Welcome to the Tally Room’s guide to the 2024 Northern Territory election. This guide includes comprehensive coverage of each seat’s history, geography, political situation and results of the 2020 election.
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Table of contents:
Electorate profiles
Seat profiles have been produced all 25 Legislative Assembly electorates. You can use the following navigation to click through to each seat’s profile.
You can also use this map to find an electorate and view the seat guide.
Redistribution
A redistribution of electoral boundaries is conducted before every election.
The 2023 redistribution took longer than planned. A second draft needed to be conducted after a significant amount of growth in enrolment numbers in remote electorates. The process then needed to be restarted due to an error in officially announcing the original process.
No seats were abolished, created or renamed in this redistribution.
There were no significant shifts in electorates between regions – the number of seats in the Darwin-Palmerston area remained the same, and there was no changes to the border between urban and rural regions despite a significant imbalance in enrolment numbers.
The most significant shift was in the increasing population in the Palmerston area. Spillett was redrawn from a seat that was partly based in Palmerston into an entirely Palmerston-based seat, meaning that this city now includes four whole electorates.
There should be a word of caution about how redistribution margins are calculated.
There are very few local polling places used in the Northern Territory. Many seats only have one booth, and some don’t have a single booth. It is rare that a seat has two or three booths. Quite a few electorates have large shares of the vote cast via mobile polling teams, and we don’t have precise data on where those votes were cast. This makes it difficult to precisely determine which voters come from a particular part of an electorate when transferring a share of an electorate to a neighbouring seat.
In addition, the last election was conducted in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than half of the vote was cast via pre-poll, which also makes it hard to geolocate those voters.
So while I have estimated how margins have changed, it is more difficult to be precise than in other elections.
You can see a summary of the changes at this blog post, and the below map shows the changes between 2020 and 2024.
Contact
If you have a correction or an update for a single electorate page, feel free to post a comment. You can also send an email by using this form.
If you’d like me to include a candidate name or website link in my election guide, please check out my candidate information policy.
Is she preferencing Labor or the CLP?
I think the most likely result of the NT election is a CLP minority government.
Apart from retaining all its existing seats, the CLP should easily gain Blain, Port Darwin and Fong Lim from Labor. The CLP should also win Daly from Labor. Labor’s victory in the 2021 Daly by-election was due to higher turnout for mobile polling and lower turnout in urban areas closer to Darwin, an anomaly which should correct at the 2024 general election.
This will give the CLP 11 seats. To win 13 seats and form majority government, the CLP will need to win 2 of the 3 seats of Drysdale, Goyder and Araluen. All are challenging for the CLP to win.
Drysdale is held by the Chief Minister Eva Lawler. The fact that Eva Lawler is the first Labor MLA to win a second term in a Palmerston seat suggests she has a strong personal vote, which should be amplified by her elevation to the top job. Independent Belinda Kolstad is backed by the retiring MP Kezia Purick and has a strong chance of succeeding her and keep Goyder independent. As @oguh and many others have pointed out, Lambley should retain Araluen.
If the CLP wins none of the three seats mentioned above, it could still form a minority government with the support of independents Belinda Kolstad in Goyder and Robyn Lambley in Araluen, both of whom are former CLP members. There’s a strong chance that there will be no clear winner tonight because both major parties have won 11 seats, and no party will concede defeat tonight.
@Scart not sure all I know is she’s got CLP preferences to back her.
It’s election day! I’m still in Darwin and I’ll be reporting here live tonight as votes come in.
A lot of CLP and Greens signs in Port Darwin, so both parties are really having a crack at this key seat.
Burt the Psychic Croc, who predicted the last two Territory elections wrong (despite getting four of the past five federal elections right), predicted that Labor will win. Not sure how well this croc can predict Territory elections if he picked Adam Giles to win in 2016 though.
A CLP minority government seems to be a common prediction here on the Tally Room.
Polling opens at 8:00am ACST and closes at 6:00pm ACST.
Around 60,000 of the approximately 153,000 enrolled voters prepolled.
Questions:
1. Safest Labor seat after the election?
2. Safest CLP seat after the election?
3. Seat with the largest swing to Labor?
4. Seat with the largest swing to the CLP?
5. Labor seat with the smallest current margin to be retained by Labor?
@Nicholas:
1. Either Nightcliff or Sanderson, depending on if the Greens make the TCP in the former
2. Spillett
3. ?
