Opinion: NT election an ominous sign for Qld Labor government

Queensland’s Labor government must be ready to throw in the towel after the wipeout NT Labor suffered, writes Paul Williams.

New Northern Territory Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro with deputy Gerard Maley. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

The Northern Territory has a lot in common with Queensland.

A frontier society taming a harsh environment far from the ­Sydney-Melbourne-Canberra triangle, our obsession with economic development and cranky crocodiles (at least in Queensland’s north) paint the NT and Queensland as different from the rest.

Queensland Labor hopes the similarities end there. After all, Brisbane is  home to 10 times the entire NT population.

But politics in the Top End and the Sunshine State can each get as sticky as our torpid tropical summers. That’s why the Queensland Labor government – ­already morose after recent opinion polls suggesting a looming LNP landslide – must be ready to throw in the towel after the wipeout NT Labor suffered at last weekend’s election.

If electricity rebates, reduced car rego and 50c fares haven’t moved the dial, what will?

Make no mistake, Labor was thrashed in the NT, with the party attracting its lowest vote since the 1970s. But the government’s loss of 10 seats (including the leader’s) in an 11 per cent after-preference swing for a paltry total of five in the 25-seat parliament isn’t just a rejection of a tired eight-year-old government. The almost 18-point primary swing (and 16 seats) that the Country Liberal Party won also suggests the poll was a loving embrace of a re-energised Opposition led by the smart and telegenic Lia Finocchiaro.

Not even Steven Miles’s common touch is likely to save Queensland Labor. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

And that’s just the first lesson from the NT for a Queensland Opposition just two months out from its own election: the LNP and leader David Crisafulli must win an affirming mandate from an electorate positively endorsing an LNP vision, and not just a default win on the back of voters’ annoyance with Labor.

Moreover, it’s in the LNP’s immediate interest to mark out a strong policy identity. With many conservative regional voters already wary of a Gold Coast-based moderate in the form of Crisafulli, the LNP could easily haemorrhage votes to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Katter’s Australian Party, and others. That will not only risk a bleeding of preferences back to Labor, but a loss of electoral funding for each primary vote lost.

The word “mandate” is therefore key: until the LNP lays out a costed, detailed policy platform for the next four years, the confidence Queensland voters have in any LNP government will hang tenuously like a thread. Queenslanders are already sceptical of politicians; a government run on daily thought bubbles will not fare well. Just ask Campbell Newman.

The second lesson is that law and order – long a staple of Queensland politics – once again proved a powerful vote-puller in the NT. Indeed, lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10 years seemed an especially popular CLP pledge, one that even eclipsed the cost of living as a crisis confronting the community. That’s one reason why Labor’s vote tumbled in Darwin’s suburbs (that are not unlike Brisbane’s) as much as anywhere.

Inflation – hardly something within the power of any state or territory leader – would devastate the Miles government alone. But throw in a youth crime wave hitting regional voters hard, and it’s easy to see why a swing above 10 per cent against Labor is possible.

LNP leader David Crisafulli is in the box seat to become premier. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Third, the NT reminds us that changing leaders is no panacea to a party’s public opinion woes. In 2022, the once-popular Michael Gunner was replaced by the less popular Natasha Fyles who last December was in turn replaced by Eva Lawler. As Queensland polls have shown, even a very different Steven Miles – who really does look and sound like a regular guy and not a politician – has failed to slow the LNP train.

Fourth, voter turnout in the NT, ­always lower than the Australian average, was especially low on the weekend. It was even lower in regional areas with high numbers of First Nations voters – a disappointing result that, according to some, reflects some First Nations people’s mistrust of elections after the Voice to Parliament referendum’s defeat last year.

All parties, and the Electoral Commission of Queensland, must therefore redouble their efforts to keep all Queenslanders engaged to ensure voter turnout remains above 90 per cent. (Shockingly, turnout fell below 90 per cent at the 2022 federal election.) How do the parties do this? Once again, by appealing positively to voters with ideas, and not negatively with fears and tears.

All elections matter, and ones where most people expect a change of government matter most. For Queensland in 2024, this election is one of those ­occasions. History is about to happen.

Paul Williams is an associate professor at Griffith University