A general election was held in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

, Australia on Saturday 3 December 1983. The result was a

landslide victory A landslide victory is an election result in which the winning Candidate#Candidates in elections, candidate or political party, party achieves a decisive victory by an overwhelming margin, securing a very large majority of votes or seats far beyo ...

for the incumbent

Country Liberal Party The Country Liberal Party of the Northern Territory (CLP), commonly known as the Country Liberals, is a centre-right and conservative political party in Australia's Northern Territory. In territory politics, it operates in a two-party system wi ...

(CLP) under Chief Minister Paul Everingham over the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major Centre-left politics, centre-left List of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia and one of two Major party, major parties in Po ...

(ALP) opposition under

Opposition leader The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...

Bob Collins. For this election, the size of the assembly was increased from 19 to 25. The only independent of the Legislative Assembly, Dawn Lawrie, lost her seat of

Nightcliff Nightcliff is a northern suburb of the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. It is the traditional country and waterways of the Larrakia people. History Although the origin of the name Nightcliff has alway ...

at this election to the CLP.

Retiring MPs

CLP

Les MacFarlane John Leslie Stuart MacFarlane (26 March 1919 – 15 January 1986) was an Australian politician. He was the Country Liberal Party member for Elsey in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1974 to 1983. He was Speaker from 1975 ...

MLA ( Elsey)

Results

Candidates

Sitting members are listed in bold. Successful candidates are highlighted in the relevant colour. Where there is possible confusion, an asterisk is used.

Post-election pendulum

The following pendulum is known as the

Mackerras pendulum The Mackerras pendulum was devised by the Australian psephologist Malcolm Mackerras as a way of predicting the outcome of an election contested between two major parties in a Westminster style lower house legislature such as the Australian House ...

, invented by psephologist

Malcolm Mackerras Malcolm Hugh Mackerras (born 26 August 1939) is an Australian psephologist and commentator and a lecturer on Australian and American politics. Education and works Malcolm Mackerras was born at Turramurra in Sydney in August 1939, the son ...

. The pendulum works by lining up all of the seats held in the Legislative Assembly according to the

percentage point A percentage point or percent point is the unit (measurement), unit for the difference (mathematics), arithmetic difference between two percentages. For example, moving up from 40 percent to 44 percent is an increase of 4 percentage points (altho ...

margin they are held by on a two-party-preferred basis. This is also known as the swing required for the seat to change hands. Given a uniform swing to the opposition or government parties, the number of seats that change hands can be predicted.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Northern Territory General Election, 1983 Elections in the Northern Territory 1983 elections in Australia 1980s in the Northern Territory December 1983 in Australia