Nominations closed on Friday for the Northern Territory election – to be held two weeks from today.
The number of independents running in the coming election has increased dramatically, with five sitting independent MPs running for election and a former chief minister running for his old seat as an independent.
86 candidates stood for the 25 Assembly electorates in 2012. That number has increased to 115, almost entirely due to a big surge in the number of independents on the ballot.
Thirteen independents ran in 2012. This year, forty independents are running.
Gerry Wood was the only independent to win a seat in 2012, winning a fourth term in his seat of Nelson. Since that election, six other MPs have become independents: five MPs elected as Country Liberal candidates have left the party, and one Labor MP (former leader Delia Lawrie) has also moved to the crossbench. Out of these seven independents, five of them are running for re-election.
Some of these ex-CLP candidates could well have a chance of winning their seat against the official CLP candidate, in seats like Araluen, Goyder and Arnhem.
The former CLP chief minister Terry Mills has also re-emerged as an independent candidate in his old seat of Blain. Mills resigned from Parliament in 2014 after he was removed as chief minister in 2013. The by-election was won by CLP candidate Nathan Barrett, whose ministerial career came unstuck in June this year thanks to a sex scandal. Barrett has since left the CLP, and is not running for re-election. Labor would have little to no chance of winning Blain, even in a landslide, but Mills has a real shot at winning his seat.
We haven’t seen much polling in the NT, but those we have seen suggests that the CLP is on track to be easily defeated by Labor. If this election goes badly, and the CLP loses as many as four of their seats to independents, they could well be reduced to a small rump.
Apart from independents, the number of candidates running for political parties has roughly stayed the same. As in 2012, Labor and the CLP are running in all 25 seats. The Greens are running only six candidates, down from ten in 2012. Another party, ‘1 Territory’, is running thirteen candidates. The Citizens Electoral Council is running four candidates, and the Shooters and Fishers are running two.
The increase in candidate nominations will be seen in the size of most ballot papers. The median ballot paper size in 2012 was only three candidates. There was more than four candidates in only three seats. This year, there are five or more candidates running in eleven seats, with eight candidates running in the seat of Daly.
Great work Ben, thank you. Very interesting to read all this as Ive seen nothing anywhere else! Going to be interesting and I look forward to your next post.
Innnnteresting.. thanx Ben. So many independents this time and a new voting system. This is the first time we have had optional preferential. Also the new 100 meter rule for voting places may get people by surprise on the day. How-to-votes will need to be posted out for them to have any effect.
Seems funny listing their gender? Ben, are you able to publish the margins each seat is currently held by?
15 of these independent / minor party candidates also ran in the federal election… not bad considering there’s only two lower house seats and the senate.
Four are from the CEC, so now we know who’ll come last in Goyder, Nelson, Spillett and Daly. (Seriously, why do these people even bother?) Both Shooters also ran federally – Chris Righton got over 7% in Lingiari, although the donkey vote probably had a fair bit to do with that.
Regina McCarthy (Daly), Jan Pile (Wanguri) and Jimmy Gimini (Karama) are all independents here but ran for Rise Up federally, and Lance Lawrence in Arnhem ran for HEMP – presumably those parties aren’t registered at territory level.
Predictions Anyone?
CLP will lose just about all their seats. The only ones I think they have any chance at all of holding are Stuart (likely), Arafura (who knows), Katherine (60-40 against), Braitling (unlikely), Spillet (long-shot) and Drysdale (long-shot).
Independents will hold Nelson, Goyder and Araluen. Terry Mills slight favorite over ALP in Blain and ALP favorite in Arnhem over Ind ex-CLP (but not prohibitive).
That should leave CLP 2, IND 3-4 and ALP 19-20. The CLP, if it exists at all, will have an Indigenous / bush majority. Adam Giles to lose his seat and to easily surpass Denis Burke as the CLP’s most disastrous leader. Would be hard to find worse in Australian political history.
Largely based on last month’s federal results, here’s my tips:
3 CLP (Spillett, Katherine, Braitling)
5 independent (Nelson, Goyder, Blain, Araluen, Nhulunbuy)
17 ALP (everything else)
Port Darwin would still be a CLP seat on federal figures, but its MP is retiring and a 9.7% margin probably won’t be enough. They also won in Goyder and Nelson, but Kezia Purick should hang on to her seat and Gerry Wood isn’t going anywhere.
Katherine and Braitling would actually be Labor seats federally (the CLP only won one small booth in each). However, they’re on big margins and held by high-profile CLP members, while federally Warren Snowdon probably has a fair bit of personal vote for Labor. Braedon Earley might do something interesting in Katherine.
And yes, that is Labor’s safest seat in the independent column.
PS: that one CLP booth in Alice Springs (Yirara College) is Namatjira, not Braitling. Google Maps has it in the wrong place for some reason.
The CLP will do much worse than they did federally though. If they didn’t win Braitling on the federal figures, somehow I can’t see Giles holding it due to his astounding personal charm.
They’ll do well if they hold even one of their urban seats. Their main hope of representation, ironically, could be Stuart or Arafura …or in asking Terry Mills to rejoin them. Why he would is another question.
Peterjk23, why do you think Stuart is such a good chance for the CLP? My instinct is that by far their best chance of holding is Spillett (and they’ll probably win two to four in total), but I’m a long way away and there’s probably plenty I don’t know. Spillett seems to be in very conservative territory and is being contested by practically the only CLP member not tainted by scandal, so it seems a safe bet?
It’s a remote indigenous area that has never before had a sitting CLP member so there will be a new dynamic at play. Price has has four years to build up personal loyalty and perhaps the scandals in Darwin will have less resonance in the back blocks of the Tanami Desert. It just an educated guess, nothing more, I’m far away too. They could come crashing down there or they could hold. In the urban areas only the former outcome is possible though. Alison Anderson has endorsed the ALP in Stuart however, which won’t help the CLP cause. There no love lost between her and Bess Price.
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