Call of the board: the territories

Zooming in on the federal election results for the three seats of the Australian Capital Territory and the two of the Northern Territory, all of which were won by Labor.

Wherein we finally wrap up the Call of the Board series, a slowly unfolding state-by-state round-up every seat result from last year’s federal election. Here we tie up the loose ends of the territories, where Labor achieved a clean sweep of five seats – an essentially foregone conclusion for the Australian Capital Territory (which went from two to three seats at this election), but a strong result for them in the Northern Territory (which may be set to lose its second at the next). Previous episodes of the series dealt with Sydney (here and here), regional New South Wales, Melbourne, regional Victoria, south-east Queensland, regional Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia and Tasmania.

Solomon (Labor 3.1%; 3.0% swing to CLP): The always marginal seat that covers Darwin has only gone the way of the winning party once out of the last four elections (in 2013), this time returning Luke Gosling after he gained it for Labor in 2016. Gosling’s 6.0% winning margin off a 7.4% swing in 2016 was the clearest win in the history of a highly marginal seat, the previous record having been Dave Tollner’s 2.8% win for the Country Liberal Party in 2004. This meant he had enough change to record the seat’s second-biggest margin even after a 3.0% swing back to the Country Liberals. As the map to the right illustrates, the pattern of swings in the seat reflected broader themes from the election: the affluent area around the city centre swung to Labor, but the lower-income suburbs of the north went the other way, and the more conservative new suburbia of Palmerston went further still.

Lingiari (Labor 5.5%; 2.7% swing to CLP): Warren Snowdon retained the remainder-of-NT seat of Lingiari, which he has held without interruption since 2001, his closest shave in that time being a 0.9% margin in 2013. The swings in the two Northern Territory seats have been closely matched at the last election, with a 7.5% blowout in Lingiari in 2016 followed by a 2.7% correction this time. There have been occasions in the past where swings varied widely between Alice Springs and Katherine on the one hand and the remote communities in the other, but not this time.

Bean (Labor 7.5%; 1.3% swing to Liberal): The ACT’s new third seat was created entirely from territory that was formerly in the Canberra electorate, whose member Gai Brodtmann did not seek re-election. David Smith, who had previously filled Katy Gallagher’s Senate vacancy when she fell foul of section 44 in May 2018, had no trouble holding Bean for Labor in the face of a slight swing. Left-wing independent Jamie Christie scored a creditable 8.3%, contributing to solid drops on the primary vote for both major parties.

Canberra (Labor 17.1%; 4.1% swing to Labor): The Canberra electorate covers the central third of the capital, and might be regarded as the true “new” seat since it drew territory from both of the previous electorates. Like Darwin, Canberra offered a miniature reflection of national trend in that the city’s inner area moved solidly further to the left, while the suburbs swung to the Liberals. This was reflected in a 4.6% primary vote increase for the Greens, reducing the gap with the Liberals to 27.8% to 23.3%. This is the lowest yet recorded in an ACT seat, but with the Liberal how-to-vote directing preferences to Labor ahead of the Greens, they would probably have remained out of contention if they had made up the difference. With the departure of Gai Brodtmann, its new Labor member is Alicia Payne, who dropped 2.0% on the primary vote to 40.5%.

Fenner (Labor 10.6%; 1.3% swing to Liberal): Labor’s Andrew Leigh suffered a slight swing from similar primary vote numbers to 2016, the main disturbance being the appearance of the United Australia Party with 4.1%.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,398 comments on “Call of the board: the territories”

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  1. zoomster says:
    Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 11:07 am

    frednk

    I haven’t checked for a couple of days, but it still seems to be the case that there haven’t been any new countries reporting the virus for about a week now. This suggests that the containment/quarantine strategies are working.

    I hope your right. Anther pessimist’s view.
    https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/coronavirus-could-infect-two-thirds-of-globe-top-scientist-says-20200214-p540pc.html

  2. Words matter. And this is a portent of things to come for Australia for so long as the Liberal party continues to demonise people from different cultural backgrounds and origins for political purposes.

    Since Trump’s rise to the nation’s highest office, his inflammatory language — often condemned as racist and xenophobic — has seeped into schools across America. Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.

    Trump’s words, those chanted by his followers at campaign rallies and even his last name have been wielded by students and school staff members to harass children more than 300 times since the start of 2016, a Washington Post review of 28,000 news stories found. At least three-quarters of the attacks were directed at kids who are Hispanic, black or Muslim, according to the analysis. Students have also been victimized because they support the president — more than 45 times during the same period.

