Both major political parties in the Northern Territory are vying for every vote in the Arafura by-election, with polls set to close at 6pm tonight in a contest parties say is dominated by infrastructure and health.
Over the past 10 days, three candidates for the seat, as well as party volunteers and the Northern Territory Electoral Commission (NTEC) representatives, have been crisscrossing the vast electorate to open polling stations in remote communities, homelands and townships.
It's a contest that was triggered by the sudden passing of former Labor member Lawrence Costa, who held the seat for more than six years.
In Jabiru on Friday, both the Territory Labor government and its Country Liberal Party (CLP) opposition nominated the state of the region's road network and access to health as issues they were seeking to address.
"It's about the infrastructures and all that – the roads – and the health," CLP candidate for Arafura, Leslie Tungatalum, said out the front of a polling station in Jabiru on Friday.
"We've got a lot of roads and potholes and things. It's not good for old people when they're travelling to the shop or to the hospital."
Labor's candidate for the seat, Manuel Brown, was campaigning in another community and was not available for an interview.
But Labor's Selena Uibo — the NT government's Housing and Homelands Minister — was out on the ground on Friday talking with voters, highlighted the same concerns.
"Roads services, ensuring that there are good infrastructures that are being able to support services in community, as well as access to communities, has been a big part of the conversations I've had over the last week," she said.
About 50 per cent, or 2,700 people, had already voted as of Friday, according to the NT Electoral Commissioner Ian Loganathan.
Only one voting station, at Jabiru Community Hall, will be open on election day today.
Three candidates in the running
For this by-election, both Labor and the CLP have pre-selected Indigenous members with strong ties to the electorate.
Territory Labor has pre-selected Manuel Brown, a community service worker who has ties to the west Arnhem part of the electorate.
The party is hoping to defend Arafura, which has only voted for the CLP once since being established in 1983.
Mr Tungatalum, who is contesting for the CLP, is the deputy mayor of the Tiwi Islands Regional Council and the son of H. Tungatalum, who was the first Indigenous man to be elected to the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly back in the 1970s.
A third candidate – the Federation Party's Alan Middleton – is running largely on a platform of demanding transparency on government spending and action in Arafura.
A resident in the Top End since the 1990s, Mr Middleton said he was frustrated with the way successive governments had handled the region.
"Particularly since the effort was made to promise Closing the Gap in 2007 … I think that on every headline statistic, that gap has widened," he said.
Mr Middleton also said infrastructure investments had not kept up with what he described as an "exponential" population increase in the region.
Potential wait for clear winner
The polls in Arafura are set to close at 6pm tonight, with vote-counting to start immediately after.
Only a preliminary count of preferences will be done tonight, with a full allocation of preferences not expected to be completed until this coming week.
More than 200 declaration votes have been cast, which will be confirmed in coming days.
Unless one candidate receives 50 per cent of first preferences plus one vote on Saturday, it will be difficult for a clear winner to be determined.
And if the result is close, in an electorate of roughly 5,500 people, it could come down to postal votes that may arrive days after polls have closed.
The flow of Mr Middleton's preferences could also prove decisive if the result is tight.
At the last Northern Territory election in August 2020, the two-candidate preferred result was 53.6 to 46.4 to Labor, which marked slight swing towards the CLP compared to the 2016 result.
If that trend continues, Arafura voters could be waiting days before they know who will represent them in the NT Parliament.
