CLP 0.1%
Incumbent MP
Steve Edgington, since 2020.
Geography
Outback Northern Territory. Barkly covers a large part of the north-eastern outback, including Tennant Creek and Boroloola.
The electorate of Barkly has existed since the first NT assembly election in 1974. The seat had been held by Labor continuously from 1990 until 2020.
The CLP’s Ian Tuxworth won Barkly at the first election in 1974. Tuxworth rose up through the CLP ranks and became chief minister in 1984. Tuxworth resigned as CLP leader and chief minister in 1986, and soon afterwards left the CLP to form the NT Nationals.
At the 1987 election, Tuxworth defeated independent candidate Maggie Hickey by only 19 votes, triggering a by-election, which he won against Hickey, now running for Labor.
A 1990 redistribution weakened Tuxworth’s position, and he unsuccessfully contested the neighbouring seat of Goyder instead. Barkly was won by Hickey.
Maggie Hickey went on to lead Labor from 1996 until 1999, and retired in 2001.
Hickey was succeeded by Elliot McAdam, who was a minister from 2005 to 2008, and retired at the 2008 election.
Labor’s Gerry McCarthy held Barkly from 2008 until 2020.
McCarthy retired in 2020, and CLP candidate Steve Edgington won the seat by just seven votes.
- Steve Edgington (Country Liberal)
- Lizzie Hogan (Labor)
Assessment
Barkly is an extremely marginal seat, although Edgington may benefit from incumbency after four years in the job.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Steve Edgington | Country Liberal | 1,431 | 41.6 | +24.6 |
| Sid Vashist | Labor | 1,238 | 36.0 | -12.6 |
| Gadrian Hoosan | Independent | 663 | 19.3 | +19.3 |
| Daniel Mulholland | Independent | 109 | 3.2 | +3.2 |
| Informal | 156 | 4.3 |
2020 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Steve Edgington | Country Liberal | 1,724 | 50.1 | +15.9 |
| Sid Vashist | Labor | 1,717 | 49.9 | -15.9 |
Booth breakdown
There were no ordinary polling places in Barkly in 2020.
Almost half the vote was cast through mobile polling teams, and the CLP won those booths with 52.4% of the two-party-preferred vote. Labor won 56.8% on the pre-poll vote while the CLP won 57.4% of the other votes.
| Voter group | CLP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Mobile | 52.4 | 1,627 | 45.2 |
| Pre-poll | 43.2 | 1,251 | 34.8 |
| Other votes | 57.4 | 719 | 20.0 |
Polling places surrounding Barkly at the 2020 NT election
The CLP winning the mobile booth vote here just goes to show that Indigenous communities around the country really are ditching Labor for the Coalition nationwide. It started with Terry Mills leading the CLP to a decisive win over Labor in 2012 but instead of winning Labor seats in Darwin, the CLP won remote seats with high Aboriginal populations, because Aboriginal voters deserted Labor.
Despite the seven vote margin I expect the CLP to hold on. I predict that the CLP will win the election.
I also think the CLP will hold on here. Steve Edgington has worked this seat hard. Will certainly be a senior minister if the CLP win in August.
This was long time alp held before last election
@PRP he may have worked it hard, but he did employ a known DV offender for a long time and that could go against him. It was very tight last time, so you never know which way it will go
I think the new margin will be like 7% CLP at least.
The council being sacked would have to be a big issue here but not sure who that would impact. No mention of Edgington in the articles, nor the political affiliations of any of the controversial councillors.
Greens had a councillor here pre sacking (who hasn’t been negatively implicated or even mentioned in any articles covering the sacking), but no indication she’ll run for the territory seat.
CLP or Labor win? Or too close to tell?
@Whoknows the CLP should win this.
Why is that? I actually think it will be extremely close based on what I’ve heard
@Whoknows Steve Edgington having a sophomore boost in an election where the tide is against Labor (at least according to the polls) should help. Yes it’ll be close but I think the CLP should hold. My 7% prediction was probably a bit high, maybe around 4.5% but I still wouldn’t rule out a +7% swing.
Ultra marginal and in the country. Who knows?
@Mick Quinlivan it’s a remote seat. So it’s different to a country seat. Country seats are conservative, remote swings can swing violently either way and have in the past. In 2012 and 2020 they swung violently to the CLP while in 2016 they swung violently to Labor because of Adam Giles’ scandal-infested government (without the scandals they would’ve swung less and may have actually stuck with the CLP since Adam Giles is Aboriginal so he might’ve had appeal in Aboriginal communities as he would understand their issues).
