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Tuesday evening

My read of Fannie Bay remains that the CLP are likely but not certain to achieve each of the things they need to happen to win: first, that the Greens rather than Labor makes the final count, and second, that they stay ahead of the Greens after preferences. The odds on the latter seem to be shortening: today’s additions broke 501-482 to the CLP, increasing their lead from 36 to 55. The current CLP win probability of 88% shown on my results display leans heavily on what I think might be a generous educated guess of 360 formal votes still to be added to the count. I actually only think there will be about 200 postals and 40 provisionals, which would make a reversal unlikely. Labor are 42 behind the Greens on the primary vote, which they can make up through preferences out of the 177 votes for independent Leonard May or votes yet to be counted. If there are indeed 200 postals and they behave the same way as the ones already counted, Labor will make up 23 votes.

Monday evening

The big news in today’s counting is that a fresh two-candidate count shows the CLP is a much stronger chance of winning Fannie Bay than was realised, from what would appear to be a remarkably weak flow of preferences from Labor to the Greens. The conventional view was that the seat would be won by whichever out of the Greens and Labor came second, with the preferences of the excluded candidate to ensure the other victory over the CLP. That the NTEC has chosen to jettison the original count in favour of one excluding Labor might suggest it has reason to believe it is Labor that will drop out, but that is only conjecture.

If that is indeed what happens, a count that currently has the CLP leading the Greens by 1775 votes to 1739 will become operative. This is running 534 votes behind the primary vote count, suggesting the Ludmilla booths and the postals are yet to be added, that being the total number of formal votes from these two booths. This suggests the Greens have received 714 preferences from Labor and independent Leonard May, while the CLP has received 365.

Even if every one of the 108 votes for May went to the CLP, this would suggest less than three-quarters of Labor’s votes were flowing to the Greens, which compares with around 84% under similar circumstances in Brisbane and Ryan at the 2022 federal election. If the current preference flow sustains over the votes to be added, the CLP lead will increase from 36 to 74. The Greens could make that up on absents and provisionals, but outstanding postals should to run against them.

End of Saturday night

Whereas the CLP’s last win in 2012 was the result of an unanticipated backlash against Labor in the bush, this time was the reverse, with Labor getting savaged in the city and the towns while the bush hardly swung at all. The result is that four out of the five members Labor looks sure of returning are of Indigenous background, the exception being former leader Natasha Fyles in Nightcliff (which the ABC isn’t giving away due to the outside chance of a Greens boilover).

Labor was heavily defeated in the four Darwin and Palmerston seats it held on single-digit margins, which increases to five if you include Blain, where Labor-turned-independent member Mark Turner did well but not well enough. The swing was particularly forceful in northern Darwin, where Labor appears to have lost three of the four seats that delivered them their biggest margins in 2020 — most spectacularly in the case of Wanguri, vacated by former deputy leader Nicole Manison, on a swing to the CLP of 27.4%.

The Greens had their best performance yet at a Northern Territory election, and are a strong chance of gaining their first ever seat in Fannie Bay. Their candidate leads Labor incumbent Brent Potter by 1106 votes to 1038, a gap he needs to close with around 1000 outstanding postals, absents and declarations — which were collectively around 5% stronger for Labor in 2020 than the vote types counted so far — together with preferences from an independent who is currently on 128 votes. The Greens also outpolled Labor in the two Alice Springs seats and are, as noted, an outside chance in Nightcliff, depending on the unknown factor of preferences from a progressive independent who polled 19.0%.

Of the three independents who were elected in 2020, two were re-elected (Yingiya Mark Guyula in Mulka and Robyn Lambley in Araluen), while a third (Kezia Purick in Goyder) retired and failed to convince voters to back her favoured successor. My results system says they will be joined by Justine Davis in the northern Darwin seat of Johnston, though I personally advise caution. Davis leads Labor incumbent and leadership aspirant Joel Bowden by 1080 votes to 918 and will chase down the CLP candidate if she can stay there. That will be matter of preferences from the 297 Greens votes plus around 1000 outstanding votes, mostly absents and postals, on which independents tend not to do well, giving Bowden an outside chance.

There are three seats that my system isn’t calling for the CLP yet, despite leaning heavily in that direction. These are Casuarina and Sanderson, which forcefully participated in the northern Darwin tidal wave — and, conversely, Barkly, which covers Tennant Creek and surrounding remote territory, which the CLP have struggled to retain after winning by five votes in 2020. Assuming they pan out as expected, the CLP will match its last win in 2012 by winning 16 seats out of 25, while Labor will have a bedrock of five seats to which they still have a chance of adding Fannie Bay and Johnston. We can expect to see some outstanding early votes and the first batches of postals added to the count tomorrow.

