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Description
Introduction
The period July to December 2006 was characterised by significant surprises, tensions and arguably change in the government's fortunes. The resignation of senior minister Peter Toyne left the government without one of its best performing ministers and the resulting reshuffle saw what many observers considered the demotion of Chief Ministerial aspirant Paul Henderson. The surprise introduction of road safety laws, tensions within the Labor caucus and the announcement that the ALP should no longer count on the Indigenous vote all led to a perception that the political landscape was changing.
By-Election
On 29 August 2006, Peter Toyne, the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Minister for Health and Minister for Central Australia, the member for the Central Australian seat of Stuart, announced his resignation effective from 1 September 2006 from both the ministry and parliament, citing medical advice.
A by-election for the electorate of Stuart occurred on 23 September. This is a largely remote electorate, which starts at the edge of Alice Springs, and stretches north and north-west of Alice Springs. The electorate extends to Yuendumu and further north, and traverses the Tanami Desert to include Kalkarindji and Top Springs in the Victoria River district. Eighty-four per cent of the electorate's population are of Indigenous origin. (NT Electoral Office).
Six candidates contested the election, including the ALP's candidate Karl Hampton, formerly a ministerial officer to Peter Toyne. The CLP returned to an old tactic of running two candidates, Lloyd Spencer-Nelson and Rex Granites Japanangka, calculated to maximise the party's vote by attracting a wider range of voters. The CLP's candidate at last year's general election, Anna de Sousa Machado, ran as an independent, as did Gary Cartwright, the former ALP member for Victoria River (now Daly) from 1990 to 1994. Finally, there was a third independent, Peter Tjungarray Wilson.
The last time that the CLP had run two candidates in one seat was in 2001 and observers wondered if the elevation of former member of the Legislative Assembly, Rick Setter, as CLP President underlay a return to dual candidates. The election became controversial when the ALP requested the Electoral Commission conduct unscheduled mobile polling at a small community and at Tennant Creek, which was not in the electorate. The ALP had claimed some enrolled voters had gone on a football trip, or had failed to vote for some other reason, and had not arranged for postal voting. Although the ALP candidates were present at all three unscheduled polling places, the five non-Labor candidates were given no advance notice of the extra opportunities to vote, or only a few hours'--not enough to be at the polling places or to have helpers attending with how-to-vote cards.
Whilst non-ALP candidates were highly critical of the arrangements, Electoral Commissioner... |
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