
* Lia Finocchiaro will be the first Chief Minister with a non-Anglo surname. Her surname is Italian.
* Eva Lawler has become the third Chief Minister (and the first Labor Chief Minister to do so, since the others were CLP Chief Ministers; Goff Letts lost Victoria River in 1978 and Adam Giles lost Braitling in 2016) to be unseated at a general election, having lost her seat of Drysdale to the CLP.
What could happen:
* Labor could have its lowest vote total ever in the Territory. They’re currently at 29.5%, which is lower than the 30.5% they got in 1974.
@John Chansey Paech probably.
Yea I was thinking her or Selma uibo since the other 2 members are relatively new and files will most likely retire
On the ABC last night, Fyles ruled out being leader again. It will probably be Paech or Uibo.
Labor path to govt in majority is gonna get harder since the greens and 2 independents now control 3 of their traditional 2pp seats (Johnston, mulga and fannie bay) and if the greens win nightcliffe through either this election or subsequent by election that further complicates the math
“How does one calculate the territory-wide 2PP when Labor didn’t contest Mulka?” not sure, but i’m just using the ABC’s 2PP estimate.
@John… Johnston and Fannie Bay both.depend on which candidates go out first… further counting required but Labor could win one or both
Easy calc… all nt is in either
Lingari or Solomon both I think we’re 59% lcl so vote is 59/41
@mick Labor won’t win Johnston. Fannie Bay would still go 3 ways clp isn’t far behind greens. Nightcluffe will be won by fyles as clp preferences will get her over the line although for how long remains to be seen surely they can’t rebuild while they’ve still got deadwood on the team. Greens would probably win any subsequent by election if they ran the same candidate. Fyles may stick around until the Labor vote recovers in order to save the seat
Votentate
Liberals did not contest Richmond in 2018 Legislative Assembly, & Labor did not contest Narracan supplementary election at the last election. The statewide 2PP is not so useful in such a situation.
Fannie Bay – Labor is 1% or 38 votes behind Greens on primaries. CLP is well in front. Prepolls and postals might push Labor ahead of the Greens but will also push CLP ahead.
Johnston – likely independent, thanks to Labor and Greens preferences.
Nightcliff – Fyles, Labor will retain it seems.
@Votante Johnston was called late on election night I think or in the morning after while Fannie Bay and Nightcliff haven’t been called yet. I’ve called Nightcliff for Labor and the ABC should call it today.
Fannie Bay is still in doubt but it’s pretty clear Labor won’t win it, it’ll be won by either the CLP or the Greens. The Greens have done very well in Parap but the CLP have done better in other suburbs and on prepolls, and they’ll do better on postals too. Fannie Bay might be called today too. That’s the closest seat of the entire election.
Casuarina was called for the CLP yesterday.
Fannie Bay is interesting as a three-way contest. ABC labels it as Greens Ahead. Results may be clear today or tomorrow. I just remembered that they do count votes faster in the NT as it’s not a fed or state election with votes in the tens of thousands for 6 or more candidates.
Nightcliff is likely Labor. Greens are third and the independent is fourth. I sense that the GRN to LAB preference flow is higher than the IND to CLP preference flow. The independent preference flows could be split or go all over the place.
What happened in Braitling? anyone know? Greens beating out Labor in that part of the territory was not on my NT results bingo card
@Votante Queensland and the NT get the quickest numbers because they have single-member electoral districts and no upper house.
Wouldn’t the ACT get the quickest results due to their electronic ballots?
@votante in nightcliffe the ind is flowing to grns and clp flowing to labor
@Darcy not sure, but the ACT uses Hare-Clark so preferences take longer to distribute.
The ABC has updated Nightcliff from “Labor ahead” to “Labor likely”. I’ve already called it for Labor though.
Meanwhile, Fannie Bay is still listed as “Greens ahead”, and it’s highly unlikely I’ll be calling it today.
@nP nightcliffe is still up in the air Greens wont beat Fyles but if the independent overtakes the greens she will win on greens and CLP preferences
Looking like alp 5 lcl 16
1 gr 3 ind
@doug A combination of a concerted effort by the Greens (although I have no idea why) and dissilusioned former Labor voters abandoning the party en masse, while nevertheless being unwilling to go so far as voting for the CLP.
