Lingiari – Election 2010

ALP 11.2%

Incumbent MP
Warren Snowdon, since 2001. Snowdon was previously Member for the Northern Territory 1987-1996 and 1998-2001.

Geography
Lingiari covers the vast majority of the Northern Territory, with the exception of Darwin and Palmerston. The seat covers Katherine and Alice Springs, as well as many indigenous communities throughout the Territory.

Demographics
Lingiari has the largest indigenous population of any electorate in the country, with only 56% of the population speaking English as their main language at home, with a number of indigenous languages being spoken in different parts of the electorate.

History
The Northern Territory first elected a Member of the House of Representatives in 1922, but this person was only given full voting rights in 1968. The seat was held by the Country Party and then the Country Liberal Party from then until 1983, before Labor and then the CLP each held the seat for one term, before Warren Snowdon won the seat for the ALP in 1987. Snowdon lost the seat for one term in 1996 before being returned for one more term in 1998. The 2000 redistribution saw the Northern Territory gain a second seat for the first time, and the seats of Solomon, covering Darwin and Palmerston, and Lingiari, covering the rest, were created. Snowdon has been elected in Lingiari three times, each time increasing his majority, winning 55.3% of the two-party-preferred vote in 2001, increasing it to 57.7% in 2004 and 61.2% in 2007.

Candidates

  • Peter Flynn (Independent)
  • Leo Abbott (Country Liberal)
  • Barbara Shaw (Greens)
  • Kenny Lechleitner (Independent)
  • Dierdre Finter (Independent)
  • Warren Snowdon (Labor) – Member for Lingiari since 2001, previously Member for the Northern Territory 1987-1996 and 1998-2001.

Political situation
Lingiari covers all of the main areas dealt with under the Northern Territory intervention into indigenous affairs. In bad times for the ALP it has been vulnerable, but is held by a large margin, mainly due to the massive majorities the ALP wins in Aboriginal communities.

2007 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Warren Snowdon ALP 25,213 53.99 +3.33
Adam Giles CLP 16,189 34.66 -3.70
Emma Young GRN 3,231 6.92 +1.34
Maurie Japarta Ryan IND 1,206 2.58 +2.58
Wayne Wright IND 864 1.85 +1.85
DEM 0 0.00 -2.93
OTH 0 0.00 -2.47

2007 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Warren Snowdon ALP 28,565 61.16 +3.50
Adam Giles CLP 18,138 38.84 -3.50

Booth breakdown
A large proportion of Lingiari’s voters live in remote communities, with over a quarter of all votes being cast through ‘remote mobile teams’, who travel around the electorate to remote communities. The three largest settlements in Lingiari all gave the Country Liberal Party at least 54% of the TCP vote, despite the CLP only polling 38.8% across the electorate. Over a fifth of votes cast were special votes, including absentee, postal and prepoll votes.

Voter group
 ALP 2CP %
 Total votes cast
 % of ordinary votes
Remote mobile teams 87.62 12,888 27.60
Alice Springs 45.76 9,805 21.00
Darwin outskirts 45.89 6,661 14.27
Katherine 41.78 2,535 5.43
Nhulunbuy 66.38 1,270 2.72
Tennant Creek 65.37 1,054 2.26
Other places 68.95 1,852 3.97
Special votes 55.14 10,629 22.76

13 COMMENTS

  1. An interesting thing about Lingiari that a lot of people don’t realise is that it includes Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands, whose residents do get to vote in federal elections, unlike Norfolk Islanders, who don’t.

    Just an idea for a little addition to these, you could add a link to the incumbent MPs’ bio on the Parliament website.

  2. Norfolk Islanders can vote. Norfolk Island belongs to no electorate though. Instead residents vote in the electorate (and corresponding senate race) that they have the strongest ties with. If they have no strong ties with any electorate then they vote in the electorate of Canberra.

  4. Noting that the Martin Ferguson is planning the nuclear waste dump for Muckaty Station (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/23/2827837.htm?section=justin) north of Tennant Creek, will this effect the outcome in this seat, or is it now a forgone conclusion that it doesn’t matter who wins the election they’ll get a waste dump here anyway? Then there’s also the proposed uranium mine at Angela-Pamela, near Alice Springs (http://www.alec.org.au/eng/news/alec_news/alice_springs_says_no_to_a_uranium_mine_at_angela_pamela).

  8. I saw that. What is he playing at? I can only assume that he’s angling for a territory (state) seat by building his profile.

  9. The CLP candidate is Leo Abbott. Apparently they’d previously decided to run two candidates, but have been forced to change that by the new legislation restricting parties to a single candidate.

  10. At the 2007 election the NT was very much at the forefront of the debate.

    Sadly, the issues surrounding the intervention are not being debated by the leaders.

    However – they are being debated by Territorians, and we are looking for answers about the waste, particularly the mismanagement of the housing scheme and continued poor educational outcomes for children living in remote communities. Many Territorians are angry that local expertise and businesses and are being overlooked, while tradespeople and consultants from interstate are rapidly spending precious funds, building houses that are inappropriate and offering little or no training to local people.

    I’m campaigning in Christmas Island and the Cocos Keeling Islands by email and Skype. The rest of the million square kilometres I’m covering by road and air.

  12. It’ll be very interesting if the Greens manage to chip into the remote vote with their indigenous candidates. The Greens are sometimes criticised for their lack of remote support, which isn’t in line with their strong pro-indigenous policies. It’s a real shame that since Ridgeway left parliament there haven’t been any indigenous representatives – this may change as word of the Greens gets out.

Comments are closed.