Michael Gunner facing tough NT by-election

Embattled Chief Minister Michael Gunner looks set to face a tough by-election shortly before the NT-wide poll.

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith

Embattled Chief Minister Michael Gunner looks set to face a tough by-election shortly before the Northern Territory-wide poll due in August, after ousted Labor backbencher Ken Vowles announced that he would be leaving parliament on 31 January.

The NT Self Government Act states that a by-election must be held if a seat is vacated less than three years and six months after the first sitting of the current parliament, which was on 18 October 2016.

On that basis, Mr Vowles would have had to have remained in parliament until April for his seat to remain vacant until the next election. The NT Electoral Commission has yet to comment.

Mr Gunner and Mr Vowles became bitter enemies when the former sacked the latter from cabinet in December and engineered his ouster from the Labor caucus in a dispute related to Labor’s management of the economy.

Mr Vowles told Territory parliament on Thursday that his ouster had not followed due process and that under Mr Gunner’s leadership, the Labor mantra that one person was not bigger than the party had been replaced.

“That message has fallen by the wayside and (been) replaced with disunity is death, which translates to, in Territory politics, obey me or else,” he said.

“It could be any one of you next.”

He said it had become clear that he could no longer properly represent the constituents in his suburban Darwin seat of Johnston as an isolated Labor member.

“I can no longer represent the constituents of Johnston in the way they deserve, in the way I want to. They have no voice in government,” Mr Vowles said.

“I do not want them to miss out as a result of me being punished.”

As a parting gift to Mr Gunner, Mr Vowles echoed some of the Country Liberal Party’s key criticism’s of Labor’s economic management.

“Businesses are closing, shops are empty, and families are leaving,” he said.

Labor won power from the CLP in 2016 in a landslide victory that saw it claim 18 of 25 seats in the Territory’s unicameral Legislative Assembly. Since then, two former Labor members have moved to the cross benches. Mr Vowles’ resignation takes Labor’s numbers to 15—three short of losing a majority.

Several analysts have predicted Labor could lose at least that many seats in August. The CLP is yet to outline its policies. While a by-election loss could be catastrophic for Mr Gunner, an alternative view is likely to be that a bad by-election sufficiently far from the August poll could cause voters to vent their frustration early and starting thinking about the implications of returning power to the CLP.