Category: Northern Territory Election 2024

Click here for full display of Northern Territory election results.

Saturday

With the NTEC’s publication of the full preference distributions, the results can be considered finalised. In Fannie Bay, the surprise success of the CLP in staying ahead of the Greens at the final count had nothing to do with independent Leonard May, who actually delivered more preferences to the Greens than the CLP, and everything to do with the fact that only around two-thirds of Labor’s preferences went to the Greens ahead of the CLP. The Greens’ win in Nightcliff resulted from three-quarters of a substantial independent vote flowing to them, together with only slightly less than half of the transfer when the CLP was excluded.

Wednesday 4pm

Another preference count boilover, with a fresh Labor-versus-Greens two-candidate count in former Labor leader Natasha Fyles’ seat of Nightcliff showing the Greens with a seemingly insurmountable lead of 2242 to 2200. This means the Greens, whose luck appeared to desert them in Fannie Bay, will win a seat in parliament after all, provided their candidate Kat McNamara makes the final count — which she apparently will, because the NTEC relates it also conducted a three-way count between Fyles, McNamara and the CLP. The strength of the preference flow to the Greens is the second such surprise (to me at least) to emerge from late counting, one giving the Greens a (seemingly) unexpected victory and the other an unexpected defeat. The split was 63.1-36.9 in the Greens’ favour, which is inclusive of 1055 CLP and 957 independent votes. I have replaced my preference flow estimates with the exact figures on my results page, but the results from the fresh count are not in the media feed at this stage.

Tuesday evening

I have taken my eye off the ball for the count in the Northern Territory, where the Country Liberal Party’s position strengthened still further with the apparent likelihood that they will take a seventeenth seat in Fannie Bay, a Darwin seat that Labor has held since 1995. The surprise lay in the fact that a fresh two-candidate preferred count between the Country Liberal candidate Laurie Zio and Greens candidate Suki Dorras-Walker showed a surprisingly weak flow of Labor preferences to the latter, seemingly scotching the party’s hopes of winning its first ever territory seat (though more on an alternative possibility shortly). Based on the normal behaviour of preference flows, it had hitherto seemed likely that the result would be decided by which out of Dorras-Walker and Labor incumbent Brent Potter made the final count. A win for the latter is mathematically possible, but with few if any votes yet to be counted, he would need the distribution of independent Leonard May’s 185 votes to close a gap against the Greens of 1327 to 1268, which seems most unlikely. It could otherwise be presumed that Greens preferences would then push him ahead of the CLP.

There is also the technical possibility of a late boilover in one of only five seats that appear likely to remain with Labor, that being former leader Natasha Fyles’ seat of Nightcliff. The alternative scenario in this case involves a win for Greens candidate Kat McNamara, who has polled 21.9% to the Country Liberals’ 23.8% and Fyles’ 32.8%. If McNamara can close the gap with the Country Liberals, it’s conceivable that enough CLP preferences will flow to her to win her the seat. My own results page for the seat has Fyles well ahead of McNamara in a two-candidate contest based on estimated preference splits of 65-35 to Labor among CLP votes, 70-30 to the Greens among those for a strongly performing progressive independent, and 50-50 for a minor independent. The first of these in particular would need to be well off the mark to turn the result. Antony Green reports the preferences of the two independent candidates will be counted today to determine if the Greens will indeed make the final count, presumably to be followed by a Labor-versus-Greens count if so.

Click here for full display of Northern Territory election results.

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.

Continue reading “Northern Territory election live”

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.

There is now a guide to the Northern Territory election on August 24, featuring as always an overview page and individual electorate pages. The latter tell you everything you could reasonably wish to know about the 25 seats, featuring post-redistribution calculations of primary and two-party preferred results, results charts and tables, and navigable boundary maps.

There are two polls relevant to the election from this year in the public domain – not counting a RedBridge Group poll that showed Labor heading for a drubbing last November, which might be thought out of date since it preceded the leadership change from Natasha Fyles to Eva Lawler a month later. A Freshwater Strategy poll of 1000 respondents that appeared in May, conducted for Australian Energy Producers NT, was less bad for Labor, showing a CLP two-party lead of 54-46. Primary votes were 39% for the CLP, 29% for Labor, 22% for independents and 9% for the Greens, which likely flatters the non-major parties given the limited number of candidates voters will have to choose from in practice. The accompanying report in the Northern Territory News said Labor insiders were “buoyed by the party’s improved fortunes” under its new leaders.

A month later came a uComms poll for the NT Environment Centre, likewise with no field work period disclosed (UPDATE: Kevin Bonham relates in comments it was “between March and April”), targeting 1100 voters in Darwin and Palmerston only. This suggested both major parties were on about 36% of the primary vote, which in turn suggests a two-party preferred of around 52-48 in favour of Labor. By my reckoning, this points to a 5% swing to the CLP when compared with the Darwin and Palmerston results from 2020, which if uniform would cost them three seats and nearly a fourth. Antony Green’s reckoning of the territory-wide two-party preferred from 2020 (which must somehow reckon with the CLP’s failure to field a candidate in the seat of Mulka) was 53.3-46.7 to Labor.