    Although many hateful episodes garnered coverage just after the election, The Post found that Trump-connected persecution of children has never stopped. Even without the huge total from November 2016, an average of nearly two incidents per school week have been publicly reported over the past four years. Still, because so much of the bullying never appears in the news, The Post’s figure represents a small fraction of the actual total. It also doesn’t include the thousands of slurs, swastikas and racial epithets that aren’t directly linked to Trump but that the president’s detractors argue his behavior has exacerbated.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/local/school-bullying-trump-words/

  3. That is about 14.6 tree’s worth of sequestration.

    \
    Just planted that many this morning.
    And my home-made flat whites are almost carbon neutral. Solar in summer and on the slow combustion in winter (including hand pumped froth. Dont all call past at once).
    NO SOUP FOR YOU! 3 YEARS!

  4. peg

    ‘As I have said before, I don’t necessarily provide links to which I agree with 100% or whatever..’

    Yes, which is why I started my post as I did.

    Sheesh, even when I make it clear I’m not having a go at you you make it sound like I’m having a go at you!!

  5. Boerwar

    On our property I have no idea how many thousands of trees I have planted. I will put a mark on 14.6 to indicate they are sequestration trees for my trip to Europe.

  6. BW

    In my lifetime, I have flown twice by plane to NZ, 21 years apart, the last time in 2013. Of course, for you that’s just way too often.

    I am happy for you to tediously repeat your pledge. To any thinking person, it is absurd, and demonstrates your desperate attempt to stereotype a group of diverse individuals, as well as your propensity to engage in tedious repetition.

  7. Ingenious trick defeats Trump’s expensive border wall — and costs only 99 pesos

    President Donald Trump is proposing to divert another $3.8 billion from the Pentagon to pay for his border wall — which he had promised would be paid for by Mexico.

    “Smugglers in Juárez have engineered camouflage hook-and-ladders made of rebar that blend in so well with the border wall that it can be hard to detect, according to U.S. Border Patrol. The ladders are the same rust brown color as the mesh panels or steel beams of the fence,” the El Paso Times reported Friday.

    “The ladders appear to be made with two poles of 3/8-inch rebar and four thinner poles, outfitted with steps and bent over at the end in a U, to hook on the top of the wall,” the newspaper explained

    “Six meters of castillo costs 99 pesos, or about $5.30, at the Hágalo — or Do It Yourself — True Value hardware store in Juárez.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/ingenious-trick-defeats-trumps-expensive-border-wall-and-costs-only-99-pesos/


  8. Simon Katich says:
    Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 11:16 am

    That is about 14.6 tree’s worth of sequestration.

    \
    Just planted that many this morning.

    Direst seeding ups the pace and it does work.

  9. peg

    Letter boxing works, otherwise supermarkets – who spend a fortune in market research – wouldn’t do it.

    It depends on what you put in the letterbox and how you do it.

    I’ve had lots of feedback from letter boxing – people ringing me up as a result to ask further questions, stopping me in the street to say how informative the material was, etc – and also lots of feedback from people who feel aggrieved that they haven’t been letter boxed.

    A good leaflet can be more informative than a newspaper article stuck in the back pages of the paper. It’s certainly preferable to the alternative – paying a newspaper to run an ad in the hope that that will result in favourable coverage.

  11. Investigation of Rudy Giuliani is ‘moving forward’ in the SDNY office he once led: Washington Post

    The legal jeopardy facing Donald Trump’s defense attorney did not go away with the Senate vote to acquit the president.

    “As the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump drew to a close in Washington earlier this month, federal prosecutors in New York contacted witnesses and sought to collect additional documents in an investigation related to Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani,” The Washington Post reported Friday, citing “people familiar with their activities.”

    “At the same time, the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York — which Giuliani led in the 1980s — appears to be continuing its wide-ranging investigation of his activities and those of his former associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, including their efforts in Ukraine,” The Post reported

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/investigation-of-rudy-giuliani-is-moving-forward-in-the-sdny-office-he-once-led-washington-post/

  13. peg

    …as for ‘both major parties have money to burn’, the leaflets you describe would come out of their electoral allowance, so a Greens MP would have access to exactly the same opportunities.

  14. Confessions says: Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 11:21 am

    phoenixRed:

    Did you see today’s Real Time guests? Should be good!

    **********************************************

    Thanks Confessions – will keep my eye out for the episode that my computer will work with 🙂

  15. z

    I didn’t think you were but you seem more sensitive to… I was not having a go at you either. I was going to add that rider but decided extra keystrokes and all that…..

  18. z

    Remind me, how many Greens MPs do we have?

    What electoral allowance is available in my neck of the woods?

    Out here we conduct campaigns on the smell of an oily rag.

  21. Simon Katich @ #69 Saturday, February 15th, 2020 – 10:14 am

    Dare I ask P1, what was your problem with the Red Cross?

