FROM LEFT: Joshua Burgoyne (Braitling) and Bill Yan (Namatjira), both CLP, retained their seats. CLP candidate in Araluen Sean Heenan lost to the incumbent Independent Robyn Lambley. Lia Finocchiaro, the new Chief Minister. (Image from a CLP how-to-vote card.)
By ALEX NELSON
In the NT elections of June 2005, the ALP under Chief Minister Clare Martin (pictured) trounced the CLP, reducing the party to just four seats.
Two of these – Araluen and Greatorex – were based in Alice Springs, held by Jodeen Carney and Dr Richard Lim, respectively.
The seat of Blain, in the former CLP stronghold of Palmerston, was retained by Terry Mills.
The neighbouring seat of Brennan experienced a boilover, with former CLP Chief Minister and later Opposition Leader, Denis Burke, losing his seat to Labor.
Burke’s defeat prompted my Alice Springs News article on August 3, 2005 “Pollies’ holy grails: an ALP Alice seat, Darwin CLP boss” where I noted that historically leaders of political parties whose electorates are based outside of Darwin always result in failure.
The list began with CLP Majority Leader, Goff Letts, who lost his seat of Victoria River in August 1977.
Others to follow were Ian Tuxworth (Barkly) and Labor opposition leaders Bob Collins, Brian Ede and Maggie Hickey, who all led Labor to its worst election defeats last century.
I neglected to mention this trait commenced as long ago as 1965, when the Member for Alice Springs, Colonel Alfred Lionel Rose, announced his leadership of the North Australia Party – and promptly lost his seat to Labor’s Chas Orr in that year’s Legislative Council elections.
When my article was published, Jodeen Carney was the new Opposition Leader, the first female leader of the CLP.
I wrote that being the CLP leader based in Alice Springs posed “a real danger for her long-term electoral prospects” but, as it turned out, history probably proved kindest to her, as she resigned from that position early in 2008.
Terry Mills took over the role of Opposition Leader, with the CLP losing creditably to Labor in 2008 but eventually leading the party to victory in 2012 (winning, it might be noted, 16 seats of the NT Legislative Assembly).
And that’s when it all came unstuck, as only seven months later Mills was ousted as Chief Minister by the Member for Braitling, Adam Giles (at right).
Things went from bad to worse during the term of the Giles government, resulting in a catastrophic defeat to Labor in August 2016, with the CLP reduced to two members and Giles becoming the second sitting head of government in the NT to lose his seat (and the third CLP leader to do so).
Giles lost Braitling to Dale Wakefield, the first Labor member in Alice Springs since Chas Orr in the 1960s.
Gary Higgins, the Member for Daly (a large Top End bush seat), took over the CLP leadership.
Like Jodeen Carney (at left) a decade earlier, Higgins resigned as leader of the CLP in January 2020, handing the role over to his deputy, Lia Finocchiaro. He retired from politics in August 2020.
Meanwhile, Terry Mills successfully campaigned for his old seat of Blain in the elections of 2016 (having resigned in 2014), and in 2019 announced the formation of a new political party, the Territory Alliance.
Echoing the misfortune of Colonel Rose way back in 1965, Mills lost his seat in August 2020.
Lia Finocchiaro was the Member for Brennan in Palmerston for one term after 2012 but transferred to the new neighbouring seat of Spillett in 2016.
She was succeeded in Brennan by Labor’s Eva Lawler!
Eva Lawler took over as Chief Minister in late 2023 but – as we all know – her tenure in that role lasted only eight months (slightly longer than Terry Mills in 2012), and she too has lost her seat.
There is perhaps something of an irony that Denis Burke’s daughter-in-law has “returned the favour” to NT Labor.
Even though it’s on the outskirts of Darwin, Palmerston now has a decided history of being a “death trap” for Territory political leaders based there – even more so than for other regions outside of the capital.
In Lia Finocchiaro (at right), we have yet another Chief Minister whose electorate of Spillett is a part of Palmerston, leading a new government with 16 members at latest count.
Far be it for me to put the knockers on her leadership of the CLP after just achieving such a convincing election victory over Labor.
However, if Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro is conscious of the consistent cycles and patterns of Territory political history and maintains her wits about her, there’s no reason why she should fall victim to the twists and turns of events that will inevitably come her way.
Thanks for the memories, Alex. The best times of our lives were spent in the Territory.
The ups and downs we took in our stride. But we had a great time.
Quite frankly a fly blown camp dog could have flogged Labor on Saturday night.
And as Coulter told us all many times before results were counted he has not been game enough to camp overnight in Alice for years since Turnbull legalised juvenile crime Australia wide for Gunner and his ABC.
As the current woke racist biased incompetent current Police Commissioner was not sacked on Sunday as she promised soon after Stones sanctimonious victory soapbox introduction, blind Freddy well knows Dutton and Albanese will continue to make Alice a town well suited to having the disgusting ugly five story high WW2 pillbox plonked on our sacred Anzac oval in memory of the beautiful happy vibrant prosperous town we all took for granted back in the 60s before Whitlam invaded us in 1975.
Thank Christ, we sadly escaped 22 years ago.
Great work Alex. Was it Marilyn Monroe who said: “I have been rich. I have been poor. Rich is better.”
In us owing around $43,000 each via government spending, I hope she is right! Let’s all look under stones (no pun intended) for the $240m odd dollars that Albo dropped out of his plane on his way out.
It’s a bit like the mid 70s when Whitlam and co found the money tree not producing and went to an Arab arms dealer looking for more fertiliser.
@ Peter. You’re a great help.