Braitling – NT 2024

Should be a safe CLP retain, although Labor has preselected a strong candidate in Allison Bitar. Burgoyne should benefit from a sophomore surge and hardwork over the past four years.

Burgoyne is widely seen as a lemon within the electorate, he was lucky in 2020 as he benefitted from a backlash against NT Labor’s backflip on fracking & youth detention, represented by their candidate Dale Wakefield, which is an ongoing dissatisfaction that will extend to Alison Bitar to some extent at least. Meanwhile, the Greens performed extremely well in the local council by-election, and are running the strongest campaign thus far, including an extensive door knocking campaign. It’s not hard to see this being CLP vs Greens 2PP. Additionally, the youth crime panic in town is likey to translate into a backlash against both CLP & NT Labor, as voters are fed up with the persistence with tough-on-crime policies, and the demonisation of the town in the media which is impacting tourism, which is a large industry for small businesses, which have taken a hit after the US investment withdrew from the Bonza airline.

Agree with previous comment. People in this town are sick and tired of the major parties who have let us down and the Greens are offering a strong alternative. Could be Greens and CLP as the top two.

This is a seat that could go two ways:
1. CLP have a violent swing to them, Labor drops dead, and the Greens get over 20%, and have a good chance of making 2PP. This is very likely a CLP hold, and what I personally feel is what will happen.

2. CLP have a no swing, or even lose this seat perhaps. Why is say that is essentially what Slumbi said: Alice Springs has been made to look like some apocalyptic, crime-ridden wasteland in the middle of the desert. Labor has done the bare minimum of some curfews, while the CLP has planned for much sterner police presence and in general more control. Yes, you have a lot of residents who are fed up with the youth crime crisis, and want some solution to it, but you also think for business owners and tourist operators who want action. They are sick of their town being made of a martyr.

What I think happens here is that the CLP vote holds or grows, but also as Slumbi said, the Greens have made a lot of noise in Alice Springs. Door knocking has been big for them, and they aren’t wasting a cent. This is a seat where I don’t think they’ll win, but if Labor’s vote holds up or at least CLP’s drops very low, this could be a shock Labor or even Green gain, which would probably be the nail in the coffin for the CLP.

But you still have a lot of people who lean CLP: Braitling is still a conservative voting electorate, aside from the blip in 2016. This will be intriguing on August 24.

Agree James. Sky News narratives about crime may not actually be driving up conservative sentiment on the ground. It’s possible “tough on crime” plays well here, but also possible that the locals don’t like the way conservatives are using their town as a political football.

Labor won the booths in 2022 at the federal level and Greens did very well too. This is one of the Greens target seats with door knocking, though there are barriers to door knocking in areas with high crime (fences and dogs). Still, I have no reason to doubt reports they have momentum here

Hard to see CLP forming government if they can’t even hang on to the seat of their most recent Chief Minister.

May be interesting implications for the QLD election if youth crime doesn’t have the expected effect on votes here – could mean the Townsville 3 aren’t write offs.

I remember in the lead-up to the 2008 election, 10-year-old me spotted a billboard along what must have been either the Stuart Highway or Tiger Brennan Drive that read “Labor: soft on crime”. I asked my father to explain.

Over 15 years later, and it seems not much has changed.

I still feel even with the Greens putting a big campaign in they won’t win. I find it odd they are targeting Alice Springs seats, compared to seats like Casuarina and Johnston which have quite high Green primary votes, both of which higher than the Alice Springs seats.

I do find it remarkable they are only contesting 4/25 NT seats. It is odd but in a way smart, as they can allocate a lot of resources to these candidates, rather than having to divvy up by 25, and run a lot of paper candidates, similar to how the QLD Greens in 2020 ran some Brisbane Council candidates in rural seats (e.g. Condamine, Lockyer, Callide, etc.) They are all incredibly unwinnable, and hell would need to freeze over for the Greens to win there.

Regarding Alice Springs, The Greens can probably make some inroads with aboriginals as well as the Eastern parts of Alice Springs where Charles Darwin University is located but might not resonate with non-aborignals due to issues like crime issues which increases distrust on Progressives managing safety and Indignous policy. Interestingly for the Voice Referendum, the Yes vote did better in pre-poll than the on-day polling booths probably due to many Aboriginals from nearby towns working so they vote early (mostly Vote Yes).

@John As someone who lives in Townsville, they are complete write off’s. And while I wouldn’t give the election to the CLP just yet, I would definitely consider them favourites.

@James – NT doesn’t publicly fund election candidates (there’s no getting your deposit back) so Greens don’t do their usual practice of standing in every seat.

