Solomon
Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Solomon in the Northern Territory, as of the 2016 federal election
Created2000
MPLuke Gosling
PartyLabor
NamesakeVaiben Louis Solomon
Electors71,888 (2022)
Area337 km2 (130.1 sq mi)
DemographicInner metropolitan
Territory electorate(s)
List
Electorates around Solomon:
Pacific Ocean Pacific Ocean Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean Solomon Lingiari
Pacific Ocean Lingiari Lingiari

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.

Geography

Federal electoral division boundaries in Australia are determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state or territory, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state or territory's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state or territory are malapportioned.[1]

History

Vaiben Louis Solomon, the division's namesake

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 had represented the Northern Territory in the South Australian House of Assembly, when it was still part of that colony.

The Division was first contested at the 2001 federal election. 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. As such, for most of its history, it has been a marginal seat usually held by the party of government.

The CLP's Dave Tollner very narrowly won the seat in 2001, then increased his majority in 2004 before narrowly losing it to Labor's Damian Hale at the 2007 election, where Labor won a landslide victory. At the 2010 election, the CLP's Natasha Griggs won Solomon back 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.[2]

Griggs and the CLP lost Solomon to Labor's Luke Gosling at the 2016 election held on 2 July, with Gosling becoming the first Labor candidate to win the primary vote and 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.[3][4] Gosling is the second opposition member to hold the seat. This was later seen as a forerunner to the CLP's disastrous performance at the NT general election held later that year, where the party won just 2 seats out of 25, including only one in the Darwin area. Gosling retained the seat in 2019 with a reduced majority, and regained some majority in 2022.

Members

Image Member Party Term Notes
  Dave Tollner
(1966–)		 Country Liberal 10 November 2001 –
24 November 2007		 Lost seat. Later elected to the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly seat of Fong Lim in 2008
  Damian Hale
(1969–)		 Labor 24 November 2007 –
21 August 2010		 Lost seat
  Natasha Griggs
(1969–)		 Country Liberal 21 August 2010 –
2 July 2016		 Lost seat
  Luke Gosling
(1971–)		 Labor 2 July 2016 –
present		 Incumbent

Election results

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2022 Australian federal election in territories § Solomon.[edit]
2022 Australian federal election: Solomon[5]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labor Luke Gosling 21,775 39.50 −0.54
Country Liberal Tina Macfarlane 13,771 24.98 −13.07
Greens Aiya Goodrich Carttling 8,164 14.81 +2.97
Liberal Democrats Kylie Bonanni 5,839 10.59 +10.59
One Nation Emily Lohse 2,948 5.35 +5.35
United Australia Tayla Selfe 2,628 4.77 +1.90
Total formal votes 55,125 96.48 +0.85
Informal votes 2,011 3.52 −0.85
Turnout 57,136 79.53 −3.55
Two-party-preferred result
Labor Luke Gosling 32,726 59.37 +6.29
Country Liberal Tina Macfarlane 22,399 40.63 −6.29
Labor hold Swing+6.29
Primary vote results in Solomon (Parties that did not get 5% of the vote are omitted)
  Country Liberal
  Labor
  Greens
  Australian Democrats
  Palmer United/United Australia Party
  Liberal Democrats
  Independent
Two-candidate-preferred results in Solomon

References

  1. ↑ Muller, Damon (14 November 2017). "The process of federal redistributions: a quick guide". Parliament of Australia. Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  2. ↑ 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
  3. ↑ Solomon, NT - Tally Room: Australian Electoral Commission Archived 2016-08-12 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ "Northern Territory residents turn out to vote in federal election". Northern Territory News. 2 July 2016. Retrieved 2 July 2016.
  5. ↑ Solomon, NT, 2022 Tally Room, Australian Electoral Commission.

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

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