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 ...

on Saturday August 30, 1997, and was won by 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).

Shane Stone Shane Leslie Stone (born 25 September 1950) is an Australian political figure. He is a member and former leader of the Country Liberal Party, and was the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory between May 1995 and February 1999. Since Oct ...

continued as Chief Minister. During the previous term, the CLP had lost the seat of Fannie Bay to Labor in a by-election. The CLP did not win the seat back, but managed to take MacDonnell from Labor and Nelson after Independent

Noel Padgham-Purich Cecilia Noel Padgham-Purich (born 25 December 1927) is an Australian former politician. She was a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1977 to 1997, representing Tiwi until 1983, Koolpinyah until 1990 and Nelson thereaft ...

retired.

Retiring MPs

Labor

* Neil Bell MLA ( MacDonnell)

Country Liberal

* Fred Finch MLA ( Leanyer) * Rick Setter MLA ( Jingili)

Independent

MLA (

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

)

Results

Candidates

Sitting members are listed in bold. Successful candidates are highlighted in the relevant colour.

Seats changing hands

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. 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

Psephos - Adam Carr's Election Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Northern Territory General Election, 1997 1997 elections in Australia Elections in the Northern Territory 1990s in the Northern Territory August 1997 in Australia