The NT election will be held tomorrow, 24 August 2024. I now reckon that Eva Lawler’s Australian Labor Party (ALP) will squeak back to office with either a one-seat majority or as a minority government with the support of an Independent.

That’s not a reckoning shared by most of those I’ve talked to over the past few days, the local pundits and commentators reckoning that Lia Finocchiaro’s Country Liberal Party (CLP) will be elected in a canter with a sizeable majority.

The only other person I’ve found that agrees with me – apart from Labor Party members and apparatchiks – is Charles Darwin University’s Professor Nathan Franklin – who reckons that the election will be won in Darwin’s northern suburbs.

Earlier today I sat down with esteemed psephologist Dr. A. Diaboli for a yarn and a snifter or three. Here is a lightly-edited version of our discussion.

You can read my earlier piece on the NT election at @theNorthernMyth here.

The Northern Myth: Morning Dr Diaboli, what’s your poison? Any thoughts about the NT election?

Dr Advocatus Diaboli: Cheers, mine’s a pint of Guiness and a Jamieson, straight up, no ice.  The NT election? In a word, boring as fuck. Well two words, dull and boring as fuck. Dull beyond sufferation.

TNM: Yeah, I’m on the heavy gear myself – a man needs strong drink in these times. This is the tenth NT election I’ve voted in – I missed the 2005 election ‘cause I was down south. I yearn for the glorious chaos of the 1997 election, when Labor ran two election ads, the first had the CLP as a snorting and snuffling doylt of pigs at the trough, the second a staged NT cabinet meeting with ministers eating with their hands and groping passing waitresses. Labor’s campaign was great fun but Chief Minister Shane Stone – 27 years on still running CLP elections – rolled back into office with the CLP’s best result since NT self-government in 1978!

But this year, as you say, boring as fuck.

Dr. D: Hmmm, true that … the CLP usually provided a lot of the heat and spark at election time – not all of which have been ethical or legal …

TNM: Yeah, well a pox on both their houses. Away from the major parties, some of the so-called third-party supporters have played well fast-and-loose with the truth and the law, particularly around environmental issues. Worst are those peddling disinformation presented as facts and science. Don’t worry about the truth, feel the emotion! Some of those claims have often been amplified and broadcast by a pretty poor performance by a local media cohort riven – a few exceptions – with bias and mediocrity.

Dr. D: Who do you mean, The Empty News?

TNM: Nah, if anything the NT News has been well ahead of the pack, at least in terms of accurate reporting of events and it has fulfilled its role as the local journal of record. For mine the ABC has been the worst of the so-called MSM pack. Too often the “B” in ABC might as well stand for a barely concealed “BIAS”. There is another online so-called news site that has a notorious capacity to find conspiracies, corruption or criminal cabals where no-one else can. The less attention given to and said about this crew the better.

You wonder how long they can spend scraping the barrel’s bottom before it wears thin and they plunge into the bottomless pit beyond.

DR D: Yeah, OK but surely the reported surge in violent crime, the rise of The Greens party and the “It’s time” factor will all rule against Labor getting back in?   

TNM: Yeah, good points and I’ll take each in turn. As to my old friend Laura Norder, the published figures show crime is certainly on the rise but that is heavily qualified as to time, place and the nature of the alleged crimes. There is an awful lot of petty crime that all manner of folks are getting their knickers in knots over. All of the usual suspects are as guilty as each other of beating up – excuse my poor punning – the issue as it best suits them. The CLP has historically been keenest to beat Laura Norder’s drum but the last time I can recall crime having any electoral effect was in 2001 when the CLP’s mandatory sentencing policy – again prosecuted by Shane Stone – was a key part of the party’s platform. It certainly didn’t do them any good then – Labor won government for the first time after 27 years of uninterrupted CLP rule!

The usual suspects – yes, I’m hearing you ABC News – like to talk up The Greens’ prospects every election and, while I reckon this has been their best NT election campaign, they are still the proverbial bull’s roar away from a seat in the Legislative Assembly. The Greens’ success in other respects may be tarnished by some of the more disingenuous claims made by their putative allies, particularly concerning the proposed Middle Arm industrial project, Defence housing at Lee Point in Darwin’s suburbs and fracking in the Beetaloo basin.

