“Electoral history is littered with unexpected landslides.” That was the favourite aphorism of my friend the late Sir David Butler (1924- 2022). He was the eminent psephologist of the United Kingdom and that was one of the many perceptive comments he used to make. It is very true, and I can attest that it is quite rare to have a very close election preceded by pundit predictions that it would be very close. I learnt as long ago as 1961 that very close elections typically come as a shock as was the case in December that year when Bob Menzies was universally expected to win handsomely his sixth straight election - only to be treated to the shock of a very close result, a genuine “cliffhanger”.
During 2024 I have publicly commented upon, and made predictions for, overseas elections in India, Ireland, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. I have also done that for several Australian by-elections, for state elections in Tasmania and Queensland and for territory elections in the Northern Territory and the ACT. All those elections went as I predicted but that is not important. What is important is that two of them illustrated the Butler aphorism. The two cases are the Northern Territory general election on Saturday 24 August and the US presidential election on Tuesday 5 November. Both were preceded by the frequent saying of “it will be very close” and in both cases many historians have pronounced the result to have been a landslide. The two cases of my predictions can be found in Switzer Daily for July 19 “June 27 and July 13 gave Trump the 2024 election” and for August 2 “Is Labor set to lose power in the Northern Territory?”.In the former case I made this further prediction: “Mark my words. The second Trump aberration will be just as bad for America as the first.” In the latter case my further comment came with a question: “With a run of elections ahead, will a potential loss in the Northern Territory be the first pin to fall for Labor? Here are my predictions.”
In both these cases I correctly named the winner but did not do particularly well on the details – but at least I was willing to name a predicted winner and did not resort to the standard non-prediction of “it is too close to call”. My favourite election for 2024, therefore, must be one of these two, so my decision has been made of the basis of my joy or gloom at the result. The NT result gave me joy, so that becomes my favourite. My view of Trump is that he is a charlatan and a criminal. He seems to have one virtue: he is not a drinker. Apart from that I see him to be wholly without merit or virtue of any kind. I’ll leave my analysis of that election until January 2025 and content myself for the moment to say that I wish my prediction had been proved wrong.
For the Northern Territory, my prediction was that Lia Finocchiaro would be the new Chief Minister in a majority Country Liberal Party government with 14 seats. In the event the CLP won 17 seats so I was wrong to predict the CLP would not gain the then Labor seats of Casuarina, Drysdale and Sanderson. However, my understating of Labor’s disaster did not end there. I believed that I was predicting a bad result for Labor when I wrote that Labor would hold nine of the 15 seats it had pre-election. In the end Labor held only four, all remote seats with significant aboriginal populations, Arafura, Arnhem, Daly and Gwoja.
Labor’s other losses begin with Nightcliff to the Greens. Nightcliff was Labor’s strongest win in 2020 and during the count it appeared that it would remain with former (failed) Chief Minister Natasha Fyles. However, in a surprise development the CLP candidate, Helen Secretary, fell into third place and her preferences were expected to favour Labor as per her “how-to-vote” recommendation. They were so undisciplined in the end that the Greens candidate, Kat McNamara, finished with 2,252 votes compared with 2,216 for Fyles. That meant Labor did not retain a single seat in the populous Darwin-Palmerston region where the party had won eleven seats in 2020.
Adjoining Nightcliff to its south is Fannie Bay, a seat I predicted would be lost by Labor to the CLP. That happened, but not in the way I expected. The sitting Labor member, Brent Potter, came in third. After the distribution of the 187 preferences of Leonard May (Independent), the count was 1,918 votes for the CLP winner Ms Laurie Zio, 1,424 for the Greens candidate and 1,319 for Potter. As demonstrated below, Potter would have won if he had come in second on the earlier counts – but whereas the Greens preferences were discipled to favour Labor over the CLP the Labor preferences were very undisciplined, meaning that the CLP won the seat. So, the Greens thought they could snatch two seats from Labor. They succeeded in Nightcliff – but had the effect of giving Fannie Bay to the CLP.
The fifth unexpected Labor loss was the Darwin northern suburbs seat of Johnston. It went to an independent candidate, Justine Davis. As in Fannie Bay Labor lost the seat because its sitting member, Joel Bowden, came in third and Davis finished with 2,425 votes compared with 1,782 for the CLP candidate Gary Strachan. Therefore, Labor won the two-party preferred vote with the CLP in seven seats but had only four wins. The three unusual cases were Fannie Bay (Labor 2,442 votes, CLP 2,219), Johnston (Labor 2,224 votes, CLP 1,983) and Nightcliff (Labor 2,908 votes, CLP 1,560).
As is so often the case, the Labor disaster in seats was essentially due to its very low overall vote. Labor is back to 1997 in that regard. At that election Labor scored only 42.1% of the two-party preferred vote compared with 42.7% in 2024. At the intervening elections Labor’s shares were 48.1% in 2001, 59.1% in 2005, 50.5% in 2008, 44.2% in 2012, 57.3% in 2016 and 53.9% in 2020. The best way to understand this election, however, is simply to look at my pre-election and post-election pendulums which are attached at the end of this article.
In January next year, my first article for 2025 will be my analysis of the US presidential election. It will be posted before the second Trump aberration begins on January 20. My main question to ask myself will be whether his win can be described as a landslide. I have answered that for Australia’s Northern Territory. It was a landslide victory for Lia Finocchiaro and the CLP.
In the meanwhile, I wish readers a happy Christmas and a bright and prosperous New Year.