NT Election 2024: Former Mayor Graeme Sawyer to run as independent for Wanguri

Educator, wildlife researcher, and former Darwin mayor Graeme Sawyer will vie for a northern suburbs seat. Here’s how the alleged murder of a relative helped shape his views on crime.

Graeme Sawyer will contest the seat of Wanguri as an independent at the 2024 Northern Territory election. Picture: Supplied.

Former Darwin mayor Graeme Sawyer has announced he will run as an independent for the seat of Wanguri at the Northern Territory general election.

A wildlife researcher, educator, director of a multimedia business, and long-term Territorian, Mr Sawyer said he was encouraged to enter politics after seeing the major parties “not listening, and continuing to do the same thing expecting different results”.

“I think that’s the definition of insanity,” he said.

Graeme Sawyer while Lord Mayor in 2009.

One of his key concerns was to “get smart” on crime, arguing the current strategy was “failing everyone”.

It is a deeply personal issue for Mr Sawyer, stemming from the alleged murder of his step-grandson in October 2022.

“He was living at my place at the time,” he said.

“The professionals who have the skills and mindset to make a difference are appalled at the ‘get tough on crime’ nonsense ... there are solutions and the government needs to resource them.”

Wanguri has been held by former deputy chief minister Nicole Manison since 2013, who announced she would not recontest at the August polls.

Territory Labor have picked retail union boss Shlok Sharma to run for the seat, while the Country Liberal Party has put forward Darwin-born financial services specialist Oly Carlson.

Mr Sawyer said that without an incumbent candidate the previously safe Labor seat could be anyone’s to win.

Graeme Sawyer with a Northern Blue Tongued Lizard in 2012.

Other issues at the forefront of his campaign were improving accountability and accessibility in governance, and reducing barriers for small businesses in the NT.

“I have worked with the small business community as Chair of the Business Enterprise Centre Board and believe the NT economy will do much better if a small business strategy is at the centre of economic planning,” he said.

“One facet of it is household costs and cost of living, and the other one is production and manufacturing costs – and the clear thing is that renewables can do that,” he said.

“For the first time in my memory, there’s a genuine opportunity that we could become globally competitive, (thanks to) a whole range of these renewable technologies,” he said.

“And yet the government thinks we can do it with gas, which doesn’t make sense economically – the whole rationale around gas is really scary to me.”