They recently announced candidates for Port Darwin and Johnston but seems like they’ve hyper focused on 4 seats. The 2 in Darwin are areas where Greens do well and with controversial ALP incumbents, and Fannie Bay is a 3 corner contest.

The 2 Alice Springs seats must be part of a genuine grassroots movement there (I think focusing on Town council? Haven’t broken through there yet either though). But Greens got some great booth results in 2022 Federal

@John – Ah ok. Thank you for explaining that. I’m not at all familiar with election funding guidelines, especially those in the NT.

And also thanks for pointing out how the Greens have announced candidates. I had heard no update on it, and mostly heard that it was the original 4 seats were the only ones being contested by them.

CLP retain with a margin of at least 14%. Katherine should be about 16%. Eva Lawler isn’t popular outside Darwin and Natasha Fyles was even worse. The thing that helped Labor in 2020 in Braitling and Katherine was Michael Gunner’s popularity combined with the COVID incumbency factor and a smallish recovery. It’s the same as how Blue Mountains and Newcastle were won by Labor in 2015 in NSW on 57% margins when they are usually (and are now) safe Labor seats that aren’t in play (but the Liberals won both of those in 2011).

The Greens candidate Asta Hill is a local who is a lawyer for Legal Aid and very well liked, she may prove to be better option for people in that electorate. I think they’ve poured a lot of resources into her for a reason. Will she get up, who knows but she’s popular

@Whoknows some of your opinions are ridiculous. The Greens are never going to win a regional seat where there isn’t a substantial hippie population who vote Greens because they think they’re just an environmentalist party that supports legalising weed, when in reality they want economically unsustainable climate action and are the main proponents of wokeism in this country. These aren’t issues that appeal to voters outside the inner-city.

@netherportal that’s quite rude. You’re not from the NT, and I’m just stating things that I’ve heard from people in Alice Springs. There is nothing wrong is stating what some people have said. You’re opinions have shown you’re very for the CLP despite not being from here. And that’s fine. There is nothing wrong with the greens running for a seat. You don’t live here, so why does it matter to you

@NP – You touch on a good point: Alice Springs isn’t a progressive town. It’s rural, small-population, and heavily reliant on tourism.

But even as a Liberal supporter the Greens aren’t just the whole ‘climate social justice warrior’ party. In Alice Springs, people are seeing them as an alternative to a town that has been demonised by the media. Alice Springs has been basically been the stadium for a game of political football by Labor and the CLP. I think some Alice Springs residents believe none of the major parties will take action on youth crime: Labor is too soft, the CLP to an extent is hard, which is beneficial to everyone. Some people will vote Greens as an alternative because they want someone in the centre who will work for them, and not to continue the demonisation of a town smaller than some Sydney & Melbourne suburbs.

I still predict a CLP swing to put it into the safe seat category.

@james you’re right, some people may vote greens as alternative. That doesn’t mean they’ll get in, it will just be interesting to see who people vote for.

I should’ve rephrased sorry.

I don’t think they’ll ever win this seat. They could finish second (they have before), but they won’t win. Alice Springs isn’t a progressive city.

The Greens are never going to win a regional seat where there isn’t a substantial hippie population, except that time they won Cunningham. Wokeism!!!

The Greens won two terms for the directly elected mayor of Shoalhaven, and also worth noting the UK Greens won two very much not hippie regional areas in the UK election when they emerged as the strongest non Tory force.

They have their ways to appeal to all kinds of voters including the historically Nat voting country towns in the Ballina electorate and the semi rural areas in Ryan. It just hasn’t yet been worth it yet for Greens to resource a winnable seat campaign if they don’t have a core of volunteers in the seat (which usually means students, hippies or renters) and a narrative that the seat is winnable.

For whatever reason, Greens can get well into the 20s primary vote in Alice Springs. They are pushing an alternative to the bipartisan “tough on crime, lock everyone up” narrative from the majors, and seem to have a solid volunteer base and strong candidate. You also have the widely Lambley pushing an anti major party narrative in Araluen and she’s the favourite to win.

Still a likely CLP retain, but Greens are by no means a write off.

Also not a write off in federal Newcastle or Cunningham either. The larger Regional centres in NSW and VIC, within “short trip” range of the capitals, are attracting younger voters priced out of the capitals, and they bring their “wokeism” (whatever that means) with them.

@Wilson Cunningham is not a regional seat. Wollongong has nearly 300,000 people. It’s nearly as big as the Central Coast or the Sunshine Coast. In fact it’s bigger than Hobart.

@John Newcastle is definitely not regional. Greater Newcastle has almost 600,000 people which is more than Tasmania.

Nether Portal, it’s a regional seat by virtue of not being located in the capital city of its state. I would classify Wollongong as a regional city, but not metropolitan.

