From ABC and Cairns News
After eight years in the political wilderness, the Country Liberal Party (CLP) has been delivered to government with a resounding landslide victory in the Northern Territory election.
By the end of Saturday night’s count, the ABC had predicted the CLP winning 15 seats across the jurisdiction, including electorates that had been Territory Labor strongholds for decades in Darwin’s northern suburbs.
It marks a huge turnaround in the CLP’s fortunes, after they were decimated to just two seats in an electoral wipe-out in 2016.
Since then, the party has been steadily rebuilt under the leadership of Lia Finocchiaro, a born-and-bred territory woman and former lawyer who will become the NT’s 14th chief minister.
The CLP ran hard on a campaign promising to stamp out crime and “restore the territory lifestyle” after a long period of high crime rates and a flatlining economy under Labor, with the party amassing more than $11 billion in debt.
Voters have delivered substantial victories to the CLP in seats across the Darwin city, suburbs and rural area, as well as Palmerston, Alice Springs, Katherine and the Barkly in the territory outback.
On Saturday night, Ms Finocchiaro described the win as “an honour and a privilege”.
“We’ve heard loud and clear that territorians want change, and the work starts [today] to deliver that,” she said.
“I will meet with the police commissioner [today] to make sure we get on top of our law and order and crime issues.
“I want to thank every single Territorian who believes the territory can be better, and we will deliver a better territory for them.”
The election has also seen a fierce rejection of Labor and its former cabinet, including the loss of its outgoing chief minister Eva Lawler, in her Palmerston seat of Drysdale.
“It has been an absolute privilege to be your chief minister,” Ms Lawler said in her concession speech last night.
“I am proud of the hard fight that we have fought this campaign.”
At the end of last night’s count, Labor had held onto just four seats, all in the NT bush – Selena Uibo in Arnhem, Dheran Young in Daly, Manuel Brown in Arafura and Chansey Paech in Gwoja.
The seat of Nightcliff, previously the safest in the territory and held by former chief minister Natasha Fyles, was by the end of Saturday night too close to call.
Other key predicted Labor losses include the party’s former police minister Brent Potter, environment minister Kate Worden and education and mining minister Mark Monaghan.
By the time of the election, Labor was onto its third chief minister in three years, and had for a long period struggled to prove to the electorate that it was in control of the territory’s finances and social issues.
Greens on track to win Fannie Bay. God help those dumb voters
Labor didn’t only lose votes to the CLP – it was also punished for its treatment of environmental issues, such as its pursuit of fracking and controversial gas projects, and as of late last night it looked likely of losing at least one seat to the Greens, in Fannie Bay.
A Greens victory by former Darwin City council candidate Suki Dorras-Walker looms as historic for the territory, as it would mark the first ever win for the Greens in NT Parliament.