Northern Territory legislative assembly election compared

Abstract

The lecture will discuss strong winning party advantage and successful independents (including Indigenous).

Graphing simple data for the ten elections for the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly since 1983, we can see that the 2016 election occupies an extreme position. The winning party enjoyed a greater seat/vote advantage and the losing party a greater seat/vote disadvantage than in any of the previous nine elections. By exploring a proportionality profile graphic for these ten elections, this seminar will expand on these observations and also show that:

The next most extreme case of seat/vote advantage for the winning party was 1987.

2016 and 1987 were also the elections in which independents (and minor parties) were most successful. This will be related to splits in the CLP, leading to former CLP MLAs being re‐elected with new affiliations.

Independents have a long and substantial record of success in NT elections, better than the proportionality profile suggests and a lot better than minor parties.

The seminar will conclude by looking at successful independents who have not emerged from party splits. Gerry Wood, who came up through local government and is now serving a fifth term in the seat of Nelson, is the most well‐known. The 2016 election produced another, Yingiya Mark Guyula who won the seat of Nhulunbuy as an independent backed by the Yolgnu Nations Assembly. Does Guyula's election just reflect serendipitous seat boundary changes in 2015, or is there potential for other successful Indigenous first nations independents in NT elections? Addressing this question will take the seminar back to a long‐standing debate about the votes of Indigenous electors.