Wilson, I think with the rapid expansion of all the state capitals then areas that were once considered ‘regional’ like Newcastle and Wollongong should now be considered as part of the wider metropolitan region.

This is the case with Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast which are essentially extensions of Brisbane, so technically Newcastle and Wollongong should also be seen in this manner. Also places like Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo should probably be seen as extensions of the Melbourne metropolitan area, due to close linkages in terms of commuter trains between them.

Although I think distance wise may not be a fair comparison, so Newcastle being almost 200 km from Sydney CBD should be seen as a distinct regional centre/city, similar to Bendigo and its connection with Melbourne being much looser compared to Geelong/Ballarat.

@ Yoh An
It is very hard to say what is regional. Is Shepperton or Toowoomba regional they are not to far from their capital cities yet Conservative cities. A lot of people say Bendigo is not regional but people there dont feel part of Melbourne and it is not part of a continuous urban area with Melbourne either.

Agree Nimalan, it is hard to define the exact transition point from metropolitan to rural. A better definition would be for Australia to use ‘significant urban areas’ like the US, where you have a single metropolitan region spanning a large area. By this definition – Newcastle, Wollongong and the Blue Mountains would fall under the Sydney metropolitan region with Toowoomba being part of Brisbane. At the same time, you would also have city limits that mark out the extents of each city within that metropolitan area, so Sydney’s limits would correspond to the area bounded by Emu Plains, Berowra, Campbelltown and Heathcote.

@ Yoh An

Agree with you normally when we talk about city limits it would be as you described it. What is interesting is there is often semi-rural green wedge areas which are in metro LGA such as Maroota, Wisemans Ferry, Glenorie, Mulgoa in Sydney or Narre Warren East & North, Harkaway, Wonga Park, Upper Beaconsfield, Werribee South in Melbourne which are very conservative. I live in Mannigham while i live in the suburban majority CALD part i only need to Drive 5 km for it to change and become rural and very Anglo and i notice a very big difference even though the SES remains the same.

@NP – You have to remember the NT population is only forecasted around 257,000 this year. Alice Springs makes up about 10% of that population, and is the second most populated city in the NT after Darwin-Palmerston. It’s very significant as a city, and has developed a unique geographical, cultural and demographic base. Yes, the population is small, but proportionally it’s very significant in making up the population of the Territory.

And just because Alice Springs is conservative, the Greens are using the whole ‘tough on crime’ stance by CLP & Labor to force the narrative on providing an alternative. They aren’t campaigning on the war in the Middle East or the housing crisis, they are campaigning on giving a third choice for Alice Springs, especially with crime.

@Yoh An the ABS already does split our cities into significant urban areas (SUAs), and Greater Capital City Statistical Areas (GCCSAs), however they’re not as wide-scoping as your suggestion. The Sydney GCCSA does include the Central Coast and Blue Mountains but not Newcastle or Wollongong for example. My only qualm with their definitions is that I think the Gold Coast is nearing the point it should be considered part of the Brisbane GCCSA.

As for the debate regarding what is regional and what isn’t, I’m quite sure residents of Toowoomba and Shepparton wouldn’t even consider that people from elsewhere might believe they’re not regional.

I think it’s increasingly difficult to draw a hard line between regional and metropolitan areas especially in the case of SEQ. I have seen the state government here in QLD in the past claim they’ve expanded regional services or funded something and when you bother to read into it, most of their promises were allocated to the Gold/Sunshine Coasts, and the vast majority of regional people wouldn’t even consider they were referring to them as well.

@Yoh An no that’s not what I’m saying. Greater Newcastle is its own urban area. It is not a regional area, but rather a metropolitan area.

I classify there being six major megametropolitan areas in Australia, each with at least 800,000 residents:

* Greater Sydney
* Greater Melbourne
* South East Queensland
* Greater Perth
* Greater Adelaide
* Greater Newcastle

A real example of a major regional city is somewhere like Mackay, Rockhampton, Albury-Wodonga, Bundaberg or Coffs Harbour. They all have over 70,000 people and are hours away from the nearest capital city.

Yoh An, I strongly disagree. The Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast may be geographically close to Brisbane, but culturally they are very distinct. If residents of either of those places were talking to someone else anywhere in Australia, they’re hardly likely to say they’re from Brisbane. I’m less familiar with other states, but I would imagine people from Newcastle and Wollongong are similarly unlikely to say they’re from Sydney, or people from Bendigo and Ballarat to say they’re from Melbourne. I’m sure they would vocally identify more with their states over their capital city, whereas I could see someone from Campbelltown, Narre Warren or Logan doing the opposite.

