ALP 16.2%
Incumbent MP
Chansey Paech, since 2020. Previously member for Namatjira 2016-2020.
Geography
Outback. Gwoja covers a massive western part of the Northern Territory. The seat stretches from the Victoria River in the north, runs down the Western Australian border covering western parts of the NT outback, all the way to the South Australian border.
Redistribution
Gwoja expanded north to take in part of Daly.
The electorate of Stuart had existed from the first Northern Territory assembly election in 1974 until 2020, when it was renamed “Gwoja”. The seat was held by Labor continuously from 1983 to 2012.
Roger Vale won Stuart for the Country Liberal Party from 1974 until 1983, when he moved to the new Alice Springs-based seat of Braitling. He held Braitling until his retirement in 1994.
Labor’s Brian Ede won Stuart in 1983. He held the seat until 1996, leading Labor to the 1994 election.
Peter Toyne won Stuart for Labor at the 1996 by-election. He held the seat for the next ten years, serving as a minister in the Labor government from 2001 to 2006, when he resigned from Parliament.
Labor’s Karl Hampton won the 2006 by-election. He was re-elected in 2008, but lost in a shock result in 2012, with an 18.6% swing electing the Country Liberal Party’s Bess Price.
Price held Stuart for one term, losing in 2016 to Labor’s Scott McConnell. McConnell was excluded from the Labor caucus in 2018 after criticising the government, and he resigned from the party in 2019 to sit as an independent.
The renamed seat of Gwoja was won in 2020 by Labor MP Chansey Paech, who had held the neighbouring seat of Namatjira for one term.
Assessment
Gwoja is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist % |
| Chansey Paech | Labor | 1,612 | 60.6 | -2.1 | 60.2 |
| Phillip Alice | Country Liberal | 702 | 26.4 | +3.9 | 26.0 |
| Kenny Lechleitner | Federation | 344 | 12.9 | +12.9 | 12.3 |
| Others | 1.5 | ||||
| Informal | 148 | 5.3 |
2020 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist % |
| Chansey Paech | Labor | 1,760 | 66.2 | -7.1 | 66.2 |
| Phillip Alice | Country Liberal | 898 | 33.8 | +7.1 | 33.8 |
Booth breakdown
No ordinary election day booths were used in Gwoja in 2020. Almost two thirds of the vote was cast through mobile polling teams. Labor polled almost 70% of the two-party-preferred vote amongst these voters. The Labor vote was much smaller amongst the other votes, which includes absent and postal votes, but also did very well on the pre-poll vote.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Mobile | 69.5 | 1,934 | 65.2 |
| Other votes | 52.1 | 580 | 19.6 |
| Pre-poll | 70.6 | 452 | 15.2 |
Polling places surrounding Gwoja at the 2020 NT election
Both major party candidates are Aboriginal (which makes sense given that this electorate is one of the majority-minority seats in the Territory, with a majority of the population being Aboriginal).
I think Labor will win this but there should be a big swing to the CLP, at least based on federal results in Lingiari in 2022.
Nether Portal, Did this seat vote YES or NO to the voice?
@Daniel T it’s hard to tell since it hasn’t got any actual election day booths, only remote booths. I think this one voted Yes but I do know that Namatjira voted No.