Two days to go until what is technically election day in the Northern Territory, though as the comprehensive data published by the Northern Territory Electoral Commission illustrates, the die has already largely been cast: 60,839 votes have already been cast or (in the case of postal votes) issued, which compares with a grand total of 105,833 votes cast at the last election in 2020. Nothing of obvious consequence has happened over the period of the campaign, and to my knowledge there has been neither published polling nor any useful intelligence on where the parties believe they stand.
The Northern Territory News gauged the opinions of two local academics on Tuesday: Rolf Gerritsen predicted the CLP would pick up “five or six seats”, which would respectively get them into minority or majority government, whereas Nathan Franklin tipped Labor to lose only one or two out of their existing 15 seats out of 25. For what it’s worth, my feeling has long been that the situation looks similar to Queensland, where Labor appears headed for defeat after two decades of dominance amid a high pitch of concern about crime.
For much more detail, my guide to the Northern Territory election offers an overview and an in-depth look at all 25 seats. I am hard at work preparing my live results feature for Saturday night and beyond, which will as usual feature projections, probabilities and map displays of the results as they are reported.
Without any polling we are just throwing darts in the dark.
I lived in the NT for 5 years in the ’90’s. I’d still be there but for my wife and family all being Mexicans! FWIW, there is a direct line that runs through the crimecrimecrime and historical land rights tenets of NT elections. Care to guess what that is? Remember the three strike mandatory jail terms for property crimes?
Incumbency is a huge thing in the NT. Visible local members usually get re-elected. Syd Stirling lost his licence for drink driving in the late ’90’s. He took to riding his bike around Nhulunbuy and substantially increased his vote at the next election.
If you lose your seat in the NT it is your own fault. Pretty easy to meet and schmooze 6,000 people over a 4 year period. You should know every elector by name. In fact, Nick Dondas used to knock on the doors with a clipboard and mark off the people in the house. He held the seat of Casuarina for 20 years.
I will have a wild guess just for the fun of it: ALP 12, indies 2, Green 1, CLP 10. Based on nothing at all. No polls = no insights at all – just random guesses. The NT News is a Murdoch rag. They barrack for the CLP as badly as the Hun barracks for the Neocons in Victoria.
51:49 in favour of the ALP. Again, no polling, just biased wish-casting/taking a wild guess and wanting to not go with the crowd.
(I would also, albeit anonymously, join the chorus and agree that the NT is not really big enough for self-government. Heresy, I know, considering I have counted three former Chief Ministers as personal friends.)
Anyone knows if there will be a Newspoll in The Australian tonight ? Or will we have no poll all through this campaign ?
I live in Port Darwin and would like to see Labor hold on here, but with a retiring local member I can’t see it. As for the election overall, if you had asked me in December I’d have said CLP landslide, but I’m not sure that’s on now. I think Labor will win Barkley and have a real shot in Namatjira, and I’m not sure the swing in Darwin will be as big as some think. May well be a situation where the CLP get large swings where it doesn’t help them. Prediction; Labor minority government.
The NT is not QLD where the baseball bats have been out for some time. The dynamics seem completely different.
I am not picking up any sense of baseball bats at the ready here. This is not 2016 where the bats were very clearly in hand and ready to swing hard well before election day.
Usually when voters are rushing to the polling booths, it means one thing – a change of government coming up.
Not sure that is a reliable indicator any more. Australians generally seem to like early voting. It is becoming more popular with each election. You don’t even have to give a reason for early voting any more here. It is very convenient. People like it.
Not Sure but I think voters up there are starting to swing their bats it might not be a 10-15% swing but at least 5%. Lia the CLP Leader is young woman and enthusiastic and has lead a united team from opposition which is not easy. Whereas the Labor Government look tired and bereft of ideas. The only thing against the CLP they have not preselected as strong candidates in seats they must win. They had some stronger candidates the previous election like Damien Ryan the former Mayor of Alice Springs and Tracey Hayes who would of been the Treasurer. Not Sure ? What they are doing at the Moment ?
“It is very convenient. People like it.”
I’m voting tomorrow because with no waiting it is now more convenient than early voting !
I will go
Labor 52.3 %
CLP 47.7 %
I can’t believe there have been no recent polls done. The question is – why haven’t they been released? It must be because they wouldn’t serve the interest of the CLP to do so.
Is that because they show a clear CLP win and they don’t want to shit on that by encouraging non CLP supporters to vote?
Or is it because they show an ALP win and they want to keep alive the possibility it won’t happen in the hope of a late swing.
Surely if they showed a hung result the media would want to play that for clicks.
