I had come to same conclusion about the CLP and Terry Mills’ future. The party is divided, that was obvious during the election day when a number of CLP candidates were not supported by the local branch members. In addition, like it or not the Berrimah line also exists in politics, there is a clear division between the urban CLP and the Alice Springs CLP.

If I was Terry I would watch my back especially after the realisation of no swing to CLP settles in. It is going to be intersting: Dave can not stand Jodeen, Jodeen dislikes Dave and the old men who now control the CLP do not like Jodeen for a number of reasons.

As the hubris, I think the ALP paid mistakes made not by Hendo only but from the previous leadership team. After all he has been in the job for 9 months only!

I also found unbelievable for Clare to come out just before the election and declare that the ALP would not lose any seats! In which planet did she live?

Hendo was right. A handful of votes could have decided to a CLP government or a hung Parliament, God Forbids. I can not imagine what Gerry Wood would have demanded for his vote.

As I said before the natural environment for the ALP in the Territory now is around 55-59%, any extra point is due to the local member hard work, and this translates to 14 possibly 15 seats.

The ALP now has a unique opportunity to rejuvenate itself and I think from the messages coming out of the ALP the message has been received loud and clear.

Yes it’s Politics 101. I don’t understand why they didn’t do it. After all, they have very recent models in the way media masters like Carr and Beattie handled similar situations when published polls were showing them well in front. Here it would have been a piece of cake to switch the rhetoric to underdog mode. There were no published polls to contradict such a line. Moreover, whatever their polling said (and it was almost certainly showing little or no swing to the CLP) the reality by definition was much more dangerous. A historic high Labor vote in 2005 with at least 4 seats vulnerable on a tiny swing of less than 2% and only 7 losses to a change of government. It was unbelievably stupid not to run an “uphill battle and brave but dangerous struggle to secure economic prosperity for Territorians” line.

If it all comes down to hubris, you have to wonder why NT Labor departed from the new norm that any party, whatever its objective prospects insists on ‘underdog status’.

Obviously the voters in Sanderson don’t like a shrewd polyglot.

Michael – the Labor Government has not been doing well over the last year or two but a change to what? The CLP? That would mean that they had learnt all of the lessons that should have been taken from their defeats in 2001 and 2005. I can’t see any evidence of that in the campaign they have just run. Ignorant populism on law and order, a new hospital to be built 15 minutes drive from another which struggles to achieve good economies of scale and clear the land in the Daly thus mucking up environment for the dubious benefit of large scale cropping of cotton and peanuts?

Labor needed a smack in the mouth. They have had one. Hopefully they will learn. If not then they will go in 4 years. With any luck the CLP will have sorted itself out by then with a few policies that actually have some value.

People do not like early elections when the reason is a crock.

governments with large majorities get arrogant.

Perhaps even a Borbidge effect is evident. People voted against the ALP to protest never realising they would produce such a close result.

In the end it seems to me N/T needed a change of government so it is a shame it didn’t happen

It is the personal relationship that the local member develops with his constituents that provides a buffer against a backlash which maybe directed to the party as in this occasion. If the local member is close to his constituents then the large families will stick with the sitting member rather than change it.

Look at Jane Aagard, Chris Burns, Delia Lawrie, Kon Vatskalis, Paul Henderson who may have suffered a swing against them in their electorates but the CLP did not gain any ground there, it was simply the voters who did not want to vote Labor sending a message to the ALP thus bringing the overall numbers down.

I bet Mills is happy that Lambert lost Fannie Bay.

It is this unique mix and the small electorates that makes the NT elections interesting.

Until 2001 the NT was CLP country and looked like that it would be CLP country for ever. Then Clare Martin became the ALP leader, the CLP dumped Shane Stone and installed Denis Burke as Chief Minister. The combination of CLP arrogance, Burke’s attitude, a strong campaing by the ALP during the June 2001 elections and the CLP deciding to prefernce One Nation (here is the ethnic connection) meant disaster for the CLP. CLP lost for first time the Northern suburbs, where in some cases 1 in 4 voters were born outside Australia.

