Five seats still hang in the balance

THE political future of Territory Alliance deputy Robyn Lambley and candidates in other close seats could be decided today

THE political future of Territory Alliance deputy Robyn Lambley and candidates in other close seats could be decided today as the NT Electoral Commission continues its fifth day of counting.

The NTEC sent hundreds of absentee votes for electorates, including Araluen and Namatjira, from the Top End to Alice Springs yesterday.

These absentee votes will be sorted this morning with counting starting at 2pm.

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Ms Lambley, who is currently holding on to a narrow 21 vote lead in Araluen, said the absentee counting that was taking place over the next few days could be ­critical.

“It’s still on a knife’s edge as I predicted,” she said.

“My focus is to be patient and not pre-empt the result.”

In Namatjira, check counting reduced Labor’s lead from 19 votes to 15 on Tuesday, with no clear winner in sight at this stage.

As vote counting ended on Tuesday night, the Country Liberal Party stood on five seats, with Labor on 13 and five others still in doubt.

Braitling is the fifth seat won by the CLP and the second it has won back from Labor.

Absent votes added to the count on Tuesday put Joshua Burgoyne in the lead by 129 votes — which will not likely be overturned as the outstanding votes are counted.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner was quick to bat away questions on Tuesday on whether these results showed that Labor needed to mend some relationships with voters in Alice Springs.

“At the moment in Alice Springs, it looks like we’ll lose a seat (Braitling) and win a seat (Namatjira), on the current numbers,” he said.

“If that’s the verdict of Alice, that’s the verdict of Alice.

“I think Dale’s done an excellent job there in Braitling — it was very, very close there in the last election as well, so I think it’s a tough seat.”

Top End absentee votes cast in Central Australia are expected to be counted today if they arrived as scheduled.

If they do not arrive until the afternoon, they will be counted on Thursday morning.

Votes cast by electors temporarily residing in the Howard Springs coronavirus quarantine facility will be counted at the same time as the Central Australian absentee votes.

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Based on a recommendation from the Department of Health, these votes could not be opened until three days after the election.

At the end of this week, the NTEC will conduct a second count for postal votes that have been returned this week, if sufficient numbers are received.

There are also about 1700 declaration votes that are in the process of being confirmed by the Australian Electoral Commission.