Division of Solomon

Solomon
Australian House of Representatives Division

Division of Solomon in the Northern Territory, as of the 2016 federal election.
Created 2000
MP Luke Gosling
Party Labor
Namesake Vaiben Louis Solomon
Electors 69,938 (2016)
Area 337 km2 (130.1 sq mi)
Demographic Inner Metropolitan

The Division of Solomon is an Australian Electoral Division in the Northern Territory. It is largely coextensive with the Darwin/Palmerston metropolitan area. The only other division in the territory, the Division of Lingiari, covers the remainder of the territory.

The division was one of the two established when the former Division of Northern Territory was redistributed on 21 December 2000. It is named for Hon Vaiben Louis Solomon, a Premier of South Australia, a delegate to the second Constitutional convention and member of the first Australian Parliament. He represented the Northern Territory in the South Australian House of Assembly, when it was still part of that state.

The Division was first contested at the 2001 federal election. For most of its history, it has been a marginal seat usually held by the party of government. Although the Darwin/Palmerston area had historically been a stronghold for the Country Liberal Party at the territorial level, recent gains by Labor have made it much more competitive. It has taken on a character similar to mortgage belt seats; it is usually held by the party of government.

The CLP's Dave Tollner held the seat for its first two terms of existence before narrowly losing it to Labor's Damian Hale at the 2007 election. At the 2010 election, the CLP's Natasha Griggs won Solomon with a two-party-preferred margin of 1.75 percent from a 1.94 percent swing. She therefore became the first opposition member in the seat's history. Griggs was re-elected with a reduced two-party margin of 1.4 percent at the 2013 election as the Coalition won government.

A MediaReach seat-level opinion poll in Solomon of 513 voters conducted 22−23 June during the 2016 election campaign unexpectedly found Labor heavily leading the Liberals 61–39 on the two-party vote from a large 12.4 percent swing.[1]

Griggs and the CLP lost Solomon to Labor's Luke Gosling at the 2016 election held on 2 July, with Gosling defeating Griggs on a 56–44 two-party vote from a record 7.4 percent swing--in both cases, the strongest result in the seat's history.[2][3] Gosling is the second opposition member to hold the seat.

Members

MemberPartyTerm
  Dave Tollner Country Liberal 2001–2007
  Damian Hale Labor 2007–2010
  Natasha Griggs Country Liberal 2010–2016
  Luke Gosling Labor 2016–present

Election results

Australian federal election, 2016: Solomon[4]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Labor Luke Gosling 22,308 40.87 +5.44
Country Liberal Natasha Griggs 18,804 34.45 −10.24
Greens Todd Williams 5,553 10.17 +2.18
Independent Mark Garner 1,644 3.01 +3.01
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Marty Reinhold 1,523 2.79 +2.79
Liberal Democrats Robert Dawes 1,275 2.34 +2.34
HEMP Lance Lawrence 1,143 2.09 +2.09
Rise Up Australia Silvija Majetic 985 1.80 +0.81
Australia First John Kearney 798 1.46 +1.46
Online Direct Democracy Nevin Cartwright 369 0.68 +0.68
CEC Brigid McCullough 183 0.34 −0.07
Total formal votes 54,585 93.05 −1.65
Informal votes 4,080 6.95 +1.65
Turnout 58,665 83.88 −5.43
Two-party-preferred result
Labor Luke Gosling 30,566 56.00 +7.40
Country Liberal Natasha Griggs 24,019 44.00 −7.40
Labor gain from Country Liberal Swing +7.40

References

  1. ↑ An independent poll shows Solomon MP Natasha Griggs will struggle to retain her seat at the federal election: NT News (News Ltd) 27 June 2016
  2. ↑ Solomon, NT - Tally Room: Australian Electoral Commission
  3. ↑ "Northern Territory residents turn out to vote in federal election". Northern Territory News. 2 July 2016. Retrieved 2 July 2016.
  4. ↑ Solomon, NT, Virtual Tally Room, AEC.

External links

Coordinates: 12°25′23″S 130°56′10″E / 12.423°S 130.936°E / -12.423; 130.936

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/24/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.