By Danial Kelly

OPINION: There was a big winner from last Saturday’s by-election in Fannie Bay: voter apathy. From the electorate of the politician that has had the most media coverage over the last six years, only 65 per cent of the voters could be bothered to turn up and put a mark on the ballot paper.

Voters seemed to “why bother voting when all parties and all politicians are as bad as each other? My one vote doesn’t make any difference anyway’’.

In its purest form, voter apathy accomplishes no change and requires no effort by the voters. Its message is “don’t turn up to vote, but if you do, don’t make the effort of changing how you voted last time”. And so voter apathy is the best friend of the incumbent and, if let to run its course, eventually results in authoritarianism.

Sociologically speaking, there are three main types of political systems: monarchy, democracy and authoritarianism. Even though we are technically part of a (constitutional) monarchy, the monarch (and their delegates) are not active players in our political life.

Functionally, we are a democracy, which relies on voters being active in the political process. But when the voters experience apathy to the extent where only 65 per cent of them can be bothered to vote (and even most of that 65 per cent would prefer not to make the effort), we find ourselves in a political condition on the brink of authoritarianism.

The authoritarian way involves the people being ignored and all decisions made by elites, mostly to their own benefit, with little or no transparency or accountability. Sound familiar?

This has been the growing NT experience over the last 10 years. The public outcry against corruption, COVID mandates and crime are first ignored and then denied by the government. This modus operandi of denial was dramatically displayed when the government enacted retrospective legislation deeming the CHO directions to be lawful just three weeks out from the court case challenging the same CHO directions led by United NT Businesses.

How is voter apathy encouraged? There are three main limbs to encouraging voter apathy. The first is ‘spin and distraction’. ‘Spin’ is where a politician turns something that is objectively not good into something that sounds good for them.

For example, take comments reported by the ABC as made by Fyles after the Fannie Bay by-election where Labor lost a whopping 15 per cent of the primary vote compared to the last election.

Fyles’ spin-full response was “(t)he constituents of Fannie Bay have been heard… They want a government that backs them and only a Labor government can do that”.

Ignore reality (15 per cent drop in Labor primary votes), deny the other (CLP’s primary vote was up 8 per cent from the last election) and spin the truth of ‘we only won due to Green’s preferences’ to ‘the people of Fannie Bay want Labor’. Well, yes, actually 33 per cent of them do. But preferential voting turns 33 per cent into electoral success.

And that highlights the second limb to grow voter apathy: it’s all futile. Where a candidate that clears their nearest competitor by 10 per cent is outdone on preferences, it’s no wonder voters feel apathetic toward the whole process.

The third limb that I suggest powerfully encourages voter apathy is a bit more tricky. It is the public portrayal of politicians being incompetent, corrupt and generally stupid. On the one hand it is the proper business of media to call out such behaviour. But on the other hand, the same stories feed the narrative that all politicians and parties are bad.

As that narrative grows, so too does voter apathy. This sad situation answers an often asked question in NT politics of ‘why don’t the parties select better candidates?’

There are two answers to that question: one is it is hard to get good people to put their hand up when they know the media will trash their character sooner or later; and two, it actually works in the parties’ favour to have incompetent individuals elected to the Parliament because the individuals have to rely upon the party advisors to govern. Sadly, that has become normal, especially over the last six years where Comrades Leonardi and Ryan were in substance more ‘Chief Minister’ than Gunner.

So what needs to happen? The solution cannot be left to the political parties because it is not in their interest for a properly functioning democracy to flourish. Voters need a wake-up call.

The NT Electoral Commission must fine – and follow up – every absent voter to push them back into action. Do we need to set a quorum for each electorate of, say, 80 per cent voter attendance in order for the successful candidate to be elected to Parliament?

Media need to support democracy, not partisan politics. The temptation of media is to sell juicy stories; that is natural. But every story that portrays an individual politician as having done something bad also contributes to the authoritarian-inducing mantra of “all parties and all politicians are as bad as each other” so I shouldn’t even bother to vote, let alone get active in democracy.

To not do anything is to accept the creep of authoritarianism.

Dr Danial Kelly is a Darwin-based lawyer and academic. He founded Territory Alliance with Terry Mills and was the solicitor for United NT Businesses’ judicial review that challenged the legality of the CHO mandatory vaccination directions.