Yet the mere suggestion we had been lucky sent Chief Minister Michael Gunner into a (possibly confected) rage this week.

In a Facebook post the Government paid to promote, the Chief Minister slammed rival Terry Mills over his suggestion the NT’s low rates of COVID-19 had been due to a bit of good fortune.

“This has really pissed me off,” Mr Gunner said.

“‘Luck’. That’s why Terry Mills thinks the Territory is the safest place in Australia. ‘Sheer luck’.

“We probably shouldn’t be surprised — this is the party that said our hard borders were ‘unnecessary’. And now he says it’s all ‘luck’.”

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Territory Alliance actually suggested the NT should create a travel bubble with South Australia and Western Australia to help support the struggling tourism industry — a position not dissimilar from the one we have eventually arrived at today.

(Although there’s no doubt Mr Mills has tried to make some political mileage of his own on this issue. He even tried to claim credit for the very brief closure of NT schools when in fact, one of the best and bravest decision this government has made was to keep those schools open.)

But back to the Chief Minister’s recent rant.

“When I talk to our doctors, nurses and other staff working around the clock, when I talk to the police manning the borders, I don’t tell them it was ‘luck’,” he wrote.

“I tell them the Territory is safe because of their hard work and sacrifice.”

So, what does this say about the doctors, nurses and police in Victoria, where hundreds of cases have been recorded as a second wave of COVID-19 grips their state? Are they not working as hard as those here in the NT? Is that why those Victorian cases have risen?

Is the sacrifice of the Victorian doctors, nurses and other health professionals turning up to treat hundreds of people infected with the disease — and risking infection themselves — somehow less than those working here, where we are almost COVID-free?

Sadly, the united front that was a hallmark of the national cabinet at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis has made way for state-and-territory-based parochialism as leaders try to score cheap political points.

And the worst offenders have been Mr Gunner and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who just happen to be heading to the polls in coming months.

In a purely political sense, the coronavirus crisis itself has been a dose of good luck for Mr Gunner and Ms Palaszczuk, who both looked in trouble before COVID-19 arrived.

They have done a good job of leading their jurisdictions through this pandemic, which in turn has boosted their prospects of re-election.

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But would the situation in Victoria and the NT be reversed if Mr Gunner was leading Victoria and Daniel Andrews was in charge here?

Of course not. We are in the situation we find ourselves today in part due to good management — aided by the support and advice of he national cabinet — but also due to large dose of good luck.

We are lucky to live in a part of the country that is sparsely populated. We are not packed on to crowded trains, trams and buses with other potentially infected travellers.

We are lucky that our climate is warm and humid, with an increasing body of evidence pointing to this as a contributing factor in reducing the virus’s lifespan.

We’re lucky that we have far fewer people returning here from other parts of the world where the virus has been rampant. And we’re lucky that the mistakes made by those in charge here have not been as costly as the mistakes made elsewhere.

Remember, for example, that the NT Government and NT police allowed two people who had returned from Europe when the virus there was rampant, to return to their post in Central Australia where they later tested positive for coronavirus.

We’re incredibly fortunate that the police station at Harts Range is located 2.5km from the community itself, and we’re bloody lucky this stuff-up didn’t lead to an outbreak in a remote community — an outcome most health professionals agree would be catastrophic.

Mr Andrews has been criticised for failing to stop a Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne that has since been linked to outbreaks in public housing towers.

Yet the government here condoned a similar event that attracted about 1000 people to the city, even changing the rules two days before so those who breached social distancing protocols could not be fined.

One of the government’s favoured new lines is that “Territorians are the best”.

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But at last count about 100 people in the NT had breached their quarantine and more than 140 fines had been issued.

Territorians have an uncanny ability to see through bullshit when they see it. They’ve rightly praised Mr Gunner and his government for their leadership though the coronavirus crisis.

But they could turn on him in an instant if they sense he is trying to milk political mileage out of a pandemic.

On this point the Chief Minister would be wise not to push his luck.