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The Forum > Article Comments > What happened in the NT? Arrogance, hubris and complacency > Comments

What happened in the NT? Arrogance, hubris and complacency : Comments

By Ken Parish, published 15/8/2008

Labor's NT mauling was self-inflicted but may be quarantined

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Very few people in Australia realised there was an election in Darwin. That sentence just about sums up the NT - and they want statehood. Never happen. Beautiful though.

I read on ABC.news that Henderson had called an election more than a year early on some whacko commercial pretext. Inexperience showed. He probably has a hoard of media advisers who said, yeah, go Hendo, no worries.

No electorate likes an early election, especially if it's sunny and the fish are biting. A low turn out always plays in to the hands of the opposition.

I didn't know we had a CLP. I thought they died out along with the Afrikaner Party. I've really got to pull myself away from the Olympic Games.

Good article.
Posted by Cheryl, Friday, 15 August 2008 12:18:56 PM
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That's pretty much as I saw it too.
Paul Henderson has the job in front of him, attracting quality candidates without histories of men behaving badly and warning his ministers to do their jobs and service their electorates instead of chasing publicity to gain a public profile.
At least the election did the job for him in dumping some dead wood
The next election will come around soon enough and the time to begin the campaign is now by getting out amongst the electorate and listening to what people have to say.

Perhaps the most difficult issue facing the Government is to address the needs of Indigenous Territorians by firstly looking at the causes of migration to the town centres, resulting in drunkenness and anti-social behaviour ;The desperate need to develop meaningful employment into the CDEP program which can result in work skills that can be utilised in communities and become portable skills that can obtain employment elsewhere.

The positive result of the election was the increase in the Greens vote. They only need to develop broader policies to become a major force in future.
Posted by maracas, Friday, 15 August 2008 12:41:35 PM
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My take, as an ex-Territorian, is at 'NT election: Waking from a Bad Dream' http://laborview.blogspot.com/2008/08/nt-election-waking-from-bad-dream.html
The Greens only ran in a small number of seats. What was interesting is that a third of their preferences flowed to the Country Liberal Party. Must have been a protest. They couldn't have wanted a CLP government, could they?
Posted by top ender, Friday, 15 August 2008 12:58:44 PM
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Well the truth be told that the NT election was only called 10 months early not more than a year. I suspect that one of the main reasons for this is that hendo probally has a tough time ahead of him to secure the impex deal and wanted to get it out of the way so that he could get to work on doing his job. But then on the other hand had he waited the extra time and say by chance that the CLP did get back in goverment and the Impex deal was secure who would of taken all the glory after hendo did all the hard work to begin with...yep the CLP would glorify it to the enth degree. So now hendo has the ability to reap his rewards / glory from his hard work should the deal go ahead.

I on the off note am glad hendo's labour party did get back into power mainly because if the CLP got in who was going to be the leader? you could bet your bottom dollar that terry mills wasnt going to be as he didnt have the experience to do so and he had members like dave tollner answering his questions for him in interviews. I felt that had CLP got in tollner would of been the cheif minister as there would of been a challenge for leadership. But was tollner a solution for the CLP? I dont think so. If you recall when Tollner lost the federal election there was specualtion that he was going to run for the NT election and he point blank declared he wasnt. But what happened? he did so my question here is Could you trust a polly that decieves the voters? I cant.
Posted by damilkman, Saturday, 16 August 2008 7:10:47 AM
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Perhaps someone can help me. The swing in the NT election against Labor was 9%. Was there a swing to the CLP, or did its vote remain the same?

In those seats where the Greens stood - only 6 given the early calling of the election - they got 16% on average, didn't tey?

In other words it may have been that left voters stayed away or where they had an alternative voted Green.

I suspect that tendency(if my analysis is anywhere near the ballpark) might flow through Federally and in the States too, given the conservatism of managerial Labor nationwide
Posted by Passy, Saturday, 16 August 2008 4:08:30 PM
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Passy
You are correct in thinking that the CLP vote didn't increase by much in absolute terms. It is quite possible that most of those who didn't vote were people who had voted Labor in the 2005 NT election. Also probable that there was more shift from the ALP than the CLP to the Greens in those small number of seats where there were Green candidates.
Posted by Dan Fitzpatrick, Sunday, 17 August 2008 12:36:49 PM
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