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CANBERRA - Gerry Woods warned the people of the Northern Territory that they should be afraid after the weekend election that saw the chicken farmer and UFO observer come within a whisker of holding the balance of power in Australia's top end.
Woods, who was returned for a second term as member for the outer Darwin electorate of Nelson, won early fame as mayor of the surrounding shire of Litchfield and as an anti-dam campaigner before sighting a silent, dark grey UFO a month before Labor Chief Minister Paul Henderson took his Government to the polls 11 months ahead of time.
"People should be afraid," Woods said after the polls closed with Labor a fingernail from defeat. "I'm afraid."
Late yesterday afternoon, polling in the final and crucial Darwin seat of Fannie Bay appeared to indicate that the Government may have squeaked home by an almost impossibly narrow margin, snatching away Woods' potential role as the territory's legislative powerbroker.
But his warning has been echoed across Australia and the wall-to-wall Labor administrations that since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd defeated John Howard's 11-year conservative Government have blocked the Liberals from any real voice in law-making.
Before the weekend's election Labor, which has held power in the Territory since 2001, was widely tipped to be returned with a comfortable, if diminished, majority.
Instead, it was down to a humming wire, with Henderson facing the prospect of either a hung Parliament or a minority Government with Woods able to dictate the outcome of legislation.
Late yesterday, with 150 postal votes still to count, Labor candidate Michael Gunner was expected to beat Country Liberal Party opponent and former Darwin Lord Mayor Garry Lambert in Fannie Bay.
The 9 per cent swing against Labor, while overwhelmingly lodged in local issues, has nonetheless shaken the party across Australia - and especially in Western Australia, which will go to the polls next month.
Labor is expected to hold WA, but almost certainly against a strong Liberal resurgence and a swing that will send a further message to both sides in Canberra and the states.
In the Territory the CLP had been flat on its back for years. But with a massive swing that almost thrust it back into power, the party has given heart to Liberals hammered by a succession of defeats in the states and by last year's Rudd steamroller.
Federal Opposition deputy leader Julie Bishop said that voters were now punishing Labor governments across Australia for their incompetence, at every opportunity.
"This sends a message to the Rudd Government that it must start to make difficult decisions to protect Australia's prosperity, and it will not be able to spend its entire first term focused on populist stunts and media grabs," she said.
Rudd, en route to the Olympic Games in Beijing, heard the warning.
"The NT election is a reminder to all of us in politics that the Australian people will hold us accountable," he said. "This is an important lesson for all of us in politics, particularly those of us who are currently in government."
Rudd is in no immediate danger, with the Opposition in disarray under Dr Brendan Nelson and a change in Liberal leadership almost certain before the end of the year.
But the NT result is being seen as a heartening reminder that fortunes can change rapidly, and that even if it takes another election or two, Labor's stranglehold on all Australian parliaments can be broken.
