CLP 0.3%
Incumbent MP
Bill Yan, since 2020.
Geography
Central Australia, including parts of Alice Springs. The electorate stretches to the South Australian and Queensland border, but a majority of its electors live within the Alice Springs town borders, including Flynn, Larapinta, Undoolya, Ilparpa, Ross and Arumbera.
History
The electorate of Namatjira has existed since 2012, but was a new name for the seat of MacDonnell, which had been created for the first NT assembly election in 1974, and existed until it was renamed in 2012. MacDonnell usually elected Labor candidates, but had been won by the Country Liberal Party on a number of occasions.
MacDonnell was first won in 1974 by the CLP’s Dave Pollock. Pollock was defeated in 1977 by Labor’s Neville Perkins. Perkins was re-elected in 1980, and resigned in 1981.
Labor’s Neil Bell held MacDonnell from 1981 until 1997, when he was succeeded by the CLP’s John Elferink.
Elferink held MacDonnell for two terms, and served on the opposition frontbench after the CLP lost the 2001 election.
Elferink lost in 2005 to Labor’s Alison Anderson. Elferink later returned as member for Port Darwin from 2008, and currently serves as a minister in the Country Liberal government.
Anderson won re-election in 2008, but in 2009 she resigned from Labor. She ended up joining the Country Liberal Party in 2011, and was re-elected as the member for the renamed seat of Namatjira at the 2012 election.
Anderson ended up leaving the CLP and forming the Northern Territory branch of the Palmer United Party in 2014, along with two other indigenous MPs. The PUP project didn’t last long, and Anderson served the last two years of her term as an independent.
Anderson retired in 2016, and the seat was won by Labor’s Chansey Paech.
Paech held Namatjira for one term, moving to the seat of Gwoja in 2020.
The CLP’s Bill Yan narrowly won Namatjira in 2020.
Assessment
Namatjira is a very marginal seat, although Yan will benefit from incumbency in 2020.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Bill Yan | Country Liberal | 1,066 | 29.6 | -14.0 |
| Sheralee Taylor | Labor | 977 | 27.1 | -8.2 |
| Matt Paterson | Territory Alliance | 809 | 22.4 | +22.4 |
| Catherine Satour | Federation | 344 | 9.5 | +9.5 |
| Nikki Mccoy | Greens | 279 | 7.7 | -1.5 |
| Tony Willis | Independent | 131 | 3.6 | +3.6 |
| Informal | 180 | 4.8 |
2020 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Bill Yan | Country Liberal | 1,814 | 50.3 | -1.7 |
| Sheralee Taylor | Labor | 1,792 | 49.7 | +1.7 |
Booth breakdown
There were three ordinary polling places in Namatjira in 2020.
The CLP narrowly won in Larapinta and won a large majority in Kalgariff, while the ALP won over 60% in Alice Springs.
The mobile polling teams were very strong for Labor, with 82.1% of the two-party-preferred vote.
Almost half of the vote was cast at pre-poll, and the CLP polled 55.6% of the two-party-preferred vote at pre-poll.
| Voter group | CLP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Pre-poll | 55.6 | 1,873 | 49.5 |
| Other votes | 53.4 | 747 | 19.7 |
| Mobile | 17.9 | 406 | 10.7 |
| Larapinta | 51.9 | 389 | 10.3 |
| Alice Springs | 38.5 | 191 | 5.0 |
| Kilgariff | 62.3 | 180 | 4.8 |
Polling places surrounding Namatjira at the 2020 NT election
The CLP are now officially the favourites to win the election!
I predicted they would and that bombshell poll from Redbridge last year did too. But the betting markets didn’t catch on (I rarely gamble though). But now I had a look and the CLP are now the favourites to win by both the bookies and the polls.
A calculator tells me that the CLP now have a 55.56% chance of winning according to the odds, while Labor has a 47.62% chance of winning. The gap has been closing for a while but now the CLP have taken the lead.
I trust polls and election analysts more than the bookies but if the bookies predicted every Australian election right then Labor would get a second term federally and a third term in WA while Coalition oppositions would defeat incumbent Labor governments in Queensland and the NT.
As for Queensland, the odds say the LNP now have an 84.75% chance of winning while Labor has just a 20.00% chance (note that betting odds always seem to go over 100%).
I wish Finocchiaro and Crisafulli the best of luck this year.