    Just that we found much the same as has been reported in the media. The Red Cross is not really distributing much money, and what money they are distributing is getting out very, very slowly. They claim they are hanging onto their donations to cover administrative costs and future contingencies across the next 3 years. This is great news for people that need assistance now.

    When you go to see them, they give you a leaflet telling you what they can do for you – which is basically pay a set amount for a bereavement, or for your house being totalled.

    If you figure out how many people that makes eligible for financial assistance, it would be just in the thousands. That’s in total, across all the bushfire affected areas. In our particular area, it would amount to perhaps a few hundred people – some deaths, and less than 100 houses lost (not sure of the exact figure). So a few hundred people they are willing to assist, out of a few hundred thousand people directly affected, and who need help they are not getting from the government.

    And when you figure out how much money this amounts to, even assuming everyone who qualifies actually applies, it is far less than the amount they have collected.

    Yes, Red Cross also offer other services, but what everybody needs right now is food, money, assistance cleaning up, and other basic necessities to help them get through the next few weeks and months. Most other things can wait. Especially as much of the south coast has low socio-economic status and high unemployment.

    I’m sure the Red Cross do good work in other areas, but really, even bothering to have a booth at the emergency centre seems like a waste of everybody’s time. I guess this is where their “administrative costs” go. But I never saw anyone spend more than a few minutes at their desk. Their criteria are so strict it would be better if the genuine front-line services (Salvos, Vinnies, Mission Australia etc) simply referred the appropriate people to them.

  23. peg

    Oh, full sympathy. We don’t get much funding for campaigns here, either, which is why I know more about CBAs for various forms of material than most campaigners do.

    It is worth noting (NOT having a go at you) that the kind of leaflets you received are exactly the way the Greens want to go – campaigns funded by the taxpayer, rather than the party.

  24. z

    I suffer from chronic pain 24/7, sometimes more acute than other times. Been the case for decades…getting older is making it worse. It’s my reality. A positive outlook and being stoic helps lol

    Hope you are on the improve….

  25. The Greens have spent the drought and fires and the floods and the dust storms promoting moral panic about our climate emergency. They have done so for party political purposes.

    Here is a standard definition of ’emergency’. The ‘action’ required is clearly not whinging about not being able to protest when protests are legal. The ‘action’ required is to do what I have done: reduce your emissions and offset the rest to become a Zero Netter.

    Waiting for the Government to make you to take action and become a Zero Netter is the ultimate Greens cop out.

    ’emergency
    /ɪˈməːdʒ(ə)nsi/
    Learn to pronounce
    noun
    noun: emergency; plural noun: emergencies; noun: Emergency; noun: the Emergency

    1.
    a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.’

    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=emergency+definition

  27. Yesterday I was talking to a neighbour whose brother was burned out in the South Coast fires.
    Because their house was burned down the brother got $20,000 in cash from the Red Cross. (It was $10,000 earlier but they appear to have responded to criticism by doubling it.)

  28. Peg
    I have various sources of low level chronic pain.
    Occasionally, they spike for one reason or another.
    For me the test is whether I can sleep or not.
    If I can sleep I can put up with anything during waking hours.
    Anyhoo, my complete sympathy with your dealing with chronic pain.

  29. Christ you have become a bore, Boerwar.

    Are you trying to claim that we are not in a climate emergency, by posting a definition of ’emergency’ that makes it 100% clear that we are in one?

    Or are you trying to claim that anyone not signing a pledge that you won’t even sign up to yourself means they are not serious about the need for ‘immediate action’?

    Both claims are, of course, utter bollocks.

  30. BW

    Cheers and empathy. I am unable to sleep for more than 2-3 hours at a stretch….for decades…getting older, the lack thereof makes life more difficult…I don’t expect to live to a ‘ripe old age’. It’s the way it is and I have accepted it.

  34. Dr Wombat,

    Too keen to have a dig about vaping and likening me to some RWNJ, you missed the OFFICIAL advice I supplied from the Guardian blog.

    I’ll repeat it for you:

    Airline passengers who have sat within two rows of a person suspected to have caught coronavirus should be quarantined, according to guidance published by the government today for transport staff.

    The guidance released by the Department for Transport states: “Any contacts of a possible case need to be isolated or quarantined. In practice for passengers who have travelled via airplane, this will include all passengers in the 2 rows in front and behind of where the possible case was sat.”

    Staff working on planes, trains or ships are recommended to cooperate with emergency medical services at airports or ports if a passenger becomes symptomatic on board.

    Meanwhile, transport staff should not wear face masks but instead stick to good hygiene to avoid the risk of coronavirus, according to the guidance. It advises staff not to wear masks as “they do not provide protection from respiratory viruses”. Instead, the best way of reducing risk is “good hygiene” and to avoid getting within two metres with a potentially infected person.

    Why quarantine passengers in these circumstances unless there is a danger of transmission by air?