4. Either Braitling or Katherine
5. Either Arnhem, Casuarina or Karama
More questions (with my answers):
1. Most marginal CLP seat? (Fannie Bay)
2. Most marginal Labor seat? (Arafura, Arnhem, Casuarina, Gwoja or Karama)
3. Most marginal independent seat? (Araluen or Karama)
4. Safest independent seat? (Mulka)
5. Will more or less independents get elected? Which ones will win and/or lose? (Karama is a potential gain)
6. Will the Greens win any seats? (No)
Territorians complained about the text messages from Labor, and the CLP made a whole big thing about it…. yet I’ve just received a text message from the CLP telling me how to vote on the election day
Speckles the Psychic Crocodile predicts a Labor victory and Sky News are losing it.
@caleb – lol what are they saying. It’s going to be a tight race no doubt about that
@Caleb Speckles predicted the CLP would win in 2016 and 2020. Perhaps he/she has a “curse” for Territory elections (similar to how Harry Kane can’t win a trophy in soccer).
Everyone who’s in the Territory who hasn’t voted yet and is eligible to, go out and do it now.
Results should come in fast, almost as quick as the Voice referendum, especially for Darwin, Palmerston and Alice booths. Each electorate is quite small and has few candidates, unlike at state elections.
@Votante Katherine should come in quick too. There are two election day booths in Katherine, located at the Katherine Central Shopping Centre and the Tindal Community Hall, with the former also being an early voting booth. Additionally, there is an urban mobile booth at Katherine Hospital.
1. Safest Labor seat after the election? (Nightcliff) Greens don’t make 2CP
2. Safest CLP seat after the election? (Katherine)
3. Seat with the largest swing to Labor? (Arafura)
4. Seat with the largest swing to the CLP? (Katherine)
5. Labor seat with the smallest current margin to be retained by Labor? (Fong Lim)
1. Most marginal CLP seat? (Drysdale)
2. Most marginal Labor seat? (Fong Lim)
3. Most marginal independent seat? (Araluen)
4. Safest independent seat? (Mulka)
5. Will more or less independents get elected? Which ones will win and/or lose? (Libs win back Goyder and Labor lose a seat to independent. Maybe Johnston or Karama?)
6. Will the Greens win any seats? (Yes Fannie Bay)
@Drake seems mostly reasonable.
Guesses. Alp retains Daly
Alp wins one of 2 ultra lnp marginal seats against the trend. Lnp wins Blain and Port Darwin. Eva Lawler retains Drysdale. …. the rest I don’t know. This I think equals minority government
I’d honestly write off Labor gaining Namatjira simply because it’s got parts of Alice Springs in it. Not only are they the more conservative suburbs, but Alice Springs is being hit very hard by crime.
The Greens are really trying this time. According to ABC News, they’ve raised $277,000 in donations compared to just $2,500. Adam Bandt is confident the Greens can win their first ever seat in the Territory.
The NT is the only jurisdiction in Australia to have never had a Greens politician elected to a federal or state/territory office.
The likely Greens victory in Fannie Bay gives them a parliamentarian in every state and territory parliament for the first time. It’s a big effort to win a seat, not only in the face of a lot of skepticism about the party winning a seat in the NT in general, but particularly in an election that has seen a big rightward shift.
@Wilson the spending increasing by over $200,000 probably helped since the main seats they targeted to get more votes in were Braitling in Alice Springs and Fannie Bay and Nightcliff in Darwin.
Yes, it does usually take money to win elections. You’d have to regard it as money well spent since they seem to have won one and made 2CP in the others.
If Fyles is victorious in Nightcliff, I wonder if she serves out the full term or resigns. A by-election would probably be more helpful to the Greens’ chances of taking the seat than if Fyles simply resigns at the next election.
@Wilson John (the user) predicted that if Natasha Fyles resigns the Greens would gain Nightcliff at the by-election. This seems likely given that Fyles is from the Left faction, the seat is left-leaning and the Labor vs Greens TCP there is only 54.1% for Labor. The only thing saving Labor is CLP preferences.
She may hang around until the Labor vote recovers because any by election would certainly be won by the greens when you remove personal votes. And given the greens are never in govt they rarely lose any votes and to my knowledge have never lost a seat
seeing how big the swings were i don’t think they are any safe seats in NT, if there are any then they’ll need to have almost a 3k vote majority to be considered safe/very safe?