Of the 4 incl the green only 1 is right wing
Thus right 17 left 8
Thus 5 need to change to make a change of govt .if I remember correctly there needs to be a boundary change before each election
@mick yes in sa nt act and wa they do it every election. nsw vic is every 2 elections and qld is every 3 due to it recently have only set four year terms so i imagine they will change that to every 2 after the next redistribution. tasmanias boundaries shift along with the federal boundaries as the state uses the same boundaries as the federal ones.
In Guessing the last 2 or 3 results… remember they are small electorates 6000 odd… so the number of non
Polling day votes (except absents) will be much smaller
@mick not even i think the turnout ranged from 35% to 75% max
I appreciate all the earnest discussion from you fellows who enjoy elections (as I do), but it’s really just Disney Land in NT isn’t it? NT is so broke that they are now allowing cotton farming to wreck the arterial basin. Cotton farming will return heaps of areas to desert which local indigenous people will love – to be left in peace.One very overpaid MP (ha,ha) for 6000 voters? Mediocre thy name is an NT assembly member of any party? Apart from a railway station and a Centrelink office can anyone think of a good reason to maintain the Alice. It should be evacuated and southern taxpayers take a bonus? Giving them 2 senators (which the LNP opposed and took to the High Court) was one Gough’s very few mistakes?
It is very easy but misguided to dismiss NT elections when it is as much a Parliament as the ACT. Size of electorates is irrelevant. Darwin is a significant diverse and multicultural city. If the major Parties ignore the results of NT elections they will do so at their peril.
The problem is making single member electorates of small population size.
Why not elect 25 members of parliament in one lot thus
The quota is slightly less than 2 %. If people are worried about this making the quota too low.. set a min threshold of 5% to.share in the seats
It’s looking highly unlikely that the ABC will call Fannie Bay and Nightcliff until at least tomorrow. Fannie Bay is going to take a long time.
BREAKING: CLP AHEAD OF GREENS IN FANNIE BAY
The CLP are ahead of the Greens in Fannie Bay for the first time since the count begun. Laurie Zio currently has 50.5% TCP and is 78 votes ahead of Suki Dorras-Walker.
Correction: she’s 36 votes ahead.
As per the ABC website: “ The NT Electoral Commission has been undertaking a re-throw of preferences between the Greens and CLP as part of today’s counting. The CLP currently lead by 36 votes with a re-throw for Ludmilla and Postal votes still to come. If preferences flow the same when these two count centres are included, then the CLP will be on 50.8% and ahead by 78 votes. What is interesting is that Labor and Independent preferences are flowing roughly 67% to the Greens, but the reverse Green and Independent preferences recorded on Saturday night flow 74% to Labor. It shows how in tight races for second and third, order of exclusion can have a major impact on the result. In Fannie Bay, on current counts, if the Labor candidate is excluded second, the CLP win with 50.8%, but if the Greens are excluded second, Labor wins with 51.4%. Further counting will determine the final result.”
“Trying to out conservative the conservatives on crime was dumb…you lose votes to the left” – Kos Samaras with his polling hat on X or Twitter. I’m not sure what he meant by that.
I thought that fracking issue drove the swings to the Greens and teal-like independents in Johnston, Fannie Bay, Nightcliff and Braitling. Maybe the Fyles undisclosed shares thing drove the pro-integrity and anti-establishment vote.
@Votante Labor relies more on fracking and mining than the CLP for some reason. Also they tried to be too much like the CLP. They tried to copy them but it didn’t work. The CLP beat them in a landslide and in some seats they lost 25% of their votes to the Greens.
@Nether Portal, and what about the crime issue? Was Labor too conservative?
@Votante they should’ve been tough on crime but I think the thing is they tried to copy the exact same policies. Parties should be alike on social policies but not economic policies since otherwise voters don’t get a clear distinction between the two majors.