    The CDC agrees (as quoted yesterday).

    Whether it’s aerosols with diameters measured in microns or larger droplets sneezed up to six feet (or two aircraft cabin rows) in all directions, the advice is quite clear: keep away from infected people or get quarantined yourself, presumably due to danger of infection.

    You’re risking offering dangerous advice on this matter. I hope this is not what you tell your patients (if you see patients). The very article you link to itself states that advice on whether airborne transmission can or can’t spread the virus is subject to doubt.

    Ii am only recommending more caution, rather than less, until more is known about the disease. For example, they’re still speculating about how passengers on the cruise liner are being infected.

    You’re quibbling over semantic nuances while tens of thousands have been infected, including a couple of thousand medical personnel. And that’s just the official figure. They didn’t all get the virus just by not washing their hands, or using contaminated cutlery. Especially the doctors and nurses.

    No-one knows the real infection figure, because it has been subject to obfuscation and cover-up. Considering the governments involved that’s hardly surprising.

  40. Peg
    I think you can get a ticket for free, it was donation only when I got one. Front page button just appearing as link to youtube live feed for me now. It is just the main stage but been interesting.

  41. Simon Katich

    And my home-made flat whites are almost carbon neutral. Solar in summer and on the slow combustion in winter (including hand pumped froth. Dont all call past at once).

    Sounds great…but might pass on the hand pumped froth 🙂

  42. You have to admire the chutzpah of someone like BB spitting and whining about rhwombat having a “go” at him while in almost every post of his he has a right royal “go” at me, for example, and, well, also about PB as a whole.

  45. I was told by Tesltra it was caused by a big downpour we had last week.

    How does that happen with fixed wireless?

    It does make sense here as one of the reasons this part of the Adelaide Hills was earmarked for FTTP is the state of the copper network – regularly underwater due to higher rainfall and topography etc. Unfortunately, we didnt get FTTP, we got FFT (Fibre From Turnbull) so peeps still have a lot of old damaged copper between them and the node that gets dodgy every time it rains.

  46. BW, the situation re COVID-19 is confused. We don’t know enough about it to say for sure how infectious it is, or the means of transmission.

    There are so many contradictory messages concerning the virus – many of them coming from official medical “authorities” – that only a fool would be offering concrete certainties about almost any aspect of it except to urge taking as much care to avoid as many possibilities of infection as possible.

    This will no doubt change, and it”s sad that some Chinese people feel discriminated against. But the truth is that most of those infected are Chinese and, by a lucky break, belonging to a recognisable demographic, are easily avoided until we find out more.

    We’ve gone from waving Wuhanese through our airports with only rudimentary checks to closing down all flights from China. This is because it became known that the symptomless infected could pass on the virus. Simply checking people’s temperature was no guarantee.

    It is thought that aerosol transmission is unlikely, but droplet transmission is definitely possible, indeed may be the primary means.

    Lots of “it is thoughts” and “maybes”.

    Now, as you point out, fecal transmission may be another means of infection.

    This all says to me that it’s too early to start ruling things in and particularly ruling them out.

    Either not enough is known about the virus or information is being withheld. Possibly trillions of dollars worth of trade and commerce are at stake, besides human health.

    Why people are convinced we are being told the truth about COVID-19 puzzles me. We have been misinformed, even lied to routinely about other serious threats (e.g. Global Warming, smoking, DDT, breast implants, asbestos and many more). Why not this one?

  47. P1 and others in the effected areas…

    Fences. Any assistance being offered on re-fencing? Not just to keep stock in…. but to keep them out of bushland while it regenerates?

  48. Horsey,

    If you wrote a few more thoughts of your own (besides whingeing about your fantasy of being bullied), instead of quoting great slabs of what other people write, you might be taken a bit more seriously around here.

  49. Player One

    It was said some time ago that when people rushed to donate money to the Red Cross (and others) immediately after the fires around Sydney began, they wanted to help those whom they saw every evening in the news, expecting money to go quickly and directly. It’s not happening, even from our merciful Morrison, all standing back and saying “ask the states”, or worse, “You haven’t been affected enough”. Disaster made more disastrous. 🙁

  50. Trump’s Valentine’s Day vacation raises his golf tab to $133 million — 334 years worth of his presidential salary

    “President Donald Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago on Friday evening for the 29th golf-related trip of his presidency to his for-profit Palm Beach, Florida, resort, raising his total taxpayer golf tab to $133.8 million,” S.V. Dáte reported for the HuffPost on Friday. “That figure translates to 334 years of the presidential salary that Trump and his supporters frequently boast he is not taking.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/trumps-valentines-day-vacation-raises-his-golf-tab-to-133-million-334-years-worth-of-his-presidential-salary/

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