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 km^2 (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

Northern Territory general election, 2016: Braitling^[1]

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

1. Braitling – Electorate summary, Northern Territory Electoral Commission, 9 September 2016

External links

• Division profile from the Northern Territory Electoral Commission