Federal Labor MP Luke Gosling has won another term as the Member for Solomon following Labor’s Saturday night trouncing of the Coalition, with CLP candidate Lisa Bayliss finally conceding defeat on Sunday afternoon, while the CLP is now faced with explaining how it could not convert last August’s landslide Territory election victory into winning a single federal Lower House seat in the Territory.

Both Solomon and Lingiari were retained by Labor, with Marion Scrymgour holding the vast Lingiari seat for the party with a massive increase of support, wiping out the CLP’s Lisa Siebert.

Ms Bayliss, who refused to concede Solomon on Saturday night after political pundits called the victory for Mr Gosling, formally conceded the election more than 12 hours later on Sunday afternoon.

“A short time ago, I called the Member for Solomon Luke Gosling, to congratulate him on retaining the seat of Solomon,” Ms Bayliss wrote on Facebook Sunday afternoon.

“Thank you to every one who put their faith in me. Many Territorians voted for change.”

The CLP saw a 10 per cent swing towards it Saturday night, with Ms Bayliss beating Mr Gosling by roughly 2,000 primary votes, but it was not enough to win, with Mr Gosling easily retaining the seat after preferences.

Community support also flowed to Independent candidate Phil Scott, who by Sunday night’s count had received 6,800 primary votes, while the NT Greens’ Jonathan Perry took home 5,800, and One Nation candidate Benjamin Craker receiving 3,300 primary votes. Mr Gosling received 16,887 primary votes compared to Ms Bayliss’s 18,598, as of Sunday night.

Ms Bayliss, who is the daughter of former CLP minister Daryl Manzie, made a preferences deal with One Nation, her official “how-to-vote” card showed.

Despite more voters enrolled at this federal election than the last, the total number of votes cast as of last night was 55,619; roughly 2,000 less than the May 2022 federal election.

In the aftermath of the results on Sunday morning, Territory political observers of all stripes were questioning the CLP’s tactic of connecting Ms Bayliss, a former NT Police officer and union rep, so closely to Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro during the campaign.

Ms Finocchiaro had overseen five straight election and by-election losses for the CLP before last August’s Territory election, yet her face and endorsement was prominent on campaign ads, corflutes and other political material for Ms Bayliss throughout the federal campaign.

“There’s a lot of people who can’t understand that,” one CLP source said. “Lisa was seen as too close to Lia and the results show how that played out. It didn’t make a lot of sense, connecting her to Lia with all that is going on currently with Lia’s issues.”

The CLP repeatedly played up Ms Bayliss’s police background, harkening back to its Territory election pitch that it was “tough on crime”.

Mr Gosling said at his Saturday night election victory party that the NT Government held the responsibility for fixing crime issues and that he would be “holding them to account”.

He said on Sunday that he “appreciated the call from Lisa Bayliss” conceding defeat and claimed before the election that he was looking to become a minister in Anthony Albanese’s new Cabinet after serving the party for nine years in Solomon, but offered no evidence the role had been offered to him.

“I will continue to represent the NT with energy and passion, making our home an even better…place to live,” he said on Sunday.

Mr Scott, who ran as part of the wider Voices of the Top End grassroots political movement that started in the lead-up to the Territory election and who was backed by Climate 200 donations, pledged on Sunday to “continue to listen to our community’s cares and concerns”.

“We’ll value expert and local knowledge and bring the community together to develop priorities for how we should be represented in Canberra,” he said in a Facebook statement.

“We didn’t win the seat, but we did something just as important – we showed our community that a different kind of politics is possible. We brought people together, raised vital issues and gave so many a reason to believe again. This is not the end. It’s just the beginning.”

On election night, Ms Scrymgour told party faithful that she would continue to fight for the Territory’s bush communities.

“We need to make sure that we continue the work that we’ve done in Alice Springs, in Tennant [Creek] and in Katherine, but right across our regions,” she said.

Federal Labor was projected to win a strong majority of 85 seats, compared to the Coalition’s 39 seats, as of Sunday night, marking a huge unexpected majority for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.