Sadly, without a Murdoch subscription I can’t tell the result…
SNAP POLL: Psychic croc Speckles predicts who will win election
In a decisive snap poll, the 5m saltie has prophesied which party will emerge victorious from the death roll of NT politics. WATCH THE VIDEO.
https://www.ntnews.com.au/?nk=983e7f1f3519d2d7f2961c1c27555e9c-1724451798
Tradition says if the punters are going hard and going early to vote, the incumbent is gone baby gone. Is the crime issue that potent ? I’m going 51.1 ClP 48.9 Labor with a Labor minority government despite losing the 2PP but yeah its going to be tight.
MABWM says:
Friday, August 23, 2024 at 10:14 pm
…
(I would also, albeit anonymously, join the chorus and agree that the NT is not really big enough for self-government. Heresy, I know, considering I have counted three former Chief Ministers as personal friends.)’
————–
+1
If it were any other local government the administrators would long since have been sent in.
My considered view is that psephing elections is a lot more fun when there are no actual numbers to cloud my prejudices.
Oops. Wrong thread.
JM
I agree re no Baseball bats, I will ad though that I did feel they were coming out when Natasha Fyles was Chief Minister. I think the switch to Eva Lawler has given Labor a chance of hanging on.
PB Tally Board so far for the NT election
If you want your name & 2PP added or amended, zip a line and i’ll sort it out when home this afternoon.
e.g.w. ALP 51.9
Fargo61 CLP 51.5
meher baba CLP 52.5
michael CLP 55
Damo CLP 55
FUBAR CLP 54.5
The Cleaner ALP 50.2
Boerwar CLP 52
peterK CLP 53.5
Vlad CLP 51.5
Asha CLP 53
nadia88 CLP 54
MABWM ALP 51
Scott ALP 52.3
Elmer Fudd CLP 51.1
pied piper CLP 51
Lordbain ALP 51
The raw average at the moment for the site is 51.7% CLP
Cheers all.
Just of note with this election. Antony Green is expecting about 110000 enrolled voters to vote.
Link: https://antonygreen.com.au/nt2024-election-tracking-the-early-vote/
The Division of Dunkley, earlier this year, has just over 101000 electors, jammed into one division in south eastern Melbourne. There was a bit of chatter yesterday about the NT being merged back into one Federal seat (as opposed to Lingiari & Solomon). I think I am starting to support this as I don’t think the population justifies two seperate Federal divisions.
Thanks Nadia. I’m hoping the switch to Lawler in December last year will keep the baseball bat’s at home but the crime issue is a worry as always up there.
One electorate or two?
Half an hour to get from one end of Dunkley to the other.
To get from Nhulunbuy to Mutijulu via Yarralin?
Nhulunbuy to Mutijulu
That won’t change. They’re both currently in the Division of Lingiari as it is.
Maybe three electorates would be better.
The NT suffers from a lack of quality in its parliamentarians due to its small size. It has some unique challenges in its demography and geography, none of which would be ameliorated by having someone else in charge. We’re essentially funded by the Commonwealth anyway.
‘Elmer Fudd says:
Saturday, August 24, 2024 at 9:49 am
Thanks Nadia. I’m hoping the switch to Lawler in December last year will keep the baseball bat’s at home but the crime issue is a worry as always up there.’
———————–
Crime was NOT an issue in the early elections. Territory crime is not immutable.
When Giles and Abbott combined to strip hundreds of millions in funding from Indigenous programs much of was gouged out of remote communities and out of Indigenous organizations. The two direct consequences were an erosion of Indigenous civil society and forcing people from remote communities into the main towns onto somebody else’s traditional lands. Many such people have lower than primary level proficiency in literacy and numeracy, are seldom job ready, are often sick and are often prey to drugs. They are doubly dispossesed because they have been forced onto other tribal lands. Elder status and parental status are both eroded in the practical sense and in the psychic sense.
What is the point of it all?
Effectively, these folk form the nucleus for a self-perpetuating underclass. Young men in particular have extremely low prospects of joining fully in the mainstream economy. Non-indigenous institutions have close to zero legitimacy. Rebellion, whether active or passive, against such institutions is rated as a positive. Jail time can be a badge of honour. Dodging the cops is righteous fun until it goes pear-shaped and you become a Death in Custody stat.
The NT police last year were saying that you can’t lock the problem up. What they essentially meant is that to ‘solve’ the street crime problem effectively means locking up an extraordinary numbers of young men for a long time. What they have difficulty acknowledging is that this is always how an underclass responds when it is condemned to powerlessness, poverty, hostility and general contempt.
Meanwhile, white irrigators are helping themselves to stupendous amounts of water for stupendous profits in processes that are sometimes illegal and which are always ‘fixed’ should a legal problem arise.
Mere money cannot fully address the problems. It can help.
I note the CLP thinks that boot camps will help solve the problem. I am unaware of any nexus between boot camp ‘success’ and the successful eradication of institutionalized poverty.
