Charter plan vandalised while mobile voting team collects votes from Lingiari electorate

The Australian Electoral Commission has confirmed its voting team was delayed after a charter plane was vandalised, but it’s far from the only challenge facing remote polling workers.

A VANDALISED charter plane is among a slew of challenges the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has faced reaching outback communities in Lingiari, in what is believed to be a poor voter turnout for the vast Northern Territory electorate.

As voting numbers in the bush continue to trend downwards, the operational and logistic chaos of remote polling has been particularly testing for mobile voting team members at this year’s federal election.

The seat of Lingiari, which covers all of the Northern Territory outside of Darwin, as well as the Christmas and Cocos islands, has the lowest voter turnout of any federal electoral division.

On Thursday, an AEC spokesman confirmed a plane used to reach remote communities for mobile polling had been damaged on an airstrip but said it was far from the only hurdle team members had come up against.

“We’ve had team members go down with Covid, people have a four-wheel-drive accident and some have to sleep at an airstrip due to a delayed flight,” the spokesman said.

“We have been working around all these issues to continue to get to communities to deliver their vote.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of residents have fled the Top End community of Wadeye in the wake of violence between rival families.

NT Police have responded to ongoing violence in the remote community of Wadeye.

The voting team’s visit was delayed by a week due to unrest, while team members have also travelled to makeshift camps and homelands to capture fleeing residents’ votes.

The AEC said to help ensure Wadeye residents could vote in a safe location, its team had set up eight mobile voting centres this year, six more than a typical election.

Speaking on ABC Radio on Friday, Labor’s Lingiari candidate Marion Scrymgour said her campaign had not focused on a drop in the bush vote.

Labor’s Lingiari candidate Marion Scrymgour has been campaigning in remote parts of the Territory. Picture: Floss Adams.

For decades, Ms Scrymgour’s predecessor Warren Snowdon relied heavily on picking up votes in the bush to maintain power in the sprawling electorate.

Ms Scrymgour, who has family ties to the Tiwi Islands, said she had witnessed a massive increase in voter turnout in the island region off the coast of Darwin.

“That vote, in the last territory election, was around 36-37 per cent. That’s a disgrace in terms of democracy,” Ms Scrymgour said.

“This time around, we’re seeing nearly an 80 per cent turnout.”

She conceded the bush vote would likely be lower this election, but said she seen an uptick in ballots cast in some remote areas, including Maningrida.