Labor’s Top End strength

22 November 2021

The Labor Party enjoys a certain strength in the Northern Territory which perhaps goes back twenty years. An election win in August last year showed that strength, to some degree, and we might have to wait until the next one, due in 2024, before that strength is either kept or lost.

This August actually marked twenty years since Labor won office in the Northern Territory for the first time since it became self-governing in the 1970s. Labor has only lost one election there since that breakthrough.

Until August 2001, the Territory had been governed continuously by the Country Liberal Party – a political party perhaps unique to the Territory, just like the Liberal National Party in Queensland is unique to that State.

Going into the election that brought Labor to power in 2001, Labor held a variety of seats across the Territory, albeit nowhere near enough to be near victory, with only seven seats out of twenty-five in Parliament. Two of those seats, Fannie Bay and Wanguri, were in Darwin, the Territory capital. The other seats were remote ones – Arafura, Arnhem, Barkly, Nhulunbuy, and Stuart.

That first victory for Labor was tight, by only one seat. But significantly, the gains for Labor were all in Darwin. Labor gained Casuarina, Karama, Millner, Nightcliff, and Sanderson. Those were all CLP seats. Labor also picked up a new seat called Johnston, created in an electoral redistribution before the election, while another CLP-held seat in Darwin, called Jingili, was abolished.

Since the 2001 election, most of these seats have remained continuously in Labor hands, and Labor’s ability to hold them has arguably been critical to subsequent election victories. Given that Darwin lies on the Territory’s north coastline, as well as the description of the “Top End” perhaps being applied to Darwin itself in some contexts rather than the Territory as a whole, it’s probably appropriate to describe Labor’s relative dominance of Darwin seats in elections as its Top End strength.

Having been virtually wiped out in Darwin in 2001, the CLP fared worse when the next election came, in 2005. It was reduced to just four seats out of the available twenty-five. Every seat in the capital ended up in Labor hands. The CLP had only two seats in the Alice Springs area in the south, and a seat apiece in the Katherine and Palmerston regions in the north.

The next election, in 2008, saw Labor almost lose. But Darwin remained a strong area for Labor, with only Port Darwin and Sanderson and a new seat called Fong Lim falling to the CLP, while an electoral redistribution abolished another Labor seat, Millner, before the election.

By then, Labor had undergone a leadership change, with Clare Martin departing and Paul Henderson stepping up. Having led Labor to its first Territory election win, Martin was Chief Minister for six years.

Henderson served as CM for five years before losing office at an election in 2012, with the CLP back in power for the first time in over a decade. But the CLP victory came down to seat gains in remote parts of the Territory, rather than in the capital.

Between elections in 2012 and 2016, the CLP proved to be totally shambolic, with an unexpected leadership change in 2013 and then one scandal after another.

The 2016 election saw the CLP reduced to just two seats – out of the twenty-five available. This probably reflected how Territorians saw the CLP at the time.

The only CLP seats were in a stretch somewhere between Darwin and Palmerston, and in a region to the south of there.

The next election came last year. The CLP made up a bit of ground, but nowhere near enough to be in with a chance of winning. And again, the CLP got nowhere when it came to seats in Darwin.

Nothing since the last election would suggest that the CLP has any real possibility of winning the next one, due in 2024. And while it doesn’t necessarily need seat gains numerically in the capital, where most Territorians live, it really needs some inroads there. The Top End looks pretty solid for Labor for the moment.

Constance and some variables

14 November 2021

The downfall of Gladys Berejiklian as Premier of New South Wales last month has yet to play out fully. She announced her resignation amid an investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption into a scandal surrounding a former MP with whom she had a close relationship. Time will tell whether it brings down an adverse finding against her.

When she announced her resignation, some other State MPs also opted to call it quits, among them Deputy Premier John Barilaro and senior minister Andrew Constance. As a result, there’ll be some by-elections coming up to fill their seats.

There’s nothing new in holding several by-elections on the same day. Indeed I recall reading about how the untimely death of one State MP in the middle of 1983 ultimately prompted another three MPs, all from the Labor Party, to announced their resignations – meaning four by-elections taking place on the same day months later. Among the by-election winners was future Premier Bob Carr.

Now Constance has announced that he’ll seek to run for the Liberal Party in a Federal election due within the next six months. If he gets chosen to run, he’ll have to resign from State Parliament, and it’ll mean a by-election in his State seat of Bega.

It’s not the first time that he’s contemplated a switch to Federal politics. Last year, when a Federal by-election came up near where he lives, he announced that he’d seek Liberal preselection for that by-election, before eventually opting against it. The Liberals lost the by-election in the end. Now he’ll seek Liberal preselection for the seat of Gilmore, won by Labor at the last election, in 2019.

But some questions loom regarding this. There’s no guarantee that Constance will win preselection for Gilmore, or win the seat from Labor at the election. If he fails to win preselection for Gilmore, will he still quit State politics? If he wins preselection for Gilmore but fails to regain the seat from Labor at the election, will he try returning to State politics via a by-election in Bega? If he attempts to return to Bega, will he win? Could the Liberals lose Federal and State seats because to him?

Bega is a fairly safe seat for the Liberals – at least in a traditional battle with Labor. But they might be vulnerable to a well-known Independent candidate, especially if Labor opts to skip a by-election that might result if Constance indeed runs for Federal Parliament. Indeed over time I’ve frequently seen the major parties lose some of their safer seats in by-elections to other parties and candidates, especially in the absence of their traditional rivals.

As for Gilmore, it was in Liberal hands for more than twenty years before Labor won it at the last election, but it’s never been that safe for the Liberals when they held it. Labor’s only won it twice since its creation in 1984 – the first time being in 1993. Labor’s two wins also happened only with the retirement of sitting members.

The whole business surrounding Constance and his future raises several questions, or perhaps they could be described as some variables – if you’ll pardon the pun.

This actually casts my mind back to an embarrassing story of a seat that ended the careers of three Liberal politicians in Victoria long ago.

Back in 2002, a State election was called in Victoria about a year before it was due. Ahead of that election, an electoral redistribution resulting from population changes saw two Liberal MPs battle for preselection in a new seat called Gembrook when their existing seats were abolished. The loser of the preselection battle ended up retiring.

But the winner of that battle, Robert Dean, also ended up retiring – under circumstances that could only be described as farcical. Just weeks out from the election, he was found to be enrolled outside Gembrook, making him ineligible to vote, let alone run, in that seat. This not only ended his career, but it also made the Liberals look shambolic. They ended up losing the election in a big way.

Upon Dean’s downfall, the Liberals chose one of their Upper House people, Neil Lucas, to contest Gembrook. But he lost Gembrook to Labor. For good measure, Labor also won his former Upper House seat, with the winner being Adem Somyurek – noawadays a controversial figure in Victoria.

Gembrook therefore ended the careers of the three Liberal politicians – one of them in a preselection battle, one of them in a farce ahead of the election, and one of them at the actual election.

For sure, I don’t expect a repeat of the Dean saga regarding Constance in NSW. That said, having seen plenty of unexpected things in elections and politics over the years, I know about the political scene always producing surprises and controversy. After all, did we think that a simple corruption investigation would bring down Berejiklian, who was quite popular as NSW Premier?

The future of Constance will soon be a bit clearer. But we can’t assume that he’s headed for Federal Parliament just yet. He must first win a preselection battle for a Federal seat, and then win the seat in a general election, before he can get there. Losing either battle might end his political career.