The “It’s Time” factor is particularly interesting, not least because it is an old saw in Australian politics that a third-term election is always a hard win because governments – NT Labor in 2012 is a prime example – get fat and lazy by their third term.

Similarly, voters get tired of seeing the same faces and hearing the same bullshit – regardless of the other side’s merits.

I reckon the “It’s Time” factor can be, at least in part, mitigated by the diminished effect of incumbency related to the extraordinary mobility of NT electors. As Camden Smith, business reporter at the NT News reported in November 2023: “Data sourced from the 2021 census shows that in the five previous years, population turnover was 333 per 1000 residents.”

Refining that data by voting age, race and Local Government Area produces some clear distinctions, notably that Aboriginal Territorians are far less likely to emigrate from the NT to other jurisdictions than their non-Aboriginal comrades. Further, non-Aboriginal mobility in regional and remote LGAs was far higher than in LGAs based in or around cities and larger towns. Finally, even taken as a Territory-wide average, the proportion of non-Aboriginal Territorians that had not been resident in the NT, i.e. not on or eligible to be on the electoral roll, in the previous census period was far higher – greater than 20% – than any other State or Territory.  

Dr. D: What other issues are given you an itchy arse in this election?

TNM: Well, a mate of mine who works for one of the “Big 4” consultancy firms put me onto some NT labour force figures that he reckons could prop up the Labor vote in Darwin’s northern suburbs. The outsourcing of NT government positions to the not-for-profit sector was expected – in some quarters at least – to diminish union-and public service-based electoral allegiance to Labor. I need to look at this more closely.

Dr. D: What about electoral reform issues – are 4-year fixed term parliaments a good idea?

TNM: I reckon 4-year terms are OK – though it seemed an eternity during the “Years of Tears and Chaos” that was the last CLP government from 2012 to 2016. But I have a real issue with fixed term parliaments, that were introduced for the 2012 election as part of a deal between Independent Gerry Wood while he was the kingmaker that kept Paul Henderson’s Labor government in office after it fell into minority government. On one hand fixed terms are attractive – governments will run to term, and they can plan their legislative and policy agenda literally to the last day of the term. But those factors can also be a drag on democracy – bad governments linger to the last day of their term and governments can turbocharge incumbency – but have otherwise negative effects – by making sure that policy and project delivery happens not across the whole of the term but when they give the most electoral bang for taxpayers bucks in the lead up to or immediately before the end of term.

Dr. D: What about CLP leader Lia Finocchiaro? If the CLP gets up, will she be a good leader?

TNM: Unsure, though I’m glad I don’t have to choose – I’m in Johnson in the northern suburbs of Darwin. There was word on the street in Darwin a year ago that she’d be replaced as leader but that didn’t happen. Presumably she will survive to lead in the event they win. I also have some questions about Lia’s “like-ability” and what effects, if any, the total lack of ministerial experience the CLP members would have – though as one wag pointed out, Clare Martin’s Labor government in 2001 was of course similarly inexperienced.

How long before the notoriously misogynistic (and ambitious) men in the CLP – both in the Parliamentary wing and the CLP rank and file – make a move on Lia is another matter.

Dr. D: It’s been great to chat and maybe we’ll catch up for another parma and a pint after the election. I reckon the CLP will squeak it in. What about you?

 TNM: Well, I’m happy to be proven wrong and have no shame in calling it for Labor with either the skinniest of majorities or a hung parliament with 11 seats to each of Labor and the CLP and three independents (Araluen, Mulka and Goyder) with Mark Yingiya in Mulka supporting Labor. I know this is against the tide of received wisdom – but there is another old saw that goes: “oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.” I just don’t see enough hatred – the proverbial baseball bats – for the government in the electorate.

So, Labor for the win!

We’ll know by about 7:15pm on Saturday night … watch this space!