2020 Northern Territory general election

2020 Northern Territory general election

← 2016 22 August 2020 2024 →

All 25 seats in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly
13 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout74.9% (Increase 0.9 pp)
  First party Second party Third party
 
Michael Gunner (cropped).jpg
Lia Finocchiaro (cropped).jpg
Terry Mills in 2005 (cropped).jpg
Leader Michael Gunner Lia Finocchiaro Terry Mills
Party Labor Country Liberal Territory Alliance
Leader since 20 April 2015 1 February 2020 November 2019
Leader's seat Fannie Bay Spillett Blain
(lost seat)
Last election 18 seats 2 seats Did not exist
Seats before 17 2 3
Seats won 14 8 1
Seat change Decrease 4 Increase 6 Increase 1
Popular vote 40,291 32,021 13,184
Percentage 39.43% 31.34% 12.90%
Swing Decrease 2.76 Decrease 0.46 Increase 12.90
TPP 53.3% 46.7%
TPP swing Decrease 3.9 Increase 3.9


Chief Minister before election

Michael Gunner
Labor

Elected Chief Minister

Michael Gunner
Labor

The 2020 Northern Territory general election was held on 22 August 2020 to elect all 25 members of the Legislative Assembly in the unicameral Northern Territory Parliament.

Members were elected through full preferential instant-runoff voting in single-member electorates, after the optional preferential voting system introduced for the 2016 election was abolished by the Electoral Legislation Amendment Act 2019 in April 2019.[1] The election was conducted by the Northern Territory Electoral Commission, an independent body answerable to Parliament.

The incumbent centre-left Labor Party (ALP) majority government, led by Chief Minister Michael Gunner, won a second consecutive four-year term of government. It defeated the centre-right Country Liberal Party (CLP) opposition, led by Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro, and the regionalist big-tent Territory Alliance (TA) party, led by former Chief Minister Terry Mills.

ABC election analyst Antony Green called the election for the Labor Party nearly three hours after the polls closed.[2][3] At the time it was not known if the party would claim a majority of seats, though on 24 August the ABC projected Labor had retained majority government.[4] When the counting of votes concluded, Labor finished with 14 seats, enough for a two-seat majority on the floor of the Assembly. The Country Liberals won 8 seats, a gain of six from their landslide loss in the previous election, whilst 2 independents and 1 Territory Alliance candidate were elected.[5] The new Gunner Ministry was sworn in on 8 September 2020.[6]

  1. ^ "Electoral Legislation Amendment Act 2019". Northern Territory Legislation. Northern Territory Government. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  2. ^ "Michael Gunner 'very confident' Labor will retain government after NT election but CLP yet to concede". ABC News. 22 August 2020.
  3. ^ "NT election 2020 results as they happen: Look back at our live blog". ABC News. 22 August 2020.
  4. ^ "NT Labor's Michael Gunner to form majority government". ABC News. 24 August 2020.
  5. ^ "NT election goes down to the wire as counting for final four seats finishes 13 days after polls closed". ABC News. 4 September 2020.
  6. ^ "NT Government's new Cabinet sworn in amid concern over Michael Gunner's appointment as Treasurer". ABC News. 8 September 2020.