The remote area seats are country seats also. If I remember correctly the last lnp member for the lnp before now as Ian Tuxworth
I would call a country seat any where other than Darwin/Palmerston
@Mick Quinlivan Ian Tuxworth was a member of the NT Nationals. They weren’t officially a branch of the National Party but they supported Nationals policies and basically were created to attract Territorian support for Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen’s bid to become PM. The Joh for PM campaign was a failure. He didn’t end up running and the campaign itself really only attracted support in Queensland.
Tuxworth was lnp before he was national. Think he was lnp leader at some stage
Ben, you might need to change the first psragraph of the ‘history’.
I wouldn’t discount the Labor candidate Lizzie Hogan. She seems to be a strong contender against Edgington. He won by 7 votes in 2020 and yes he is the incumbent so you would assume that there may be a higher percentage to him and he would win, however having a local indigenous woman with strong ties and family across the electorate might work to her and labor’s advantage and just pass edgington on votes
@NT perhaps Edgington will do very well in Tennant Creek and the Barkly Region and Hogan will do well in Borroloola (where she is from). Both Tennant Creek and Borroloola are Aboriginal-majority towns but are in vastly different locations.
Tennant Creek has been hit really really hard and it’s the local Aboriginals who are hit hardest. It’s regarded as the most dangerous town in Australia. The local Aboriginal population has high rates of crime, substance abuse, social dysfunction and endemic poverty. It’s been like this for decades but the recent crime crisis and the controversial watering down of alcohol laws for a brief period of time will hit hard in Tennant Creek.
Borroloola on the other hand while it has even more Aboriginal people than Tennant Creek it’s a lot safer and even though crime can occur it’s not as big. Borroloola is also a dry community so alcohol can only be drunken at licensed venues (pubs, hotels).
Crime has been bad in Tennant creek for decades… no government has ever been able to fix it
@Whoknows I get that but anyone who brings any sort of hope and change will get respect and votes. The CLP have campaigned in Tennant Creek, but I don’t think Labor has and I know the Greens haven’t either.
One thing that will really help the CLP retain this is the donkey vote. The CLP are first and Labor is second, and there are no other candidates. Indigenous voters in remote communities are the most likely demographic to donkey vote followed by first-generation migrants from CALD communities. The further you get from the city the higher the donkey vote is, which is true nationwide (rural seats have higher donkey votes though that doesn’t affect the conservatism of the seats in general).
CLP retain, but it almost certainly will be the most marginal non-gained CLP seat.
This will run close less than 52/48…. suspect lcl retain
I think this is the first seat that Labor needs to win back before any of the Darwin based seats the Remote seats are closest to a Labor heartland in NT. The CLP if popular maybe able to entrench themselves in Casurina etc.
Very close
But even minority govt requires some Darwin seats
I agree MQ Labor cannot win wthout some Darwin seats as well. However, if they can lock the CLP out of the indigenous vote that is a good first step.
@Nimalan Casuarina is a small-l-liberal seat and is quite affluent same as Fannie Bay. Nightcliff is more socially progressive and it’s the only seat that voted Yes to the Voice. Ironically I was just about to post my map of the Voice referendum but based on NT electorates.
Barkly includes Tennant Creek which is the main town in the electorate. Steve Edgington did really well in Tennant Creek this time. On TPP the CLP got 66.7% at the Tennant Creek election day booth and 55.7% at the Tennant Creek EVC (the latter of which was the bigger booth in terms of number of votes cast). Labor only won one booth this time, Mobile Team Barkly 1 (62.3% Labor TPP). The other mobile booths were won by the CLP, with the CLP’s TPP being 54.4% at Mobile Team Barkly 2 and 64.9% at Mobile Team Barkly 3. At the Alice Springs EVC it was 54.7% (despite Barkly being quite far from Alice Springs, there was still an EVC there).
Labor did quite bad in the socially liberal seats where the Yes vote for the Voice was over 45%, losing to either the CLP or the Greens. The results in Darwin have shown that Yes voters and No voters aren’t really partisan and that the suggestions that the Coalition will lose all of its small-l base or Liberals who voted Yes to Labor, teals and the Greens are inaccurate. While some certainly went that way, most stuck with the CLP and some Labor voters actually went to the CLP.
Labor also lost the working-class vote because of crime and the cost-of-living crisis. They lost Karama and Sanderson to the CLP because of these key issues. Casuarina, Fannie Bay and Wanguri on the other hand are affluent or middle-class seats. The same goes for Fong Lim and Port Darwin.