This election is about street crime like a cup of coffee is about a whale.
The election outcome will not resolve the crime drivers.
It ought to go without saying that in the above circumstances the Gap will not be closed. Nor will the Territory get to within a bull’s roar of meeting the objectives of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
“predicting the historic Clare Martin victory in 2001, for instance.”
The Country Liberal Party had held office for 27 years, and Labor had never come particularly close to government before their historic win in 2001. I wonder why that is, it does seem N.T. is more Labor friendly these days then it was previously. Whether it’s demographic changes or Labor Party office was disorganised in those 27 years in the wilderness. I’d be interested to know the reason behind it.
In some ways it does mirror Queensland with state Labor’s dominace in Queensland for the last 35 years after being locked out all those years under Bjelke-Petersen.
Thanks for your insight BW. Still, election strategists often say don’t ask what the leaders are saying during election campaigns, look at what questions the journos are asking and in the NT no1 seems to be very often around law and order and crime. You and I can see the underlying triggers of instutionalised deprivation of economic opportunity and herding clans onto foreign tribal lands etc but most punters have a very shallow understanding and little interest. As long as they can get a beer in a pub or a latte at a coffee shop without being confronted by elements of “the Indigenous problem” most dont give a damn about “the gap”. Call me too cynical, but the Voice disgrace was totally unsurprising to me. And don’t start me on the blatant racism in Duttons NT ‘solutions’.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2024/08/2024-northern-territory-election-live.html
My live coverage thread for those who can’t get enough! Intro post up now.
Boerwar says:
Saturday, August 24, 2024 at 10:22 am
Well said.
They cost money. Who’s going to pay for it? There’s barely any State level polling done because it is so expensive.
I would also, albeit anonymously, join the chorus and agree that the NT is not really big enough for self-government.
Problem is you then have to govern the place from a distance, presumably Canberra. Which is never a good idea. Local knowledge and representation matters in politics.
The real problems of governance here are inherent – size of the place, remoteness, deeply entrenched indigenous issues, etc, – and they are not going to be changed by governing from afar. If anything that will just make it worse. e.g. The grotesque intervention and income management.
It is a nice little fairy tale, but really is little more than a knee-jerk feel-good response from the rest of Oz trying to placate its own guilt about our nations’s historical and ongoing mistreatment of the first people. There is no easy quick cheap fix to any of this. The rest of youse are not governing yourselves so well as to be lecturing anybody on it. Collectively you currently favour Dutton for next PM. So I will take your views on governance with a grain of salt.
And everything Boerwar said. The NT is the convenient whipping boy for the failure of the whole country to deal with this stuff. ‘Twas always thus.
I’m voting tomorrow because with no waiting it is now more convenient than early voting !
Fair call. 🙂
Whether it’s demographic changes or Labor Party office was disorganised in those 27 years in the wilderness. I’d be interested to know the reason behind it.
Bit of both. Plus the CLP traded long and hard and very effectively on being the local born party, bravely standing up to the meddling southerners, not beholden unto federal party influence, etc. Which is bullshit, of course, but it worked.
From KB’s blog.
‘
…Antony Green has as usual been vigilantly tracking the early votes (postals, prepolls and mobile voting stations) and has found that there is a 5.3% (of total enrolment) shortfall compared to 2020, though some of this might be hidden in unreported mobile voting. Causes include the decline in postal voting compared to the COVID-affected 2020 election, and not having prepoll on Sunday. We will see how much of this gets made up in increased on-the-day voting and how the final turnout compares to 2020 (2020 final turnout was 74.9%). Note that in some seats the vote is mostly prepoll rather than on the day.
…’
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This may be a statistical artefact of a large increase in Indigenous voter registrations as part of the AEC preparations for the Referendum… by way of increasing the denominator without necessarily increasing potential postal voting population.
“Whether it’s demographic changes”
I don’t think demographics have changed markedly. The world has changed and attitudes have changed. Old Darwin has been replaced by New Darwin. The ferals have all moved out to Litchfield Shire and Darwin has become a more cosmopolitan place in line with contemporary Australia.
It took a couple of elections for the CLP to work this out. Terry Mills, a modern moderate, the kind of person that has struggled in conservative parties of late actually won the popular vote in 2008 but not the seats. After that of course culture-war clown Adam Giles destroyed the Mills’ government after 2012 and any shred of credibility the CLP had for the next 10 years. They have done well to leave Lia Finocchiaro in place as LOTO (daughter in law of Denis Burke). A young woman will wonders never cease.
They would do well in my view to avoid hitching their wagon to the toxic and aggressive culture war politics of Senator Price. There have been signs that Finocchiaro is being influenced by conservative culture war politics for example recent statements leaning towards ‘considering’ a bill in line with Senator Babet’s motion to parliament the other day.
