Against all odds, Labor in positive Territory

Six months ago, Michael Gunner looked to many people like a ­sitting duck.

Northern Territory Chief Minister and Labor leader Michael Gunner in Darwin on Friday. Picture: Amos Aikman

Six months ago, Michael Gunner looked to many people like a ­sitting duck. His government was struggling to overcome internal ructions; the Northern Territory was bumping along the bottom of the national economic rankings, and there were whisperings about his leadership.

Some of that hasn’t changed. But in a strange twist of events, after a heart attack, an operation, a baby and the start of a pandemic, the Chief Minister has a spring in his step and a fighting chance of leading Labor to a second term. The former party hack says he has never entered a campaign with more “perspective”. “We’re on a good path at the moment as a ­Territory,” Mr Gunner said.

“It has taken a lot of hard work to get to where we’ve got to, and I think we need a safe pair of hands to keep steering the ship.”

Northern Territory Opposition Leader and CLP leader Lia Finocchiaro in Darwin. Picture: News Corp Australia

His two main rivals, Lia Finocchiaro and Terry Mills, would scoff at that. Ms Finocchiaro, the 35-year-old newly installed leader of the Country Liberal Party, heads an opposition comprising only of herself. Changing the government would mean persuading voters to hand the reins to a crop of newbies amid a health crisis. She is unfazed by that.

“The Gunner government had parliamentary experience, and look what it delivered us: the worst-performing economy in the nation, an $8.2bn debt, worse crime, wasteful spending and every other economic indicator trending down,” she said. “I’ll take my team any day of the week.”

Many will remember Mr Mills as the man who led the CLP to victory in 2012, only to be dumped by his colleagues seven months later. Some insiders say the CLP is yet to reform its fractious ways.

Mr Mills now leads Territory Alliance, a vehicle pitching itself as the party of the “sensible centre” while seeking to contain views as diverse as religious conservatism and a desire to legalise cannabis. “For 20 years, parties have been identifying economic and social problems as political problems, and the political problem is how to get re-elected,” Mr Mills said.

“TA has been created as a new model bringing together those that have a higher level of competence, some sense of connection to their communities that’s authentic and, most importantly, the ­maturity to collaborate.”

Labor won power in 2016 in a landslide, taking 18 seats in the 25-seat Legislative Assembly. It lost two MPs to the crossbenches and narrowly retained a third seat in a by-election in which its primary vote collapsed despite running former Richmond footballer Joel Bowden as a candidate. Labor may have campaigned in 2016 on a platform featuring museums that weren’t built and ambitious social reforms that got shelved, but it seems to have come around to the idea that the only way out of a downturn is to support private business. Former chief minister and unionist Paul Henderson ­recently joined former Dow Chemical chief Andrew Liveris on a government-appointed committee spruiking the need to “roll out the red carpet” to enterprise.

Mr Gunner says his team has “lined up” a lot of projects and done the “really hard shovel work … to get the Territory on the right path for generational change” this term. “A lot of these projects are essentially all the way through government processes, or government processes aren’t the handicap; they can’t get equity investments or offtake agreements,” he said.

The leaders agree the Territory’s main challenge is a slump following construction of the $50bn Ichthys LNG project, and blame each other for mishandling that. Coronavirus has exacerbated the problems.

The main non-COVID risk is a precarious fiscal situation set to see the Territory go bust within a decade without change. All three leaders support growing the mining, agriculture and tourism sectors, slashing beige tape and eliminating waste. None will commit to raising taxes or ­reducing the size of the public service, the chief budget impost.

Ms Finocchiaro has endorsed the Gunner government’s 50 per cent renewables target for 2030 despite a recent Utilities Commission report finding it would be ­“extremely difficult, if not unrealistic” to deliver as planned.

Mr Mills also supports renewables but came out unexpectedly against fracking, before seeming to backflip this week by suggesting TA could change its policy in 2024.

Betting odds favour Labor to win when ballots are cast on ­August 22, but not by much. Labor only needs to lose four seats to be in minority, and it’s easy to pick more at risk.

The most likely alternative scenario to a second Labor term is horse-trading between the CLP and TA and independents.