The draft federal electoral boundaries for the Northern Territory were published earlier today.
This redistribution is far less dramatic than the redistributions for the three big states that have just concluded. For a start, there is no change to the seat count – the redistribution was triggered by seven years passing since the last redistribution and thus no mini-redistribution would be required if the process isn’t finished prior to the federal election.
In addition, there are only two seats, and an extremely obvious solution to balance the enrolment in those two seats. Every single submission to the redistribution process proposed the same change, and that is exactly what has happened.
The seat of Solomon previously covered all of Darwin and most of the Palmerston council area, with the exception of the eastern edge of Palmerston, which was contained in Lingiari. That small part of Palmerston has been moved from Lingiari to Solomon, unifying the urban parts of the Darwin-Palmerston area in a single seat.
These changes cut the Labor margin in Solomon from 9.4% to 8.4%, and increased the Labor margin in Lingiari from 0.9% to 1.6%.
The primary votes have also changed in predictable ways. Labor’s primary vote is up 0.7% in Lingiari and down 0.7% in Solomon. The CLP is up 0.7% in Solomon and down 0.2% in Lingiari. The Greens vote is down from 14.8% to 14.5% in Solomon.
That’s it for now. My guides to Solomon and Lingiari have already been published based on the old boundaries. I will update those guides alongside the writing of guides for NSW, Victorian and WA seats after the Queensland election.
Ben, you’re right, there was really only one option that made sense, and I did fully expect this to be the result. Do we expect any objections at all, especially given I was the only person that even commented on suggestions. I feel like i should submit an objection, just to support the proposal.
The small area must have had a high lcl vote
Hi Darren, yeah I saw your comment on the suggestions. But honestly this is so open and shut that I think it’s fair enough to sit it out.
lingiari is stil an easy CLP gain and makes it easier for them to win solomon as well
Funny to think that if the swing in 2022 had been slightly larger we could have had a situation where the CLP won Lingiari in 2022 but the redistribution notionally flips it to Labor.
@nicholas that happens all the time
@Nicholas it’s happened with Bennelong this time. Labor won it last time and now it’s flipping to notionally Liberal.
My point is that a notional change brought about by this redistribution – which is otherwise one of the most trivial and uninteresting redistributions in living memory – would have made it much more notable. Maybe my sense of humour is too idiosyncratic.
I enjoyed it Nicholas. 😉
And fwiw I think this one will be quite consequential. The CLP swing in those fast growing conservative parts of Palmy will be brutal this time. Marion’s only hope of holding on is convincing enough third party voters to stick with federal Labor as a 1 or a 2. A good indie splitting the vote or more Green voters breaking with preferencing Labor like they did in a few Alice seats in August and she’s toast.
@Josh Marion has no chance. Albos has all but abandoned the NT and it’s indigeounous communities didn’t even bother to show up for the NT election. Lost the voice then lost his voice. Albos won’t even hold some safer seats in his home turf. At this rate they’ll be lucky to save Solomon.
@Josh – yah, agree re the coming swing in Palmo at the next federal election. The CLP winning all but Nightcliff during the recent Territory vote will make a big difference in applying campaign resource for Lisa Bayliss (who has demonstrated she understands the difference between Territory and Federal issues). That said, Luke Gosling is inner-inner circle Labor and will call on every available resource he can to hang on to the seat. His wife is a former Labor ministerial press lead so his campaign should be well organised. If Bayliss can do more than rely on campaigning horsepower and whatever key messages come out of Coalition HQ – she will find Gosling is vulnerable. Under pressure he’s thin-skinned, and he’s also voted for a lot of legislation that harms our economy and/or is not aligned with Territory values (energy, IR, transport, digital identity). All she needs to do is clarify what she will do instead, and how this will benefit people – and she should be able to attract a majority. I’d also reach out to the parties that drew a lot of the CLP’s vote away last time round – One Nation, Liberal Democrats, and United Australia.
I would very confidently say there will be a swing of maybe –4% against Luke Gosling in Solomon and the CLP will gain Lingiari because of Labor’s abandonment of the Territory on the federal and territory level but I don’t think Labor will lose Solomon in 2025. There will definitely be a swing back to the CLP though because there was a randomly big swing last time. The swing will be less than the swing at the Territory election though because Territorians have already ousted their Labor government in a landslide and the Territory is now in good hands for issues like crime and cost of living.
@Nether – when you say, ‘there was a randomly big swing last time’ – are you referring to the 2022 federal election? I wouldn’t mind knowing more. (Wiki for 2022 shows Gosling at -.54, CLP -13.07, and the independent conservatives at +17.84. Then 2PP to Gosling an overall +6.29, CLP -6.29. Although I am not always sure how to interpret voting data.) Crime is Territory issue. But cost of living is mainly linked to federal behaviour. Lisa Bayliss was interviewed by Adam Steer the day after she won preselection and he mentioned both, but she differentiated between the two issues. I think he’s vulnerable on defence as well, despite his background in Army. I mean, we can’t put a brigade in the field, or send a single ship to the Gulf. Not good.
@PoliticoNT I was referring to the swing in Solomon at the 2022 federal election.
It appears that no objections for this redistribution were received – probably expected given that the change was relatively simple and uncontroversial.
I wonder how rare this scenario occurs – I guess it would be more likely for the small states with fewer seats as the redistributions are more straightforward. In fact, I believe the 2008 NT redistribution (first one since the territory was granted a 2nd seat) involved no changes to boundaries.
The changes are due to be finalised on March 4th it’s highly likely given recent speculation that these changes won’t be in effect for the next election.
@Darth Vader
I hope AEC and Parl ram it through before the election is called but I don’t fully understand the legal/practical requirements which could disallow this.
@leon unfortunately the timetable can’t be rushed and the process must follow the legal requirements of the timetable.