When historians look back on what has been a week of unprecedented political havoc across the country, perhaps one of the most significant developments will have gone contemporaneously unremarked: the final morphing of Brendan Nelson into Simon Crean. Crean paid the ultimate price. It’s odds-on Nelson will as well.

The make up of the Northern Territory parliament rested on the result in Fannie Bay. If Labor had failed to secure the seat, Independent Gerry Wood would have held the balance of power in the hung parliament.

It has been predicted that the Labor Government will drop from 19 seats to 13, while the Country Liberal Party will climb from four to 11. The shock result stunned Chief Minister Paul Henderson, whose party has suffered a 9 per cent swing, which claimed the scalps of three of his ministers.

In the last Northern Territory election, Labor stormed to victory with an 11 per cent swing in its favour to eventually win 19 of the Territory’s 25 seats. Former chief minister Clare Martin says the buoyant NT economy will cushion Labor from any swing.