Live commentary

11.39pm. The NTEC has put out a circular noting that counting has finished for the night.

11.33pm. My system is now calling Johnston for independent Justine Davis, because it no longer rates Labor a possibility of reducing her to third. I would note though that Antony Green pointed out that absent votes are notoriously bad for independents, and I wouldn’t discount the possibility that my system doesn’t have this properly priced in.

11.30pm. I’ve now got the Greens in the lead in Fannie Bay, after fixing an issue that was causing it to split preferences 50-50 and thus give it to the CLP. My projection of the three-party count is now CLP 40.1%, Greens 30.2% and Labor 29.7%, in a scenario where whichever out of Labor and the Greens drops out will deliver the seat to the other on their preferences. Obviously this is close enough that it could very much go either way.

9.54pm. I hadn’t noted the strength of the Greens’ performance in Nightcliff, where they could finish second depending on the unknown of how the independent’s preferences flow. They could theoretically win from there if enough CLP voters ignore the party’s how-to-vote card and put Labor last, but my feeling is that this is unlikely.

9.00pm. I’m now calling five seat for Labor, now including a fairly remarkable win in the more-often-than-not conservative seat of Daly, and they’re at least a chance in four others. One of those would be at the expense of a potential independent, and the other of the Greens. So Labor’s best case scenario of nine would mean a cross bench of two, and its worst case of five would mean a cross bench of four. The range of possibilities for the CLP is a bare majority of 13 to 16.

8.49pm. I’ve now got Labor rather than the Greens making the final count and winning Fannie Bay, but there’s absolutely nothing in this. It’s one of three seats where I’ve got the Greens in the hunt to reach the final count (though the only one where they’re a chance of winning), something they have never done in an NT election before.

8.48pm. My system now has the CLP to 14 seats, calling the Alice Springs seat of Braitling as a CLP retain after what appeared to be an outside chance of a Greens upset.

8.37pm. New numbers in from Fannie Bay, and the result there is an anomaly with the CLP failing to make up much ground amid a swing from Labor to the Greens. Little in it as to who out of Labor and the Greens will make the final count — whoever it is will have a close race with the CLP.

8.33pm. My system is no longer rating Labor-turned-independent Mark Turner a chance of retaining Blain, which gives the CLP its thirteenth seat and a majority.

8.30pm. One bright spot for Labor is Daly, which Dheran Young won for Labor at a mid-term by-election and looks a good chance of retaining, giving them what looks like a fifth seat. That would maintain a record of anomalous behaviour for this seat, which was one of only two the CLP held in the 2016 landslide.

8.26pm. That issue with Johnston is now corrected. So what shows on the results page is a clear win for independent Justine Davis over the CLP in two-party terms, but that’s assuming the independent indeed finishes second. My preference estimates get the three-candidate result to independent 34.1%, CLP 33.1% and Labor 32.7%. Labor has to close a 1.7% gap over Davis, failing which she will win.

8.19pm. My system was splitting preferences evenly between the CLP and the independent in Johnston when they should have been 80-20 to the independent. That will get corrected in the next update, and the contest will correctly be seen as one to be decided by who out of the independent and Labor comes second (bringing the CLP ahead tally down from 18 to 17), which is absolutely lineball.

8.15pm. First numbers in from Labor’s very tight marginal of Port Darwin, and it’s unsurprisingly being called for the CLP with a swing in the low double digits, making it their twelfth confirmed seat.

8.14pm. While the results remain loaded to election day, such early voting centres as have reported are showing similar swings.

8.08pm. My system’s call of Drysdale for the CLP gets them to eleven confirmed seats, two off from a majority, and they’re ahead in another eight.

8.05pm. Another update is through, and my system is calling Eva Lawler’s seat of Drysdale for the CLP, as I gather is Antony Green as we speak. But the two Labor-held seats that hitherto hadn’t reported, Arnhem and Nightcliff, now have numbers — I’m calling the former a Labor hold, and very close to doing the same with the latter.

