Lingiari – Australia 2025

A Liberal should run in Cowper too. The state seats of Ballina, Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie and Tweed should have Liberal candidates (when the sitting Nationals members retire in Coffs and Tweed, Port remains Liberal and Ballina gets a Liberal candidate). This won’t effect votes though it just is better for growing regional cities.

Cowper has a sitting nats member so they won’t ATM. In regards to state seats I agree but only if the nats fail because of opv they each have designated seats in regards to ballina the nats have failed to retake it so I think it’s time for the libs to have. Shot. The libs should be running in hunter whitlam and Richmond to suppement the nats as with fpv any votes simply come back to the party and the libs may fair better. Lok what happened in shepparton and swan hill they combined to topple those Independents. I think the libs/nats can win hunter and whitlam and have a real shot at Richmond. Ballina at a state level might be a bit hard of an ask since the problem is in byron bay where the high greens vote is probably gonna keep that seat for them. And it’s probably only gonna she’d ballina in future. If the next redistribution could somehow put lismore and byron bay into the one seat that could help the coalition.

@ MQ
I dont think it is urbanisation that is hurting the Coalition. The most urbanized part is Tweed Heads and that is why the Nats do best. The issue real is the alternative lifestyle communities of Byron Shire where Labor gets 75% TPP. Urbanisation has not hurt the Coalition in the Sunshine Coast or Gold Coast either. It is only when there is tree changers/sea changers it hurts them. Even if Tweed Heads is Urbanized it lacks the characteristics of Urban Working class areas such as Blue collar workers, unionized jobs, Public servents, Universities, Ethnic communities etc. If Byron Shire had been taken out there is a good Chance the Coalition could win Richmond. The State seat of Tweed is held by the Nats.

I wonder if Labor vote is inflated is Tweed Heads and Ballina due to an a personal vote from Justine Elliott given Nat vote is stronger in state booths

@nimalan without byron bay richmond would be a slam dunk for the coalition. i think the only thing putting it in the labor column now is the local members personal vote otherwise it would be a at v green contest and i think that if the libs put in a candidate as well the coalition could well regain it once she retires

@ Marh
Good Question, if Justine Elliot retires the Labor vote in Tweed Heads and Ballina maybe up for grabs for the Coalition. However, i dont think the Coalition including the Libs can make any inroads into Byron Shire in any case.

@ John
Agree without Byron Bay it will be very different. I wonder if the Nats can do better against the Greens maybe the Greens will not appeal as much to Ballina and Tweed Heads as Labor currently does. However, i am honestly doubt if even the Libs can make inroads into Byron Shire so to win they need to very well in the other areas to overcome a 75% TPP against them n Bryon Shire.

@Marh @John @Nimalan Tweed Heads and Kingscliff will certainly be better for the Coalition once Justine Elliot retires. Ballina is tricky since there is a high Greens vote there so usually what happens on the federal and state level in Ballina itself and the surrounding towns is the Nationals come first but Labor/Greens win the booths on preferences.

Byron Bay is unwinnable because it and the surrounding towns are full of hippies (though Byron itself now has a lot of affluent inner-city elites who moved there) so they always vote for the Greens or the more extreme ones vote for fringe parties and candidates (Mullumbimby for example has a significant minority of people who are anti-vaxxers and anti-fluoride and conspiracy theorist type hippies as opposed to the Byron type which focuses a lot on stuff like the environment and cannabis).

@ NP
Agree the Byron Shire Alternative Communities are very left-wing. If there was an electorate that combined the Byron Shire and includes Lismore Surrounds such as Nimbin, The Channons etc it would be pretty much the US State of Vermont which is an entire state which is alternative lifestyle. Something that i just found out that the Town of Wilsons Creek is about 5% Jewish! which i did not expect in a small rural town

@nimalan the problem for the coalition is the nats only appeal to the more conservative voters which usually come with rural and regional communities. as it becomes more urban and people move from other parts of the country they look for more centre parties that how i think labor was able to win initially coupled with the small amount of preferences from the greens they are able to win the seat and noww the member has a personal vote that keeps her in office. if the libs run a candidate they can at leas try and capture some of the centre leaning vote. of the 3 shires tweed, byron and ballina byron is the smallest so they really only need to wedge labor out of the 2pp and it should be winnable

Thats a Fair point about Nats maybe not appealing to Urbanised voters. However, the state seat of Tweed in still held by Nats so they may argue that they still appeal. I am not sure how much Centre leaning vote there is left Byron Shire but i agree there will be a lot in Ballina and Tweed Shire. So maybe both Libs and Nats can run. The problem is the Nats will not want the Libs running in the state seat of Tweed though as they already hold it.

