Electoral division of Braitling
| Braitling Northern Territory—Legislative Assembly | |
|---|---|
 Location of Braitling in the Alice Springs area | |
| Territory | Northern Territory |
| Created | 1983 |
| MP | Dale Wakefield |
| Party | Australian Labor Party |
| Namesake | Braitling family |
| Electors | 5,998 (2016) |
| Area | 60 km2 (23.2 sq mi) |
| Demographic | Urban |
Braitling is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory. It was created in 1983, when the electorate of Alice Springs was abolished as part of an enlargement of the Assembly. Braitling is an almost entirely urban electorate, covering 60 km² in north-western Alice Springs. The electorate takes its name from the Braitling family, an early pioneering family in the district. There were 4,687 people enrolled in the electorate as of August 2012.
The city of Alice Springs has, along with the Darwin satellite city of Palmerston, traditionally been one of two conservative bastions in the Northern Territory. For most of its first three decades, Braitling was a comfortably safe seat for the Country Liberal Party. The seat's first member, Roger Vale, transferred here after his former electorate of Stuart was made somewhat less friendly for the CLP. Indeed, Braitling included most of the Alice Springs share of the old Stuart. Vale retired in 1994 and handed the seat to Loraine Braham of the CLP. Braham, who served as Speaker and later a cabinet minister, was stripped of her CLP preselection before the 2001 election amid accusations of branch-stacking. She won re-election as an independent, and was narrowly re-elected in a very close race against the CLP in 2005. Braham opted to retire at the 2008 election, and Adam Giles won the seat back for the CLP, reverting it to its traditional status as a comfortably safe CLP seat. Giles became the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory in March 2013.
Although opinion polls and commentators had already universally written off the CLP government both before and during the 2016 election campaign, there was no suggestion that Giles was in any danger in his own seat. He sat on a seemingly insurmountable margin of 19.6 percent, and Labor had never come close to winning the seat. However, in a result not foreseen by any commentators, let alone either party, Labor challenger Dale Wakefield narrowly led Giles on election night. Ultimately, Wakefield defeated Giles by a knife-edge margin of 27 votes. Not only is Wakefield just the second challenger to unseat a sitting Chief Minister/Majority Leader in their own seat and the third challenger to oust a major-party leader in the Territory, she is also the first Labor member to represent an Alice Springs seat.
Members for Braitling
| Member | Party | Term | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roger Vale | Country Liberal Party | 1983–1994 | |
| Loraine Braham | Country Liberal Party | 1994–2001 | |
| Independent | 2001–2008 | ||
| Adam Giles | Country Liberal Party | 2008–2016 | |
| Dale Wakefield | Australian Labor Party | 2016–present | |
Election results
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country Liberal | Adam Giles | 2,091 | 42.8 | −20.0 | |
| Labor | Dale Wakefield | 1,601 | 32.8 | +14.3 | |
| Greens | Dalton Dupuy | 493 | 10.1 | +0.8 | |
| Independent | Phil Walcott | 332 | 6.8 | +6.8 | |
| Independent | Eli Melky | 211 | 4.3 | +4.3 | |
| Independent | Jane Clark | 125 | 2.6 | +2.6 | |
| Independent | Alfred Gould | 36 | 0.7 | +0.7 | |
| Total formal votes | 4,889 | 98.3 | +0.9 | ||
| Informal votes | 84 | 1.7 | −0.9 | ||
| Turnout | 4,973 | 82.9 | −7.9 | ||
| Two-party-preferred result | |||||
| Labor | Dale Wakefield | 2,314 | 50.3 | +19.9 | |
| Country Liberal | Adam Giles | 2,287 | 49.7 | −19.9 | |
| Labor gain from Country Liberal | Swing | +19.9 | |||
References
- ↑ Braitling – Electorate summary, Northern Territory Electoral Commission, 9 September 2016