In 2005 the ALP repeated its strong election performance and won 19 seats! The reasons for that? Dennis Burke was again the leader of the CLP and enormously unpopular, the ALP run a strong campaing and of course incumbuncy. This was an unexpected (and unatural)result. The 2008 elections has corrected that “anomaly” sending at the same time a very strong message to the ALP about complacency, arrogance and listening to the people and not ignoring the regions.

However an analysis of the voting patterns in various electorates shows that the CLP did not gain extra votes – in some cases it lost votes ie Karama, but a large number of voters did not vote. There are several reasons behind it:
The weather was too good to miss a fishing or camping trip (yes it happens)or because despite the fact they wanted to punish the ALP they could n’t bring themselves to vote CLP, or because they beleived that the ALP will win anyway so they wanted to register a protest vote by staying away.

As for the extended Greek family comment – it was made by Kon Vatskalis the membe for Casuarina during an ABC interview on the night of the elections- to point out the significance of the small electorates and how a small change of votes can have a significant effect on the election results, especially when 34 people is 1% of the electorate. This is very important in view of our social situation with large extended family of Greek, Chinese and of course indigenous background with extended relationship and cultural networks. Kon must know something especially when apporximately 6% of his constituents are of Chinese origin, 10% Greeks, 9% indigenous and a lot of other smaller groups.

It is different world up here -but an exciting one.

I’m in Darwin at the moment also. Perhaps it’s time for a minor blogrog.

You should be pretty safe, I think. Only chicken-farming Independent MLAs seem to sight UFOs (luckily he isn’t now going to have the balance of power), and most of those apathetic non-voters are pretty keen fishermen or partakers in various other outdoor delights of a Darwin dry season. Couch sitting isn’t common this time of year and air-con unnecessary, though I’ll probably be doing some intensive warming of the Jason recliner mself while watching the Olympics, having had this weekend disrupted severely by the election and Jen’s superb production of Albee’s The Zoo Story at Brown’s Mart.

Look us up while you’re here. I’ll email separately.

Is it safe or will there be riots in the streets about the close result? Will I be overcome by the inertia of the non voters and simple lay on the couch under an air-con? Am I likely to get abducted by a UFO?

Given the size of the electorates (I’ve had more friends at a BBQ) why didn’t candidates simply ring everyone in their electorate and ask them if they’d voted.

Agree with that. I suspect there was a substantial protest vote component, in combination with an expected re-normalisation of the political balance after the lop-sided 2005 result.

Alan said:
I just did the sums and it seems more people will vote in my local government area in September than voted in the whole of the NT. When I see how much Federal funding goes to my local government area and how much liquid pork flows to the NT it makes me wonder. The thing that really pisses me off is how up there they swagger around as Proud Territorians independent hard men and ready to show those poofy southerners a thing or two. You cop it sweet so as not to offend and you havent the heart to tell them their life style is underwritten by the decadent southerners. They are a prickly lot up there when you tell them they are less than perfect.
A little more gratitude would be nioe.

Try checking the per capita earned export income figures (you know, the only ones that actually count). The last set I saw had the NT second only to WA.

A little more gratitude from you whinging southerners would indeed be nice.

NT Parliament House was certainly a consequence of pork barrelling in a sense, designed by the former CLP government to appease the building industry by delvering work at a time that would otherwise have seen a major slump in activity flowing from the Keating recession + a hiatus in growth following the end of the defence buildup in the north. While one can argue that it was wasteful and extravagant, it contributed to ironing out the “boom-bust” cycle that had previously hampered NT growth, and perhaps in part facilitated the most recent decade or so of remarkable growth and prosperity here. My objection to parliament House was not to the expenditure per se but to the fact that there were numerous major public infrastructure projects that would have had equally stimulatory short term effects with much greater long-term multipliers

However, Parliament House was not funded by the Commonwealth. It was funded by NT borrowings, and we still carry significant net state debt as a result of it and other arguably ill-conceived big spending projects like Yulara and the Trade Development Zone. Territorians mostly pay the price of that wasteful expenditure, though indigenous Territorians arguably pay it more heavily, because spending on indigenous disadvantage has been constrained by state debts levels with some funding provided by the Commonwealth for indigenous disadvantage at least arguably being spent disproportionately in Darwin to keep urban electorates sweet. That phenomenon came to a crashing halt when the Martin government was belatedly shamed into tackling the problems of indigenous disadvantage by the Little Children are Sacred report and the Brough Intervention.