@np its not ballina that is the problem its byron bay that is got a high greens vote. unfortunately if the parliament were to expand it would likely lose the ballina parts. this si why they need to put a lib candidate in the mix to supplement the nats candidate as with fpv the vote will flow back anyway if you have a look at 2010 when the libs ran as well they did manage to strip some votes from labor and justine elliots primary has been slowly deteriating every election and i imagine that if she doesnt retire by 2028 she will lose the seat anyway. i believe the 2022 nats cnadidate had some controversey as well. based on the downwards trajectory of the labor vote and the increase in the greens vote i predict justine elliot will lose richmond in 2025. though i cant say to who.

lismore and byron wont be able to be in the same seat federally as its a corner seat and unless its population drastically drops it will only shrink and not increase in size however putting lismore and byron together in a state seat might be possible

@nimalan yes the nats will continue to claim tweed as a nats seat until they lose it and even then they may kee trying just like they do in ballina. i think the nats should give the libs a shot at ballina though. the coalition agreement will prevent the libs running until tweed is lost

@John it’s true that the 2022 candidate was controversial which is why Tweed Heads suburbs like Banora Point that usually vote National or Liberal had big swings against the Nationals.

@NP another reason to have a secondary candidate. i think the nats vote will recover and alon with greater preference discipl from the right of cnetre vote i think justine elliot will be gone in 2025.so it will be interesting to see how her vote breaks. this could be the time for the libs to come in and sweep the field as without another centre candidate to go to they will break either or left to the greens or nats have another centre party in the mix could be just waht they need. either way my prediction is that justine eliot will lose richmond at the next election.

and tbh i think the only thing that saved her in 2022 was the controversy around the nats candidate

Lisa Siebert is the Clp candidae

CLP gain most likely but will be more marginal than it is on the territory level where it’s a fairly safe seat (Solomon is also a fairly safe seat on the territory level and while I expect it to swing to the CLP federally too it won’t flip).

@np i expect it to be a gain but despite being marginal it may take longer to decalre this seat due to the nature of the booths in such remote places. in 2013 in looked like a coalition gain on election night but snowden was able to hold on

in fact i expect the coalition to fall short of majority with aroun 68-70 seats. which likely wont be enough to form minority given the nature of most of the crossbenchs opinion towards dutton. however i expect the coalition to be within a whisker of at least a dozen seats

Alp retain
Slight boost due to boundary change
And small swing to new 8ncumbrnt.
This is the sort of area where a mp can become known snd improve their vote.
If Ms Price thought it was a certainty wouldn’t she run here?

Sportsbet has released seat betting for a bunch of seats (a mix of key seats and safe or very safe seats which honestly shouldn’t even have markets, like who’s betting $26 on “any other candidate”?), including this one.

In this seat, the CLP are the clear favourites. There is no market for Solomon yet, but I would assume Labor are the clear favourites there despite the last Territory general election.

Odds:

* CLP: $1.50 (66.7%)
* Labor: $2.45 (40.8%)
* Any other candidate: $13.00 (7.7%)

(According to an odds calculator; and yes I know this adds up to over 100%)

@NP its never impossible for any other candidate to win thats why the market exists

@mick they likely won’t risk her in such a marginal seat. She’s too talented to put at risk. Senate spot is a shoe in. They will likely find her a safe seat in the years to come interstate. That way she can have a go at the top job.

The YouGov poll released today shows that the CLP are in trouble. 57-43 to Labor. Very surprised by that.

Yes the Territory election was interesting as Labor had swings to them in Arafura, Gwoja and Daly, but either way I would have said this was a comfortable CLP gain.

Hard to poll such a remote and isolated place though.

The acutal results will be dependent on the turnout rate and the reachability to voters in the most remote parts of Lingiari. Turnout in 2022 was 67% whereas in 2007, the previous time Labor won government, it was 81%.

Is she really talented or just ambitious?
This seat in 2022 changed their sitting alp mp… would expect some level of consolidation also the percentage voting is low.. this could well increase.
MRP is not intended to predict indiv seats
So quoted figure is meaningless

They didn’t change it the sitting mp retired and the Libs almost snagged the seat against the current

Considering Blue Not John seems to be online and posting about how Dutton’s plans for the APS might hurt them in seats with high amount of APS workers + Votante’s response about how NT has the most APS jobs per capita in Australia outside the ACT, I’m interested to see how Dutton’s policies for the APS might influence such a tight and important race here.