The world has changed and attitudes have changed. Old Darwin has been replaced by New Darwin. The ferals have all moved out to Litchfield Shire and Darwin has become a more cosmopolitan place in line with contemporary Australia.
That too.
Even in Litchfield, at least the areas closer to Darwin (Howard Springs, Humpty Doo, Bees Creek, maybe even as far as Noonamah and Berry Springs now), the ferals have been largely displaced and pushed further out by gentrification (i.e. housing prices). Have to get to Acacia Hills to start seeing more than a handful of real ferals.
Most of Australia doesn’t seem to understand how much Darwin and the NT have changed in the last quarter century. For a start, Darwin in particular is the leading lived example of multicultural Australia. I went to a Darwin Festival thing last night and there was not an Anglo food stall in sight. It was all ‘ethnic’. Had a particularly nice mild veggie curry and salad from Africa. The only Anglo stall was the bar.
All my family and friends who moved away say they really miss that side of the joint. It just doesn’t exist elsewhere. One of the upsides of relatively small populations is that it is much harder for cultural enclaves to form. Proximity forces people to mix and get to know each other, which is the main way to break down prejudice and bigotry.
Re postals being down, yes enrolment growth is part of it but they are also down in raw numbers. Antony says “8,316 postal vote packs have been dispatched representing 5.4% of enrolment. This is down on 10,241 packs dispatched in 2020 or 7.3% of enrolment.”
Thanks Kevin, and good lead up on your site too
My prediction is 50.5 CLP on the 2PP. We might still see Labor hold a plurality of seats given the number of independents, and I suspect the CLP vote might not be effectively spread.
Labor 50.74
Graham Richardson in his book talks about as a young organiser being sent to nt in 1977. He spoke of one Labor candidate throwing another through a plate glass windows both chaps were drunk. No surprise Labor failed to win any seats
Based on absolutely nothing at all, I’ll guess a 2PP of ALP 50.67-CLP 49.33. But either way, the results will tell us nothing about anything apart from who will govern the Top End for the next four years. No Federal portents at all, I’d guess.
We should have a new thread in about 25 minutes.
Above, collated.
‘Mick Quinlivan says:
Saturday, August 24, 2024 at 5:34 pm
Graham Richardson in his book talks about as a young organiser being sent to nt in 1977. He spoke of one Labor candidate throwing another through a plate glass windows both chaps were drunk. No surprise Labor failed to win any seats’
—————–
It might surprise you more to learn that in fact they won several seats in the 1977 election.
But wait. There was more. Letts lost his seat to a Korean War vet who had helped Indigenous homeless people in the electorate steal sheets of corrugated iron from the Katherine meatworks to build tin sheds for housing.
Such was life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Northern_Territory_general_election
New thread.
BW: “When Giles and Abbott combined to strip hundreds of millions in funding from Indigenous programs much of was gouged out of remote communities and out of Indigenous organizations. The two direct consequences were an erosion of Indigenous civil society and forcing people from remote communities into the main towns onto somebody else’s traditional lands. Many such people have lower than primary level proficiency in literacy and numeracy, are seldom job ready, are often sick and are often prey to drugs. They are doubly dispossesed because they have been forced onto other tribal lands. Elder status and parental status are both eroded in the practical sense and in the psychic sense.”
—————————————————————————-
You do like to try to turn every conceivable issue into a party political dispute, don’t you?
I certainly wouldn’t defend Abbott’s cuts to Indigenous funding in the 2014 Budget (or most of his other cuts), although they arguably weren’t that massive in the overall scheme of things, and I believe that overall funding levels have risen again since that time. But the current problems in central and northern Australia are much more complex and deep-seated than simply a one-off funding cut a decade or so ago.
And attempting to paint Adam Giles as a leading villain is particularly risible. Giles was Chief Minister for 3.5 years, Terry Mills for 6 months, and otherwise Labor has been in power in the NT for 19 out of the last 23 years. And for that matter, Labor has been in power in Queensland and WA – the other two Indigenous youth crime hotspots – for, respectively, 21 out of the last 26 years and 14 out of the last 23 years.
The drift of Indigenous youth (and not infrequently their parents) from remote communities into the larger towns is a longstanding trend and it mirrors what has happened and continues to happen in the rural parts of many countries around the world. Its causes are complex: there are both push and pull factors at play. It would a long essay to discuss what these are, so I won’t try to do so tonight: particularly given that the election coverage has started on the ABC and I am watching it with interest.
The one point you make that I do agree with is that the uninvited migration of Indigenous people from their own country to that of people who might be their traditional enemies never bodes well.
Attention Boerwar:
I made a mistake I should have said 1974 not 1977.. then my quoted story is correct