Indeed the constraints on new spending promises imposed by the combination of high net state debt and being forced to address indigenous disadvantage more urgently than previously meant that the Henderson government wasn’t able to make anywhere near as many the sort of large-scale pork barrelling election promises that have characterised most previous NT elections. That constraint might well have been an unappreciated factor in Labor’s unexpectedly poor showing. Territorians aren’t yet accustomed to the fact that the days of Santa Claus at election time are over.

Electorates with 4,500 voters are certainly tiny but it’s difficult to see a viable alternative. Larger multi-member electorates (as in the ACT) aren’t really workable in the NT given the huge distances involved in servicing bush seats even on current boundaries. Moreover, inter-tribal jealousies and tensions would also militate against larger bush electorates. I suppose you could reduce the number of electorates and thereby reduce the number of MLAs (e.g. the ACT only has 17) but some of the above disadvantages would also apply to that, and it would neither save very much money nor have any other obvious advantages.

The “well-connected extended Greek family” remark is something of an exaggeration and probably emanates from some disgruntled former politician as an excuse for his/her own inadequacies. The sort of “grass roots” democracy that small electorates allows is mostly a good thing IMO.

Nor is Alan’s “liquid pork” remark really accurate. The NT is funded by the Commonwealth on exactly the same Grants Commission formulae as the States. It’s probably true that the Howard government’s partial funding of the Alice-Darwin railway was an example of pork, in that one can think of numerous public infrastructure projects that would have offered more bang for the buck. Then again, there are both defence and nation-building arguments in favour of it that aren’t encompassed by a strict financial cost-benefit analysis.

Similarly, I suppose some might see the very considerable funding from the Howard/Brough NT Intervention as another example of “pork”. But most would not begrudge determined if belated action to tackle indigenous disadvantage and appalling violence levels, and I doubt that special federal funding for NT indigenous communities is any greater than they’ve been pouring into Cape York to assist Noel Pearson’s very similar plans.

“Look, the electorate populations are so small that all you need to do is piss-off one well-connected extended Greek family in Darwin and you’re a goner.”

It stands to reason that electors will tend to have a jaundiced view of what looks like shameless opportunism on the part of an incumbent in running for the polls a year early. It worked for Peter Beattie in Queensland but Beattie, uniquely, managed to turn shameless opportunism into a loveable personality trait.

I wonder if Matt Bonson was affected by the Len Keily factor? They were both dumped from the Ministry for inappropriate conduct and then re-instated at the same time as soon as Henderson ousted Clare. Maybe some of the disquiet over Labor rewarding bad behaviour rubbed off on him as well.

You’re right in that Terry Mills is too nice. I’m not sure that’s as big a disadvantage as you and Jacques seem to think. Having met him socially a few times over the years, I found the media coverage and the labor ads irritating because my personal experience is that he is better than that. Given time to sit down and talk about issues, rather than having to get a message across in a 30 second sound bite, he comes across a lot better. (I’ve met Paul Henderson at one or two social functions as well. He’s not the most personable chap you could ever come across, is he?)

“A backlash against Hendersons cynical calling of a very early election on the flimsy pretext”

Pretty much sums up why I preferenced CLP above Labor.

It’s not apparent to me that the greens materially affected the outcome in any of the 5 seats where they fielded candidates. moreover, in my understanding they handed out 2 sided how to vote cards rather than allocating/recommending preferences. Thus, you wouldn’t even expect that they’d have a material effect on voters’ choices between the two major parties. in what seat/s do you suggest they had an affect?