Idk the spread of APS workers in NT, but considering Lingiari is the more interesting race, I thought it’d be best to post it here.

Why does the NT have the second highest proportion of APS workers? I assume it has something to do with the government trying to improve the lives of Indigenous people? Almost every government policy has an Indigenous component these days.

A huge portion of NT’s population works in defence, especially in Darwin and Katherine.

A lot of sparsely populated jurisdictions overseas have lots of public sector jobs and relatively small private sectors. In the US, Alaska, Wyoming and North Dakota and in Canada, Nunavut, Yukon and NW Territories up in the north have lots of public sector jobs. A big reason for the federal funding and jobs is to do with sustaining and providing the jurisdictions with basic government services.

I tend to think most people don’t see defence force staff etc as Public servants in the wy they do say ATO or departmental staff. Its why I think, even here, cutting 36k PS is likely to be quite popular.

defence force is not seen or included as Public Service the defence force is undermanned as it as and wont be subject o cuts. especially given the coalitions position on defence spending

When you exclude defence, NT still has a high number of APS jobs per capita. It is partly because it contains agencies and skeleton staff to provide services that sustain any state or territory e.g. AEC, Passport Office, Fair Work Ombudsman, ABS. It is also sparesly populated and so maintaining governance and essential services is more costly.

i imagine the remoteness of places and and the need for for services such as abirginal specific services requires they have them there

Last election, there was a huge drop in the voter turnout and it reached an all-time low.

I remember Labor, post-election, saying that it was because of the Coalition’s AEC funding cuts and resource restraints for remote polling teams. There were reports of a shortage of interpreters. I’m not sure if said issues led to or compounded the swing away from Labor last election.

If Labor continues to have trouble turning out remote voters this seat will continue to be a problem for them – a small national trend and perhaps a slightly elevated statewide reaction against Labor would be a lot for the incumbent to try and hold off given the recent trends here.

Turnout should be (and is) a matter for the AEC. They are required to maximise turnout as much as possible, even though it is clearly in Labor’s best interest in this seat. I believe the AEC put a lot of resources into Indigenous enrolment before the Voice referendum, which may help Labor here if they turn out to vote.

Most of whom didn’t turn out in the territory election

How responsible is it of the AEC to do an enrolment drive on citizens who are politically disengaged and who are fairly unlikely to be close to a booth on election day?

@Adam there was indeed a big campaign for Indigenous enrolment in remote communities, but as @Darth Vader said they didn’t turn up to actually vote.

For example, in Palm Island only one in t three residents actually voted in the Voice referendum, so the AEC failed to actually convince them to vote, something the AEC needs to do.

Remote Indigenous turnout is low even overseas. At the last Canadian federal election in 2021 (note that Canada doesn’t have compulsory voting unlike Australia), turnout in the Northwest Territories was 47.2% while in Nunavut was 34.1%, compared to 62.3% nationwide. The Northwest Territories are 49.6% Indigenous while Nunavut is 85.8% Indigenous, compared to 5.0% of Canada as a whole.

“For example, in Palm Island only one in t three residents actually voted in the Voice referendum, so the AEC failed to actually convince them to vote, something the AEC needs to do.”
Is convincing them to vote in the AEC remit? Sounds llike overstepping the line into politics to me.

@Nether Portal April 12, 2025 at 7:47 am
235 voted in the referendum at Woorabinda, out of a population of over 1,000. My reading of that is many people were somewhere else on the day or doing something else that prevented them voting. Both legit reasons for failing to vote, imo.

I hope Labor can hang onto this one, the CLP representing this seat in particular is such a grim idea. Marion isn’t necessarily a very high profile MP in the seat but it’s hard to cover a seat like this one at the best of times. I don’t know if the Labor increased spending on remote housing / health has been felt, and of course with the CLP gas rush at the Territory level being merrily allowed by Plibersek and co, the anti-fracking crews (both conservative and progressive) will find it hard to rally with her, even though she’s a better rep on water and climate than anyone from the CLP could be (at least behind the scenes – for whatever that’s worth).

The Greens beat the CLP in Nhulunbuy last time. Don’t know if they’ll be able to manage it again this time with the CLP doing well elsewhere in the NT but they’ll be organised there. After last year’s results in Alice I think the Greens are in with a shot of beating Labor into second in Alice itself. And with Blair running again, and without a prominent indie running I’d expect the Greens to do well in this seat generally.

The latest Yougov MRP has One Nation doing well here and sadly with the LDP and other micro right parties not running I think they might even do better than it predicts. ON doesn’t have much infrastructure in the Territory that I know of but the name and the consolidation of the lunar right may be enough.