Why do so many Greens have barrelled surnames? I get that the Greens main voter demographic is young white people in the inner-city but as we see with Suki Doolan-Walker and also Max Chandler-Mathers, Elizabeth Watson-Brown, etc. Is it like in America where some people put their maiden name and their married name in their surname and it’s become a trend or is it coincidental? Or are these surnames just more common among young white inner-city people?
@NP – Sorry for the correction, but
– Suki Dorras-Walker
– Max Chandler-Mather
It’s probably just a coincidence about the hyphenated surnames.
If you’re a Labor supporter and have been an apologist for the triangulation and Toryfication of nearly every branch and facet of the party in recent years, I don’t know how you’re not shitting yourself at these results. NT Labor has run a government that, more than any other, is practically indistinguishable from the Liberals, in both policy and rhetoric. It’s *completely* ignored its traditional interest groups in favour of corporate greed and white racism, only to be rewarded by seeing its constituency completely vanish before its eyes. Double digit swings against it in nearly every seat, both to the left and to the right (including some ludicrous swings in seats like Braitling, which conventional wisdom supposes the Greens have absolutely no business in whatsoever). The only Labor candidates that seem to have bucked that trend are the few Indigenous ALP representatives, not the usual upper-middle, likely white managerial class that Labor loves to parachute. Queensland’s government is even more toast than it already was but I honestly think federal ALP is in real danger of losing too.
@caleb hard to get a 3k vote majority in a seat with 6k voters…… yea safe in the nt means nothing a 20% margin is about 1200 votes…..
I expect Sanderson and casuarina will go back to Labor in 2028. Others may be defendable. This is where having the greens in fannie bay and independent in johnston helps lnp in the long run it makes the numbers harder for labor
2028 is simple for the CLP, if they lose Wanguri, Sanderson, Barkly and Casuarina they would be down to 12 seats so they would still form government under a minority. All they would have to do for 13 is hope Lambley retires and take her seat or win Daly off Labor.
Barkley would be a huge ask to hold on in 2028 considering it is likely to be the most marginal CLP seat, unlike Namjitara (Sorry if I can’t spell) Barkley did not swing.
They should hold wanguri in 2028
John, are you sure about that? Labor have held since 1989, they held it for the last 12 years of CLP dominance.
If the CLP fail to deliver on their promises and the crime situation doesn’t get any better, then I can see this reverting back to Labor.
@@daniel t by the time the next election rolls around Dutton will be in the lodge and hopefully hold Solomon and lingiari and helping out
I’m not sure if this will stay regardless. As Daniel T said, Labor have held it since 1989. However, I do trust that the CLP will deliver on their promises.
@Furtive Lawngnome
The Queensland Labor government has been very progressive, especially under Steven Miles’ leadership (things like the $1000 energy rebates, publicly owned renewable energy, progressive mining royalties, 50c public transport, support for abortion access, publicly owned fuel stations). While the LNP bang on about being “tough on crime”, QLD Labor has been focused on progressive cost-of living measures.
This is unlike NT Labor, which tried to beat the CLP on being “tough on crime,” and openly supported expanding gas projects etc.
I think this will mean that we won’t see massive swings from the ALP to The Greens in the inner-city. However it will be interesting to see what it does in the regions.
We can’t call the next election when the last one just happened though. It was only yesterday that the CLP won the election, so today we’re still talking about the election, analysing it, looking at what went right and wrong, bringing up facts about it and discussing the milestones made. Lia hasn’t even been sworn in yet.
If Lia needs advice for keeping power and good promises, how to fix the economy and crime and good ways to spend money, NSW had four Liberal Premiers who did just that and the Coalition held power there for 12 years.
@aa Labor will get wiped out in the regions they’ll hold Gladstone and maybe Cook because it’s a bush seat with a high aboriginal population
John, why will Dutton be in the lodge? He is historically unpopular.
Dutton would be the most right-wing PM in modern history and if he wins Labor would win an absolute nationwide landslide in 2028 or 2031, The cost of living will not improve and (spoiler) interest rates still would have risen if Morrison was still PM.
Albo is disappointing and arrogant but I don’t see how Dutton wins, he is a placeholder until the next coalition leader who will likely win an election.
The Teals would win 20 seats if Dutton finished a full term as PM. The climate wars will start again (they never exactly ended)
If the coalition wants to win federally they need to be a Lia Finnochiaro that has worked here in the NT, moderate, sensible and has a clear plan.
Nuclear Power, not going for 2050 climate targets, cutting the NDIS will be the longest suicide note in history for Dutton, he is the right-wing Michael Foot.
