BY RUTH RATCLIFFE
DARWIN — After 26 years in government, the Country Liberal Party was rocked by a 9% swing against it in the August 18 Northern Territory elections.
The final result will not be known for several days, but it is likely that Labor will win 13 seats, the CLP 10 and independent candidates two. Before the election, the ALP held only seven of the 25 seats in the NT parliament.
The Socialist Alliance polled well in its first state/territory election campaign. In Nightcliff, NT Socialist Alliance convenor Gary Meyerhoff won 4.2% of the vote; in Fannie Bay, Peter Johnston won 4%; and in Wanguri, Meredith De Landelles won 3%.
"Development, law and order, jobs" was the pre-election mantra of both Territory Labor and the CLP. The Socialist Alliance campaign also focused on the law and order issue but, in opposition to the Labor-CLP consensus, the alliance held regular campaigning stalls and actions against the new Public Order and Anti-Social Conduct Act and mandatory sentencing.
At an August 16 public forum organised by the Socialist Alliance, Aboriginal Legal Aid Service lawyer Peter O'Brien explained why it was not an exaggeration to say that under the CLP the territory had become a police state. He noted that the anti-social conduct bill had been drafted by senior police officers — indicating a breakdown of the constitutional separation between the legislature and executive — and that both major parties had announced their public order policies at the Police Association's annual conference. O'Brien also pointed out that since the NT government's agreement with the federal government to introduce diversionary programs in addition to mandatory sentencing, all of the funding for this program ($20 million over four years) will be controlled by the police.
The day before the elections, the NT Socialist Alliance organised the third successful action against the CLP government's draconian anti-social conduct act. One hundred protesters gathered outside Parliament House and reaffirmed their opposition to the new law and the racist policies being promoted by both the CLP and Labor.
The NT Socialist Alliance campaign against the anti-social conduct act has received national support through solidarity actions organised on August 17 by the alliance outside NT Travel Centre offices in many capital cities.
During the election campaign the Socialist Alliance also participated in the launch of a refugee sanctuary network in Darwin. The federal government plans to build a new detention centre in Darwin and is currently investigating possible sites. Continuing the campaign for refugee rights and against any new detention centres will be an ongoing part of the activity of the Socialist Alliance.
"Before we'd even seen the first results I knew we'd run a massively successful campaign", Gary Meyerhoff told Green Left Weekly. "However, we are very pleased that as a result of raising the voice of dissent in opposition to the Labor-CLP consensus — speaking up for indigenous rights, for youth, for drug-users and for workers — we have also received a decent number of votes in all the electorates we contested."