It might be time for Labor and even the CLP to end their support for fracking. Labor gets heaps of money from fracking but it’s costing them votes in affluent progressive seats like Nightcliff where voters are moving to the Greens and in Fannie Bay which is also affluent but more small-l-liberal. In the Voice referendum based on the booth results in Solomon the only seats in Greater Darwin that would’ve voted Yes were Fannie Bay and Nightcliff though even there it was close.
So Nightcliff covers three suburbs: Kulaluk, Nightcliff and Rapid Creek. The only booth in that area in the Voice referendum was at Nightcliff Middle School in Rapid Creek. That booth voted 59.1% Yes.
Correction about Fannie Bay: it narrowly voted No (48.3%).
Fannie Bay covers six suburbs: Bagot, Coconut Grove, Fannie Bay, Ludmilla, Parap and The Gardens. Of these, two (Ludmilla and Parap) had polling places in the Voice referendum. Ludmilla voted 60.1% No while Parap voted 51.2% Yes.
How Darwin voted for the Voice:
Yes vote in Darwin:
* Nightcliff (ALP): 59.1%
* Fannie Bay (CLP/GRN): 48.3%
* Casuarina (CLP): 48.2%
* Port Darwin (CLP): 43.4%
* Fong Lim (CLP): 41.5%
* Johnston (IND): 41.2%
* Karama (CLP): 40.7%
* Wanguri (CLP): 38.6%
Sanderson only had a PPVC in Eaton so I didn’t count it since the rest are just election day booths.
*I mean there were other PPVCs in Coolalinga, the Darwin CBD and Palmerston but I only analysed the election day booths. Sanderson’s only booth was the Eaton PPVC for some reason.
Votante, what makes you believe fracking was a more influential issue than crime in affecting the way people voted in those seats? Ben Smee’s excellent article in The Guardian today suggests both were important issues, not just one or the other.
@Wilson I would think fracking would be a bigger issue in an affluent progressive seat like Nightcliff but in a working-class seat like Karama crime would be much bigger.
CLP will win Fannie Bay, Greens will win no seats after-all unless things go unexpected on final votes.
Could the Greens take it off the CLP in 2028? Or would Labor be more likely to? Fannie Bay would be difficult to hold for the CLP in 2028 and Michael Gunner as well as Mark McGowan will both be regretting their retirements because both their parties fortunes have gone south since both premiers/chief ministers left.
I am also in the view that Annastacia would have polled better than Miles. Replacing premiers is a huge huge mistake. Why fix something that doesn’t need fixing? The successors always become unpopular compared to them.
Nether Portal, we have no way of knowing unless someone conducted an opinion poll in those areas or spent lots of time there pre-election. All we have is guesswork. There’s no reason affluent people couldn’t be voting primarily on youth crime and working class people primarily on fracking (for a progressive/environmentalist or conservative/free market position).
Daniel T, it could also be that Gunner and McGowan (and Andrews for that matter) are all very glad they got out before public sentiment turned against their governments, as it might have had they stayed on. It’s tempting to think everything might be better for Labor had a previous leader stayed in, but I’d point to John Howard as an example of a leader who stayed on too long and cost his party by not letting them inject fresh blood into a long-standing government. And Jay Weatherill is an example of a change of Premier that worked out well and kept a Labor government going for another term.
I also think it’s clear that managing Covid took a lot out of leaders in terms of stress and fatigue. I don’t think there’s a single Premier from 2020 who remains as Premier or Opposition Leader today.
@Daniel T yeah I think I can call Fannie Bay for the CLP but the Greens still did quite well especially in Parap. They didn’t do well enough in Ludmilla or on prepolls and postals to win though which makes sense since Parap was one of the only booths to vote Yes to the Voice.
@Wilson there’s only one left: Andrew Barr (Labor) has been Chief Minister of the ACT since 2014.
I am a bit surprised as to the issue with the ALP supporting fracking. The ALP is the party, or at least was, of industrial unions and hence, by default, industrial workers including miners. Why would that party be against fracking? I know the ALP has changed (less industrial workers, more unions in public sector and professions etc), but that DNA still remains, particularly I would have thought in the NT (and WA and QLD).
Yeah, on the COVID thing. Wasn’t there also stories that Kevin Rudd took on so much during the GFC it basically broke him, and when they came for him he had nothing left to give?