Darwin's Theory Of Evolution, Postal Votes To Come
The Age
Monday August 20, 2001
DARWIN
The invitation to Labor leader Clare Martin arrived last Wednesday. Could she attend the function on August 27, nine days after the Northern Territory election? The special guest, said the invitation, would be the Chief Minister, Denis Burke.
But next Monday's corporate launch, at one of Darwin's better hotels, could now serve, if Ms Martin were to become chief minister, as one of her first official duties - if she deigns to attend.
On the scale of political shocks, this one must rank as seismic. Labor, the party that seemed condemned to permanent opposition in the Northern Territory, has been led out of the never-never in Australia's most conservative turf, and not just by a former ABC TV and radio journalist, but by a woman.
``I'm still a bit amazed, but it's starting to sink in," Ms Martin said yesterday from a parliamentary office where the sign reads ``Leader of the Opposition". She has the modulated tones that come from nearly 20 years as an ABC announcer and the waffle-speak earned from six years as a politician.
She once interviewed politicians for the ABC radio programs AM and PM. She hosted a classical music show and did a Canberra press gallery stint. Then she went to Darwin in the mid-1980s and worked in radio and TV.
Yesterday she had the half-glow, half-exhaustion that comes from doing a rapid-fire round of interviews for the Sunday morning TV shows. When was the last time they wanted the NT Labor leader?
The result is not quite official. The ALP is one seat short of an outright majority in the 25-seat parliament, and will have to wait on the outcome of postal votes in the Darwin northern suburban seat of Millner.
If Labor wins Millner, its candidate, Matthew Bonson, will become the fourth Aborigine in the new parliament. The four indigenous members are all Labor and include Marion Scrymgour, who becomes only the second Aboriginal woman in an Australian parliament.
The difference in Millner may be just 10 or 20 votes once counting resumes today. But in an electorate of fewer than 4500 voters, the Country Liberal Party is already conceding privately that Labor is likely to win.
And even if it does not, it stands a much better chance of forming minority government with the help of at least one of two independents.
The swing against the CLP was more than 9 per cent, but not all of the disaffected voters turned to Labor. Its primary vote rose by only about 2.5 per cent, but it benefited from the strong showing by independents, who generally gave preferences to Labor.
In a one-party territory it's hard to say which is bigger, the rise of Labor or the fall of the CLP. Since the first elections in 1974, ahead of the start of self-government four years later, the CLP has never looked even close to losing. Labor did not win a single seat at the first poll, and its best result, 1990, produced only nine seats.
The Country Liberals were the right fit in a place where people pride themselves on being different to the rest of Australia. It was home to lots of so-called good ol' boys with a liking for development and a distinct distaste for legal niceties or Aboriginal land claims.
The CLP's heartland was the northern suburbs of Darwin. This is the Territory's middle class, overwhelmingly white and historically often afraid of the blacks that make up more than a quarter of the NT's population. Each election the CLP pulled out the race card - land claims one time, law and order the next - and each time it worked.
But pride in difference goes only so far, and the CLP's complacency - many would say arrogance - began to jar. The northern suburbs were becoming socially and economically aspirational. It did not help that the party ignored the warning signs.
The first came in October 1998 when the NT narrowly voted against statehood. No one predicted the result, and the CLP dumped its leader, Shane Stone, the following February. But it did not change its policies, nor its attitudes towards those it viewed as opposed or just plain ungrateful.
In the same month that Mr Burke replaced Mr Stone, Ms Martin replaced Maggie Hickey, who resigned to care for her ill husband, as head of Labor. Within a year she set about not only reforming the party's platforms but reviving the hopes of supporters convinced it could never win.
``'It's easy to get dispirited," she said. ``But you've got to believe you will win. Unless you do, you won't."
Labor's poor electoral results masked the fact that its primary vote was never that far behind the CLP.
ALP elder Barry Jones conducted a review of the party, and it became more aggressive in and out of parliament. It was outspoken about removing mandatory sentencing, and at the same time rhetorically anti-crime in a Territory where the law and order debate is always shrill.
This will not be a soft-left administration.
Ms Martin assiduously courted the multicultural vote and the business community. In 1997 business donated less than $10,000 to the ALP campaign. This time the donations were 10 times that.
Meanwhile, say analysts such as Northern Territory University's Professor David Carment, the CLP ran a negative campaign on largely tired themes, like Labor being too inexperienced for government.
By all accounts, Mr Burke is considered more likeable and more decent than his predecessor, Mr Stone. But Mr Stone was more politically cunning, and may not have waited a month after the launch of the Darwin-to-Alice Springs railway to call the election.
Literally around the corner from the vote-counting at the NT Electoral Office today will be another serious test for the CLP. The Federal Court's Justice Mark Weinberg will begin hearing evidence in a trial over whether the government improperly appointed Chief Magistrate Hugh Bradley in 1998.
The North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Services has challenged the appointment after revelations emerged that Mr Bradley had been initially appointed for two years only, and with a salary package far beyond the advertised rate. Damaging revelations are expected.
The start of the wet season is still months away in the Territory, but already the CLP is experiencing the worst downpour it has ever known.
© 2001 The Age
