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 km^2 (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

Member		Party	Term
	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

• Division of Solomon - Australian Electoral Commission

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