8.04pm. Antony Green discussing Johnston now. His assumption is that Greens preferences will favour independent Justine Davis over Labor’s Joel Bowden, which could decide the result in her favour. Failing that, Bowden will hold the seat for Labor. My system is working off the rough-and-ready estimate of Greens preferences going 40-40-20 Labor-independent-CLP, but even so it has Davis rather than Bowden reaching the final count — and contrary to Antony’s surmise, it’s not writing off the CLP.

7.58pm. Labor could end up with as few as four seats. That assumes their margin is too big to fail in Nightcliff, where there are no votes yet, and are safe in the remote seat of Arnhem, ditto. Other than that, they should hold the remote seats of Arafura and Gwoja.

7.56pm. Independent Justine Davis polling well in the Darwin seat of Johnston, which she rather than the CLP might take from Labor.

7.54pm. I now see the Greens are running second on Fong Lim as well as Fannie Bay, but seemingly only a threat in the latter.

7.53pm. Independent Robyn Lambley looking good in her Alice Springs seat of Araluen, which she nearly lost when she ran with the Territory Alliance in 2020.

7.52pm. Local peculiarities: ex-Labor independent Mark Turner not out of the hunt in Blain based off a small early result, though the CLP are ahead. Labor doing relatively well in the remote seats of Arafura and Gwoja. Greens as noted before coming first in the Darwin seat of Fannie Bay (though even stevens on a booth-matched basis) and Braitling in Alice Springs, though no updates for a while from other.

7.48pm. I’ve got Wanguri in northern Darwin down as a CLP gain from Labor from a swing of 23.4%. The caveat should be noted that we’re seeing entirely election day booths here, but the strength of the trend appears unmistakeable.

7.45pm. And now that I know it’s running smoothly, a plea for donations from any of you who are enjoying my election results pages. This involved a lot of work — probably no less than for a state election, given my need to code my around local peculiarities (like two-candidate contests and a Labor forfeit in the seat of Mulka).

7.40pm. I’ve now got the CLP winning two seats from Labor and one where an independent is retiring, and ahead in another three Labor-held seats. They go in with seven, so if they stay ahead in all of them they get to 13 out of 25 even without three further Labor-held seats in Darwin that haven’t reported yet. The Greens are finishing second in Braitling as well as Fannie Bay, though the former doesn’t look a show for them. My territory-wide TPP estimate is 56.9-43.1 to the CLP.

7.32pm. Antony Green points out that Gillen is a new booth for Namatjira purposes, so when I say Labor won it last time, that’s based on estimate (possibly of votes redistributed into the seat).

7.25pm. I’m projecting an overall two-party results of around 56-44 from the CLP, which will start showing on my election results landing page shortly.

7.23pm. The Greens doing very well in Fannie Bay, outpolling Labor and taking it right up to the CLP.

7.20pm. Another update through, and my system is calling the important Darwin seat of Karama for the CLP with a swing approaching 20%.

7.18pm. Progress still slow on the results feed, but anecdotal talk mounting on the ABC of a bad result for Labor.

7.09pm. Results from four seats: two Palmerston seats and two regional ones, with double-digit swings in three of the four, the exception being the remote seat of Gwoja.

7.08pm. Some results on the NTEC site: Labor lost the Gillen booth in Namatjira, which they won in 2020, 80-37.

7.00pm. Antony Green addressing the NTEC’s slow progress on the ABC — no major problem according to the NTEC, just nothing through yet.

6.48pm. On the ABC, CLP spokesperson Gerard Maley says they are doing very well in Goyder, where an independent is retiring, and Labor are troubled by what they’re seeing across the board.

6.45pm. Slower progress than I’d figured.

6.33pm. No official figures yet, but Natasha Fyles on the ABC says Labor scrutineers are optimistic about Daly, and the Greens are apparently doing well in the CLP-held Alice Springs seat of Braitling. The former is based on the Wagait Beach booth, which only had 161 votes in 2020.

6pm. Polls have closed. With low candidate numbers and some very small booths, we should start to see results quite promptly.

5.45pm. Welcome to the Poll Bludger’s live coverage of the count for the Northern Territory election, for which polls close in a quarter of an hour. The link above you takes you to my live results page, where you will find seat projections and win probabilities, booth results in table and map format, and a crude but hopefully effective progressive estimate of the territory-wide two-party preferred. The method by which the latter is produced side-steps the difficulty of Labor’s no-show in Mulka by calculating a swing for the other 24 seats and adding it to the two-party result from 2020 (53.3-46.7 to Labor, according to Antony Green’s estimate).

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. View all posts by William Bowe