Tomorrow Labor will be at long odds-on to retain government in the Northern Territory election. It currently holds 19 of the 25 Assembly seats, and has made a great start by already winning two seats Arnhem and MacDonnell where the Labor candidates have been elected unopposed, a rare event in modern Australian elections.
Northern Territory elections may not receive a lot of coverage elsewhere in the country, but they do provide some interesting contests, and are a good model of how governing parties can set up an electoral system in their own interests.
After the first election under self-government in 1980, Labor spent 21 years in the political wilderness, finally winning government from the Country Liberal Party at the 2001 election.
Having waited so long for the opportunity, new Chief Minister Clare Martin moved quickly to reform the electoral system, and after an inquiry, a new Electoral Act was passed in 2004. Most changes were sensible and positive, modernising an out-of-date Act.
However, one particular change to party registration laws shows how governments will set up electoral laws for their own self-interest.
The independent inquiry had recommended a low threshold of 20 members for a party to be registered, to encourage electoral competition. Labor introduced a Bill that raised this to 50 members and then, the day before the Bill was to be debated, increased this again to 200 members.
Such a high threshold in a jurisdiction with 120,000 voters means that activist groups tend to stand independent candidates.
The result is a lack of competition, with only three parties registered for tomorrow's election Labor, the Country Liberal Party, and the Greens. This is half the number of parties from the 2001 election.
Labor has been able to successfully quash the ability of new parties to form and contest elections.
It could be expected that the small NT electorates of about 5000 voters would generate fewer candidates. However, numbers have dropped significantly since 2001 from 3.4 candidates per electorate in that year to an average 2.6 candidates for Saturday's election.
Being in government brings other advantages when it comes to elections. The Northern Territory has maximum four-year terms but, unlike the ACT, these are not fixed, and an election can be held any time after three years.
Way ahead in the polls, Labor has jumped quickly, with tomorrow's election being just three years and three weeks into the term.
Combined with Australia's shortest election timetable 19 days from the issuing of writs this is a perfect example of a ''snap'' election and puts opponents at a significant disadvantage. The spread of population in remote and sparsely-settled areas, often with a high Indigenous population, adds to the challenges of contesting elections.
Mobile and postal voting commences only nine days after an election is called, which creates a huge logistic obstacle for minor-party and independent candidates.
While the number of candidates may be low, the CLP is trying to improve its chances by running two candidates in the highly Indigenous (77 per cent) seat of Arafura a mainland Indigenous woman and a Tiwi Islander man.
Although Arafura is regarded as a safe Labor seat, the CLP is obviously attempting to maximise its vote, and hoping that preferences between the two will overcome Labor's Indigenous candidate, Deputy Chief Minister Marion Scrymgour.
The CLP has been successful previously in running two candidates. In 2001 in MacDonnell the party put up an Indigenous candidate to support their incumbent non-Indigenous candidate, John Elferink.
Another interesting aspect of NT elections is the use of photographs on ballot papers. This has been a practice since the 1980 election, and is used to inform voters, particularly in areas with lower literacy rates and use of English. Parties tend to select candidates who represent the ethnic composition of an electorate, and the use of photos is a way of reinforcing this choice.
ANU academics Andrew Leigh and Tirta Susilo recently published a paper suggesting that ''beauty'' assisted candidates to win votes in the 2005 election. Their findings on the impact of skin colour on voters' choices a highly relevant factor in the Northern Territory were less conclusive. Of course, there's a good debate to be had on the relationship between skin colour and beauty, but not today.
So with the ACT going to the polls in October, is there much to be learned from the Northern Territory?
Not really; it is actually the Northern Territory that should adopt some of the ACT's laws, which provide for perhaps the fairest elections in Australia.
For a start, the certainty of four-year fixed-date elections is not only economically and organisationally efficient, it does not give a government an unfair advantage in being able to choose a date with little warning.
It is also far easier to register a party in the ACT, with a threshold of only 100 members. That's half the Northern Territory threshold, but with the ACT also having twice the number of voters, it represents a four-fold difference.
It's not surprising, then, that there are nine parties registered for the ACT election on 18 October.
Norm Kelly teaches politics at the Australian National University