The Country Liberal party (CLP) will govern in the Northern Territory, after a massive swing against the incumbent Labor party.
The ABC election analyst Antony Green said the current government has been defeated.
“It looks like a substantial defeat and it looks like the CLP will win with a majority and [it] may be a substantial majority,” Green told ABC Television.
The former chief minister and Labor MP Natasha Fyles said that, while disappointing, politicians always prepared themselves for such an eventuality.
Voting booths slowed to a trickle in the Northern Territory (NT) as the sweltering afternoon wore on. With 6.6% of the vote counted, the CLP had a 13.8% swing on a two-party preferred basis.
In the seat of Fannie Bay, things were looking promising for the Greens candidate Suki Dorras-Walker who was leading the CLP in early voting.
More than 85,000 Territorians cast their vote before Saturday, and booths slowed to a trickle in the afternoon swelter on election day. The NT chief minister, Eva Lawler, had earlier expressed some nerves about her marginal seat of Drysdale but also suggested the slow polling was an indication of a change in voter behaviours.
“It’s been fairly steady but quieter than I actually thought,” she said. “I think the voting patterns have changed; people pre-polled, and also people are going to shopping centres rather than the booth at the school.”
The opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro spent most of the 32C day in the sun at a polling booth on the border of their Palmerston-based electorates.
Ms Finocchiaro said a lot people had “kept their cards close to the chest”. “A lot of people early voted, so we’re seeing smaller numbers come through, but people seem very determined, and we’re really hoping, right up until 6pm that people see how important it is to … vote.”
Finocchiaro looks very likely to win the top job after early voting indicated a solid swing to the CLP.
Lawler said it had been hard, slogging work since taking the reins of Labor in January. “I don’t think any of my candidates will go to sleep tonight not thinking that they’ve given it their best shot.”
Key issues to emerge during the election campaign include the environment, crime and cost of living.
Voting started slowly in the northern Darwin seat of Fannie Bay but picked up as market-goers collected Saturday breakfast laksas and lodged ballots. Fewer voters waited until polling day to cast their votes, choosing to pre-poll in high numbers.
Territory electorates consist of just more than 6,000 voters, often making margins in the 25 seats extremely tight.
The NT electoral commissioner, Kirsten Kelly, said 61,000 people had voted early across the territory. “That’s about 1,000 votes more than in 2020, so early voting is quite popular voting for us,” Kelly said.
The participation rate had dipped from 75% in 2020 to 65% this election, Kelly said. “So there’s a lesser number, but we have more people on the electoral roll,” she said.
