IND 6.8% vs CLP
Incumbent MP
Kezia Purick, since 2008.
Geography
Regional areas in north-western Northern Territory. Goyder covers rural areas to the east of Darwin, including Bees Creek and Humpty Doo.
History
The electorate of Goyder has existed since 1990. The seat has generally been dominated by the Country Liberal Party, although the current MP has retained the seat twice as an independent.
The CLP’s Terry McCarthy won Goyder in 1990. McCarthy had held the seat of Victoria River since 1983. He saw off a challenge from the Nationals’ Ian Tuxworth, a former CLP leader who had held Barkly since 1974.
McCarthy held Goyder until his retirement in 2001, when he was succeeded by Peter Maley.
Maley was kicked out of the Country Liberal Party shortly before the 2005 election, and retired. The seat was won by Labor’s Ted Warren as part of Labor’s landslid victory.
Warren only lasted one term, losing in 2008 to the CLP’s Kezia Purick.
Purick served as a shadow minister in her first term. After the 2012 election, she was dropped from the frontbench and elected as Speaker. She resigned from the CLP in 2015, and after that was able to resist an attempt to remove her as Speaker.
Purick was re-elected as an independent MP in 2016, and was retained as Speaker despite the new Labor government winning a massive majority. She resigned as Speaker in June 2020 after a finding of corrupt conduct by the ICAC, but still won another term at the 2020 election as an independent.
- Andrew Mackay (Country Liberal)
- Sandy Griffin (Labor)
- Trevor Jenkins (Independent)
- Belinda Kolstad (Independent)
- Mathew Salter (Independent)
Assessment
Purick has held Goyder for a long time, but doesn’t hold it by a huge margin. If the CLP has a good election they could win here.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Kezia Purick | Independent | 1,459 | 31.1 | -23.9 |
| Phil Battye | Country Liberal | 1,289 | 27.5 | +7.2 |
| Rachael Wright | Territory Alliance | 614 | 13.1 | +13.1 |
| Mick Taylor | Labor | 590 | 12.6 | -6.4 |
| Pauline Cass | Independent | 283 | 6.0 | +6.0 |
| Ted Warren | Independent | 249 | 5.3 | +5.3 |
| Karen Fletcher | Greens | 147 | 3.1 | -1.0 |
| Trevor Jenkins | Independent | 64 | 1.4 | +1.4 |
| Informal | 189 | 3.9 |
2020 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Kezia Purick | Independent | 2,665 | 56.8 | -18.5 |
| Phil Battye | Country Liberal | 2,030 | 43.2 | +18.5 |
Booth breakdown
There were two ordinary polling places in Goyder in 2020.
Purick won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in both, with 54.6% in Humpty Doo and 63.5% in Bees Creek.
Almost 70% of the vote was cast at pre-poll booths, and Purick polled 57.5% of the 2CP on the pre-poll.
| Voter group | IND 2CP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Pre-poll | 57.5 | 3,411 | 69.8 |
| Other votes | 52.4 | 680 | 13.9 |
| Humpty Doo | 54.6 | 529 | 10.8 |
| Bees Creek | 63.5 | 264 | 5.4 |
Polling places surrounding Goyder at the 2020 NT election
Sitting independent MP Kezia Purick isn’t contesting in 2024, and with a 6.8% margin I predict the CLP should gain this seat.
With Andrew Mackay (CLP) a good chance of gaining Goyder for CLP, I predict that will help the opposition get to 11 seats, Labor manages 11 (maybe 12 at best) with the remaining 2-3 seats being independents. If Arnhem, Araluen and Mulka end up as independents, who are the independents likely to side with if the majors end up with 11 a piece? The Bookies seem to think CLP will get up, but I’m guessing a minority government is on the cards. Thoughts?
easy clp gain. new poll yesterday 54-46 to the CLP
Mark, I see the following seats as definite or near certain gains for the CLP: Port Darwin, Fong Lim, Blain and Goyder. I also expect the CLP to win at least one of these close contests: Drysdale, Arnhem, Arafura and Daly.
Therefore, the CLP will have at least 12 with 2 independents. There is greater chance of CLP winning a majority outright so even if the CLP fall short with 12, they will be in a stronger position to form government.
@yoh an arnhem will be a labor vs ind probably. Fannie Bay also posslble for CLP. il bet on CLP majority
At John, who conducted the poll? You have a link please? With a 54-46 being a nasty swing for the government, along with a fresh cabinet, civil unrest, inflation etc on the cards it would seem a 13 seat majority for CLP is looking likely. The x factor will be how many seats swing from Labor to Independents rather than CLP picking up the seats.
Fyles and Lawler are deeply unpopular. The CLP would form government easily. Eva Lawler should be scared about losing her own seat of Drysdale given the redistribution reducing her seat’s margin from fairly safe to marginal, plus the seat’s history (only one other Labor member has ever won Drysdale, and that was former Aussie rules player Chris Natt in 2005 when Labor won a landslide but he lost the seat in 2008).
This will be an easy gain too since Kezia Purick (the ex-CLP independent who currently holds this seat) is retiring. Plus it’s a rural seat and the CLP have always done very well up in the rural areas around Darwin and Palmerston (e.g Howard Springs and Humpty Doo), hence why they hold Nelson quite comfortably and always have.
This definitely leans towards being a CLP gain, however the main thing keeping me from locking it in as one is that the outgoing incumbent Kezia Purick has thrown her endorsement behind another independent, Belinda Kolstad, which could complicate things.
Oguh, true but with 2020 in the adjacent seat of Nelson I believe retiring independent MP Gerry Wood endorsed Beverley Ratahi as new independent candidate. She failed to get elected and the CLP gained the seat instead.
As a result, I do see the CLP favoured to gain Goyder but probably by a narrow margin (max 10%, probably around 5-7% similar to the 2CP result in Nelson for 2020).
@mark https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=430958799674398
@John Thank you for the FB link.
Suspect lnp is still on the nose. .. if the pudits here are correct what happens
Also seats here have 4000 odd voters this means a swing against the sitting mp is unlikely.
@Michael Quinlivan the sitting MP for Goyder is ex-CLP-now-independent MP Kezia Purick who is retiring.
CLP will gain Goyder either way as Belinda Kolstad was seeking preselection for the CLP not even 6 months ago. When she was dumped for Andrew MacKay, she suddenly realised she was an Independent living in urban Palmerston. In fact, I wonder if the CLP actually planned it that way.
I don’t think Kezia’s candidates preference will go towards the CLP as the Australian Christian lobby has announced that the clo has told them they’ll pass legislation tlthat if a foetus is born alive in a ‘failed abortion’ it must be given life saving treatment. Check out her FB
Not sure why but the CLP HTV card here has a “true local” badge on it. This is not the case for other seats.
The HTV card:
1. CLP
2. Salter
3. Kolstad
4. Jenkins
5. Labor