2024 Northern Territory General Election

2024 Northern Territory general election

← 2020 24 August 2024 2028 →
All 25 seats in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly 13 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Leader Eva Lawler Lia Finocchiaro Party Labor Country Liberal Leader since 21 December 2023 1 February 2020 Leader's seat Drysdale Spillett Last election 14 seats, 39.43% 8 seats, 31.34% Current seats 14 7 Seats needed 6
Incumbent Chief Minister Eva Lawler Labor

Members will be elected through full preferential instant-runoff voting in single-member electorates. The incumbent centre-left Labor Party (ALP) majority government, led by Eva Lawler since December 2023, will attempt to win a third consecutive four-year term of government, similar to that seen previously in Queensland and Victoria, which will be challenged by the centre-right Country Liberal Party (CLP) opposition, currently led by Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro.

The election will be conducted by the Northern Territory Electoral Commission.

For the first time in history, both major parties will go into the election with female leaders. Additionally, both leaders are from the city of Palmerston; indeed, before her move to the then-new seat of Spillett in 2016, Finocchiaro was the member for Drysdale (the seat Lawler won in 2016 after Finocchiaro transferred to Spillett).

In the event both current leaders remain in place, this will be the first election in the Northern Territory where both major political parties are led by women, and the third in any Australian state or territory after the 1995 ACT election and 2020 Queensland election.

Previous election

At the 2020 election, the Labor government led by Chief Minister Michael Gunner was re-elected with a reduced majority, winning 14 of the 25 seats in the parliament. The Country Liberals (CLP) won 8 seats, whilst the Territory Alliance party won 1 seat and a further 2 seats were won by independents.

Parliamentary composition

Robyn Lambley, the Territory Alliance's sole representative in the parliament, left the party in October 2020 to sit as an independent. Labor MLA Mark Turner was expelled from the party-room caucus in February 2021 due to what he acknowledged as an "inappropriate relationship" with a Labor Party staffer, though he remained a Labor-designated member in the assembly.

A by-election was held for the seat of Daly on 11 September 2021, caused by the resignation of CLP member Ian Sloan due to health and personal issues. Labor candidate Dheran Young won the seat, the first time that an incumbent government has won a seat from the opposition in the history of the Legislative Assembly.

On 10 May 2022, Chief Minister and Labor leader Michael Gunner announced his immediate resignation from both positions, citing his desire to spend more time with his family following the birth of his and his wife's second son on 29 April. Following a party-room meeting on 13 May, Labor minister Natasha Fyles was elected unopposed to the leadership, and was sworn in as the new Chief Minister later day. Gunner resigned from the seat of Fannie Bay on 27 July and a by-election was held on 20 August 2022. Labor retained the seat at the by-election, with candidate Brent Potter victorious despite recording a 7 per cent swing against the party.

On 17 December 2022, Labor MP for Arafura Lawrence Costa died. This triggered a by-election which was held on 18 March 2023. Manuel Brown retained the seat for Labor with a 15.6% swing towards the party on the two-party-preferred result.

In December 2023, it was revealed that Fyles holds 754 undeclared shares in South32, a company that owns a manganese mine on Groote Eylandt. Fyles faced further conflict of interest allegations and calls to resign, due to Fyles' decision earlier in 2023 to not investigate health impacts from the Groote Eylandt mine, with Leader of the Opposition Lia Finocchiaro calling her actions a 'profound betrayal of public trust'. As a result of the controversy, Fyles resigned on 19 December 2023.

The Northern Territory Legislative Assembly has four independents all of which are in reasonably marginal seats, this increased by one following the removal of Mark Turner from the Labor caucus.

 

The first redistribution proposal was published on 23 May 2023.

The parliament has fixed four-year terms, with elections to be held on the fourth Saturday of August every four years.

Five parties are currently registered with the Northern Territory Electoral Commission (NTEC).

Retiring MLAs

The following members announced that they were not contesting the 2024 election:

Labor

• Paul Kirby (Port Darwin) – announced retirement on 25 January 2024

• Nicole Manison (Wanguri) - announced retirement 12 January 2024

Independent

• Kezia Purick (Goyder) - announced retirement 15 February 2024

Candidates

Finocchiaro announced the first CLP candidates in May 2023.

Disendorsed candidates

Voting intention