northern territory

Northern Territory Redistribution – Take 2

The Northern Territory Electoral Commission has released its first draft of the Territory’s new electoral boundaries. The boundaries are now open for public comment. Once the redistribution is finalised, the new boundaries will apply for the next Northern Territory election in August 2024.

Those who have been paying attention will know this is actually the second time a first draft set of new boundaries has been released. A very embarrassing “administrative oversight” meant the first attempt at the redistribution had to be abandoned for legal reasons I outline inside this post.

The abandoned redistribution had reached the second draft stage of the process before being terminated. This new first draft is the same as the previous second stage draft though with updated enrolment numbers. I previously analysed these boundaries at the abandoned second stage. You can read about the new margins in this post from August.
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Northern Territory Redistribution – Draft Boundaries take 2

UPDATE: A very embarrassing “administrative oversight” means that the release of the final boundaries, due in September, has had to be abandoned. Notices for the earlier stages of the redistribution were not gazetted as required by the Electoral Act. The NT Solicitor’s office has advised that the process must begin again. It seems unlikely that this will substantially alter the boundaries drawn under the now abandoned process, but it is embarrassing and means the boundaries to be used for the 2024 election won’t be finalised until the new year.

The timeline for the initial stages of the re-started process is –

  • Public suggestions open (30 days) – Monday 11 September 2023
  • Public suggestions close – Wednesday 11 October 2023
  • Comments on suggestions received open (14 days) – Thursday 12 October 2023
  • Comments on suggestions received close – Thursday 26 October 2023
  • First proposed redistribution released – Monday 30 October 2023
  • Objections to first proposed redistribution open (30 days) – Monday 30 October 2023
  • Objections against first proposed redistribution close – Wednesday 29 November 2023

The original commentary on the second draft is inside this post.
Read More »Northern Territory Redistribution – Draft Boundaries take 2

2023 Northern Territory Redistribution – Draft Boundaries Released

(UPDATE: The second version of the draft boundaries have been released. You can find my analysis of them in this post.)

The Northern Territory Redistribution Committee has this afternoon released its draft boundaries for the NT’s 25 Legislative Assembly divisions.

You can find the details on the NT Electoral Commission website.

The redistribution has been undertaken to bring enrolments in divisions back within the permitted 10% variation from quota.

As of 17 April, there were a total of 147,798 voters enrolled to vote with the average enrolment per division at 5,911 per division. Given the small electorate sizes, the Committee will update the enrolment data through the process. All enrolments at the end of the process must be within 10% of the quota.

On current enrolments, only Splillett was outside of the permitted variation, 17.8% over quota.

Five divisions were more than 5% under quota, Barkly, Gwoja, Fannie Bay, Fong Lim and Sanderson. Another three were 5-10% over quota, Drysdale, Mulka and Wanguri.

I was going to write a long post on the redistribution, but the boundaries have been released a day earlier than I expected, plus the draft boundaries involve only minor changes and no seats change political allegiance on my estimated new margins. More inside the post.Read More »2023 Northern Territory Redistribution – Draft Boundaries Released

NT Fannie Bay by-election set for 20 August

Voters on the NT Legislative Assembly seat of Fannie Bay will go to the polls on Saturday 20 August following the resignation of MP and former Chief Minister Michael Gunner.

I’m unfortunately on the wrong side of the world to cover the by-election. I don’t have access to the ABC’s election site to publish a preview and will be busy cycling round Italy’s Lake Como on the day results are being reported. Understandably I’m sticking to my bike.

To fill the gap, I’ve pulled together a brief profile of Fannie Bay here on my personal site. No guarantee that I’ll have time to offer further commentary before the election.

All the official information on the by-election can be found on the NT Electoral Commission’s Fannie Bay by-election website. This includes details on when, where and how to vote.

A date for WA’s North West Central by-election has now been named – Saturday 17 September. I’ll publish information on this by-election next week when I return to Australia. Details on the by-election can be found on the WA Electoral Commission’s website. Read More »NT Fannie Bay by-election set for 20 August

2021 Daly (NT) By-election

This is not so much a post as a pointer to my analysis of the Northern Territory’s Daly by-election held on Saturday 11 September 2021.

It has resulted in the governing Labor Party gaining Daly from the opposition Country Liberals. Daly is the 25th by-election for the NT Legislative Assembly, the fourth to produce a change of holding party, and the first to produce a government gain from the opposition.

