Veteran Snowdon likely to hold on in Lingiari
THE Country Liberal Party might not win the seat of Lingiari but they were partying like victors at the Gap View Hotel in Alice Springs last night.
Labor’s Warren Snowdon held a slender lead over the CLP’s Jacinta Price, with 51.9 per cent of the two-party preferred vote after 43 per cent of the vote had been counted.
Many votes from remote polling booths are yet to be counted with Labor confident it has outpolled the CLP in regions that have traditionally been an ALP stronghold.
“The remote polling has been excellent. We think we have polled very, very well in the bush,” Mr Snowdon said.
But with Scott Morrison and the Coalition on track to record a victory few had predicted, the CLP was already looking ahead with optimism to the 2020 Territory election.
CLP vice-president Jamie de Brenni said regardless of the result in Lingiari, the party was back on track after its disastrous 2016 Territory election result.
“We’ve done something really special here tonight,” he said. “As you can see, we are a united party.”
Ms Price said she would continue to work for the issues she had campaign on during the election campaign.
“I think some of the biggest issues for me is that people want jobs, people want stability, people want to stand on their own two feet,” she said.
“Aboriginal people are sick of being treated like secondrate citizens. They want the same opportunities as other Australians.”
Earlier, Mr Snowdon paid tribute to his friend, former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who died two days before the election. “It’s very sad. He was a friend of mine and a mentor and he was an icon not only of the Australian Labor Party but of the nation,” he said.