That meant he, effectively, needed to run as an independent, drawing off enough votes to keep the coalition under a quota, and then pick up preferences from everyone else when the time came to allocate them.
It wouldn't be easy, but given his contacts in the medical profession, the defence forces, the indigenous community and the public service he might just be able to do it.
That would mean calling in a lot of favours, so it looked like he was in for a busy week on the phone.
Fortunately, Tuesday and Thursday would take him out to two of the territory's most significant indigenous communities, and he already heard Army reserve commitments in Darwin on Friday and Saturday morning.
So by the time Moran called back on Sunday afternoon, Ballantyne would have a fair indication of what was possible.
Play the cards right, and he might almost be guaranteed that the preselection was a goer.
So it was time to get busy.
Getting busy started with church loaded in the morning, continued with phone calls around the Catholic community and ended up beside the barbecue in the evening.
In the process, he managed to kick off around one-third of the items on his to-do list.
The other two-thirds were knocked over bit by bit through the week and when he arrived back from Darwin early on Saturday afternoon things looked reasonably rosy.