@danie l t because the 2028 federal election will. Take place before the nt election
@Daniel T didn’t you previously criticise Lia for not being competent enough and lacking a clear plan?
Also, nuclear power is supported by most according to polls. The others I agree with, we need net zero targets, we need the NDIS and we need a moderate, sensible leader with a clear plan like Lia or David Crisafulli or the NSW Premiers.
I would’ve much rather preferred Scott Morrison over Peter Dutton.
I’ve met Peter Dutton and the man is not the person he is portrayed as in the media. Labor and the media portray him as lord voldemort but he’s another closer to album dumbledore
NP, I take my comments about Lia back, I mainly sources my criticism of the party itself and not it’s leadership as I read about their history and I believe they have more ties to the former country party (hence its name) which is known to be much more conservative than the Liberal party.
John, but what about the policies I mentioned? How are they supposed to win over the seats you need to take government? And what happens if the cost of living worsens under a coalition government?
Truthfully I blame Ukraine and the USA for the financial instability we have right now and the government of the day here in Australia will always take the blame for what they can’t control. That is why I don’t blame Morrison for interest rate rises because it wasn’t in his control, the 2 men responsible are named Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden.
Col is caused by inflation inflation is caused by spending and one of the biggest spenders are governments. I guarantee you they will have the seats they need to take govt by 2028 if they had those 8 soon to be 7 teal seats I’d back them in to win government at the next election
@Daniel T don’t you mean the US and Russia? Vladimir Putin is the President of Russia and he’s the one responsible for the illegal invasion of the innocent nation of Ukraine resulting in the slaughter of Ukrainian soldiers and, worst of all, innocent Ukrainian citizens. Which is why at the US elections I will be endorsing against any Putinist candidates, which includes many of the more extreme MAGA Republicans in the Freedom Caucus.
@John you do have a point about how a cost-of-living crisis is created. Also, which teal seat do you think will be lost: Curtin or Kooyong? I know you (and I, and others) mentioned those two before as possible losses.
I think kooyong and Curtin will be won this time around with mackellar as an outside chance if the libs get the right candidate I think if the others prop up a Labor minority govt the libs will be in a strong position next time.
@John Mackellar had the lowest Yes vote for the Voice out of all the teal seats (it barely voted Yes). Similarly, the Yes vote in Curtin had the second-lowest out of all the teal seats, but still the second-highest in WA after Perth.
If Kooyong is lost it’ll only be because of the “unpopular member, popular candidate” phenomenon. If Curtin goes it’ll be a correction from the massive swing across the Perth metropolitan area last time.
Facts about the NT electorates (looking at the ABS):
* Poorest: Gwoja (annual income: $70,534)
* Richest: Spillett (annual income: $146,764)
More to come.
Spillett is the richest in Palmerston and the entire Territory (since it’s based of the 2021 census and thus old boundaries when it was an outer suburban seat perhaps the military base is why, and that’s been transferred into Fong Lim and Spillett is now an inner suburban seat), while the richest in Darwin is the outer suburban seat of Wanguri. The richest in Alice Springs is Araluen, while outside the major urban areas the richest is Nelson.
All the poorest seats are remote seats, obviously.
More stats:
Indigenous population:
* Most Indigenous: Arafura (82.6%)
* Least Indigenous: Nightcliff (7.3%)
English spoken at home:
* Most Anglophone: Goyder (81.5%)
* Least Anglophone: Arafura (15.3%)
According to the ABC, two seats are still in doubt, and the Greens are in the TCP count in both.
The Greens are narrowly ahead of the CLP in Fannie Bay. Suki Dorras-Walker currently has 51.1% of the TCP vote, leading the CLP’s Laurie Zio by 86 votes. Today the difference between the two candidates narrowed, so it may narrow even further tomorrow. Because of this, I’m not going to call it yet despite 66.8% of the vote being counted, but I am prepared to say that the CLP will continue to have the most first preferences and it will be very hard for Labor to finish second.
Meanwhile, in Nightcliff, Natasha Fyles has 54.1% of the TCP vote and is leading the Greens’ Kat McNamara by 304 votes. The gap has remained basically the same all day. With 63.6% counted and nothing to suggest any other result, I’m going to call Nightcliff for Labor. However, it is still unclear whether the CLP or the Greens will finish second.
@ NP
Is Barkly and Namatijara the only majority indigenous CLP electorates? Darwin based seats such as Nightcliff will have a lower indigenous % but a higher CALD community which is why they are not the most Anglophone seats.