Here’s a link to the results page, and the page includes links to my background on Daly and my analysis and running commentary on the results from Saturday night.

In short, the by-election saw a higher turnout in indigenous communities where Labor’s vote is strong, and a lower turnout in semi-rural communities closer to Darwin where CLP support is stronger. The net result was a 7% swing to Labor, the CLP’s 2020 victory margin of 94 votes turned into a Labor margin of around 400 votes. Read More »2021 Daly (NT) By-election

Will Saving the NT’s Second House Seat Cost the ACT its Third Seat?

UPDATE: The legislation has been introduced and it does not fix the number of Territory seats at a minimum of two. It instead adopts my proposal to use the harmonic rather than arithmetic mean in determining seat entitlements for the territory. However, the harmonic only applies for quotients under three. That provision might need a re-visit if the Parliament ever increases in size. The statistical error provision has been repealed. The determination in July merging the NT into a single seat has been set aside and two seats restored. Legislating backwards for the harmonic mean was too difficult but under it the NT would have been entitled to two seats.

From the next determination, to take place after the next election, the new rules will apply to the territories. The NT will be entitled to a second seat if its quotient is above 1.3333 rather than the current 1.5. The ACT will be entitled to a third seat with a quotient above 2.4 rather than 2.5. As noted above, this new harmonic mean will not apply above three seats.

The legislation and notes related to it can be found at this link.

Minister’s Second Reading Speech here.

Original post

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2020 Northern Territory Election – Analysis of Results

With counting complete for the 2020 Northern Territory election, it’s time for a preliminary analysis of the results and summary of changes to the composition of the Legislative Assembly.

Swings and change in seats below are based on adjusting the 2016 result for the 2019 redistribution. Details of the redistribution can be found in this post, and detail on changes in party composition can be found in my ABC NT Election Preview.
Read More »2020 Northern Territory Election – Analysis of Results

Northern Territory Election Updates

(Final Updated – Friday 4 September)

This is a running blog post that I have updated through the two weeks of counting.

In summary, Labor had a certain 11 seats at the end of election night. The seats of Arnhem and Fong Lim delivered Labor 13 seats and majority government when the preference throws were re-aligned on Monday 24 August. Preference re-alignment also put Labor ahead in Blain, a narrow lead it still maintains, and Labor has also stayed narrowly ahead in Barkly. Postal votes saw the CLP narrowly win Barkly producing the final numbers Labor 14 seats, the Country Liberals 8, Territory Alliance 1 and Independents 2.

The count was finalised on Friday 4 September when the final postal votes were admitted to the count, and formal preference distribution of preferences undertaken in all seats.

This post has been blogging the counting for each day. I am supervising updates to the ABC’s NT 2020 Election website. The results in greater detail can be found at the NT Electoral Commission’s website.

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2020 Northern Territory Election – Tracking the Early Vote

In this post I will keep track of the surging rate of early voting ahead of the Northern Territory election’s formal polling day on 22 August.

After the last day of early voting on Friday 21 August

  • In total 75,537 votes have been recorded in advance of polling. This total includes all pre-polls, remote mobile votes and postal votes returned to date. The total in 2016 was 51,155. The 2020 total will increase as more postal votes return in the two weeks allowed after polling day. Already the 2020 figure represents a 48% increase on the early voting in 2016.
  • The total early votes currently represents 53.5% of enrolment. Given turnout is generally around 75%, that means roughly 70% of all votes to be counted have been completed before election day.
  • The breakdown at the end of voting was Pre-poll 60,292 (42.7%), Remote Mobile 12,019 (8.5%) (this might include on the day mobile votes) and returned Postals 3,953 (2.8%). A total of 10,242 (7.3%) of voters had been sent a postal vote pack, though not all will be used or returned in time.

Read More »2020 Northern Territory Election – Tracking the Early Vote

Close of Enrolment and Nomination Details for 2020 Northern Territory Election

Nominations closed today for the Northern Territory election on 22 August. A total of 111 candidates have nominated, second only in number to the 115 candidates that nominated for the 2016 election.

Early, postal and mobile voting starts on Monday 10 August. You can find all the details of when and where to vote at the NT Electoral Commission’s website.

Details of nominated candidates have been added to each district page on my 2020 NT Election guide at the ABC Elections site. (Now published.) Check out the guide for background on the election and on the contest for each seat.

In this post I’ll summarise the final enrolment and details of nominations by party.Read More »Close of Enrolment and Nomination Details for 2020 Northern Territory Election