I’m not basing this view purely on voting record, as some of those regional cities generally vote differently to their capital city, while others vote similarly. Rather, I’m basing it on the ABS’ definition of urban areas, and also where the impact of citywide infrastructure projects will reach. I can’t imagine the Suburban Rail Loop has much effect on people living in Ballarat, nor Westconnex on Newcastle.

I think there isn’t an exact transition point from metropolitan to rural, because there’s an entire category in between: regional cities. I’d put the rough benchmark at about a million for where a place moves from being a regional city to a true metropolis.

@ Wilson
I agree with you maybe if someone from Caloundra moved to London as part of a working holiday they will tell people they are originally from the Brisbane surrounds but i agree when talking to another Australian they will mention they are from the Sunshine Coast.

@Wilson so in your definition Canberra, Hobart and Darwin are regional cities? They are all smaller than both the Gold Coast and Newcastle.

Newcastle has an international stadium that could host a FIFA World Cup match, an international airport, over a hundred suburbs within three local government areas, several train and tram stations, one of NSW’s major hospitals, etc. A true regional centre has none of these things.

I grew up in the regions. Newcastle was always considered a city.

Not being in the capital doesn’t mean anything because in that definition Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Fresno would be “regional” (though the term isn’t used in the US from my knowledge, I never heard any American use it) because even though they are large cities, the capital of California is Sacramento. I on the other hand would count them as metropolitan.

Newcastle also has its own sports teams and has a skyscraper. No regional city has skyscrapers.

Nether Portal, yes, in my mind those are all regional cities. The difference between a regional city and a major metropolitan area isn’t standardised so far as I know, so we can all have different opinions on what they are. And I’d argue Townsville is a regional city that also has a stadium that can host a World Cup match, an international airport, a large number of suburbs, a major hospital and skyscrapers.

This isn’t the US so I don’t know why it’s relevant. The population pattern in the US is very different. Our states tend to be focused around one major city where the capital is located.

I don’t know what it means, but Braitling increased its enrolment by 50 voters between July and the close of rolls on August 2. That’s the second highest increase after Brennan where I suspect there’s new housing in a growth area of Palmerston, most seats just bounced around.

That’s very interesting about registered voters. Braitlings boundary area hasn’t changed so it means more people have registered to vote

@Whoknows I’d say it’s an uptick in Aboriginal registration. Indigenous people make up 20.5% of this seat’s population (compared to 14.4% in the other Alice Springs-based seat of Araluen).

Yes, I knew that

The CLP have preferenced the Greens last. And because the candidate order is CLP, Labor, Greens that means the CLP HTV card is also a donkey vote HTV card.

Why would any party encourage their own voters to donkey vote?

@Scart they aren’t intentionally, but because in this case the CLP are first, Labor are second and the Greens are third, a voter who follows the CLP HTV card (something I would do if I were in Braitling) would be doing the same vote as a donkey voter, since a donkey vote is where you number each candidate in the order they appear on the ballot paper.

Ah so the vote would still count, and wouldn’t be the same as drawing a dick on your paper

@Scart correct. If someone put a one in every box then that would be an informal vote (as would drawing a dick on your ballot paper without numbering any candidates) but if you number them in the order they are shown it still counts because of cases like this where a voter could legitimately want to preference them in that order.

You’re thinking of an informal vote. A donkey vote is when you number all the boxes in ballot order, which is formal.

And of course it’s entirely possible for someone to genuinely cast a vote that happens to be a donkey vote, particularly when there are fewer candidates, as in many NT seats.

If there’s 10 candidates on a ballot, it’s much less plausible that someone would genuinely prefer the candidates in that order. But on the other hand, you could genuinely rank the 2-3 candidates who can win in a genuine order and donkey vote the rest and it would have the effect of expressing your genuine preference.

I suspect this will be THE most polarised electorate in the country after tonight.
I think Braitling (2012) is the only state/territory/federal seat one could reasonably class as “socially conservative” that has ever gone to a Lib/Nat vs Green 2pp (while labor was also running), and I think Greens will make 2pp here.
(Clarification: I would NOT class NSW State Lane Cove or Davidson as socially conservative. Those 2 probably would be the next most socially conservative seats to ever return a Lib/Nat vs Green 2pp.)

@Leon

That’s something I haven’t thought of. The Greens almost made the 2CP in Glass House in QLD 2012 which would of been a strong contender. They also nearly did in Kimberley 2013. What about Lismore? They nearly won that seat and that seat is kind of socially conservative.

@Leon

The Greens made the 2CP in Oxley in NSW 2011. That’s got to be up there.

@Leon the Greens vote here mostly comes from the uni campus at Sadadeen.