Consisting of Darwin and its satellite town of Palmerston, the electorate of Solomon was created when the Northern Territory was divided into two electorates at the 2001 election. This appeared set to be reversed at the 2004 election, when the Northern Territory was found to be 295 residents short of the requisite number. Since both major parties felt they could win both seats (a more sound judgment in Labor’s case, at least at the time), the second seat was essentially legislated back into existence. This has left the two Northern Territory electorates with by far the lowest enrolments in the country: at the time of the 2010 election, Solomon had 59,879 enrolled voters and Lingiari 61,126, compared with a national average of around 94,000.
The Northern Territory gained its first member of federal parliament in 1922, but the member did not get full voting rights until 1968. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Northern Territory electorate had recently fallen to Sam Calder of the Country Party after a long period in Labor hands. With Calder’s retirement in 1980, the seat transferred to the Country Liberal Party, which had been established as a local alliance of Liberals and Nationals to contest elections in the newly established Northern Territory parliament. Labor gained the seat with the election of the Hawke government in 1983, defeating CLP member Grant Tambling (who returned as a Senator four years later). It subsequently changed hands with great frequency: future Chief Minister Paul Everingham recovered the seat for the CLP in 1984, Warren Snowdon won it back for Labor in 1987, Nick Dondas held it for the CLP for one term from 1996, and Snowdon recovered it in 1998.
Going into the 2001 election, the new seat of Solomon had a notional CLP margin of 2.3% while Lingiari had a notional Labor margin of 3.7%. Warren Snowdon naturally opted for the safer option of Lingiari, and Solomon emerged as an extremely tight contest between Labor’s Laurene Hull and David Tollner of the CLP. Tollner suffered a 2.2% swing against the national trend, but was able to hang on by 88 votes. The Northern Territory recorded only a modest swing to Labor at the 2007 election, but it proved just sufficient to deliver them their first victory in Solomon, with former football coach Damien Hale prevailing by 196 votes. The defeated Tollner returned to politics after winning the seat of Fong Lim in the Northern Territory parliament at the 2008 election, and has been health, housing and alcohol rehabilitation minister since the CLP’s election win in August 2012. Hale meanwhile enjoyed a short tenure as member, suffering a 1.9% swing in 2010 and what by the electorate’s historical standards was a relatvely large 1.8% defeat. The seat has since been held for the CLP by Natasha Griggs, who had previously been the deputy mayor of Palmerston.
Solomon’s distinguishing demographic characteristics are a high proportion of indigenous persons (10.3% in the 2006 census compared to a national figure of 2.3%) and a low number of persons aged over 65 (5.3% against 13.3%). Darwin is divided between newer Labor-leaning suburbs in the north, including Nightcliff, Casuarina, Jingili and Sanderson, and the town centre and its surrounds south of the airport, an area marked by higher incomes, fewer families and greater support for the CLP. Stronger still for the CLP is Palmerston, a satellite town established 20 kilometres south-east of Darwin in the 1980s that accounts for just over a quarter of the electorate’s voters: it is less multicultural than Darwin and has a high proportion of mortgage-paying young families.
Labor’s preselected candidate for the coming election is Luke Gosling, a staffer to Senator Trish Crossin and volunteer operations manager of a charity he co-founded which works in East Timor. Griggs meanwhile faces a preselection challenge from Peter Bourke, a doctor at Royal Darwin Hospital.
I don’t think I have ever been first before.
bbpseph
can’t pass by without commenting your serious smearing of Oakeshott and Windsor.
They were not grabbing policies off the shelf, as you imply; they made it very clear from the start of negotiations that there were some outcomes they wanted, and the negotiations were framed around those.
Abbott was intransigent, Gillard negotiated.
Which is sort of what’s been happening ever since….
[blackburnpseph
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 6:06 pm | PERMALINK
I don’t think I have ever been first before.’
Don’t let the honour go to your head 😉
Zoomster
They much preferred Labor’s version of the NBN and in Windsor’s case that was what it came down to. It was not as though, either of them had some whiz bang policy they had tried to get up for years. They were also attracted to 3 years assured salary and influence and that was not something Tony Abbott was going to promise.
Mari
Rest assured I will not.
I met Griggs once in the course of my previous duties and decided that even for a newbie backbencher from the NT she was pretty clueless.
I don’t know Tollner was Minister for Alcohol Rehabilitation. Terry Mills must have a sense of humour.
According to Google supposed to have been 41 Celsius here today right on the coast, almost unheard of
blackburnpseph
I’m afraid that’s just your ignorance showing.
Both Windsor and Oakeshott had campaigned on climate change action for years.
They also had campaigned on better health services for country hospitals, and both of them still show a very active and ongoing interest in seeing these delivered (our hospital’s CEO, for example, meets with both men on a monthly basis to discuss rural health issues with them).
The reason it took Oakeshott 15 minutes to explain where his vote was going was because he wanted to make it clear how complex the package of policies he and Windsor were after were.
They did not go into the negotiations grabbing at new shiny things they had not seen before. They went in with clear agendas, based on commitments they had taken to their electorates over a number of campaigns.
When the NT dropped bellow 2 quotas for the 2004 election, the Liberals made the decision that they could win in the NT seats but could not in the ACT seats. They thus set about finding a justification for keeping the NT`s 2nd seat while not restoring the ACT`s 3rd seat (1996-1998). They chose giving the NT a greater margin of error so it would still qualify.
The ALP should try and legislate to get an extra seat for the ACT whose seats are each more than the electorate of the NT put together.
Pedant
[I have no time whatsoever for Mr Ashby and those behind him, but your statement displays chutzpah to the nth power. Like it or not, the government’s intention in buying Mr Slipper off with the Speaker’s job was precisely to take a vote away from the Opposition, and thereby deprive the voters of Fisher of the opposition voice which, for better or for worse, they had chosen.]
Horseshit. The Speaker has a vote if called upon to use it.
[It was exactly the same as the buying of Senator Colston by the Howard Government, and the attempted buying of the vote of an elected Labor MHA by Sir Edmund Rouse in Tasmania (which saw that knight sent to jail).]
Nothing like it at all. The allegation has nothing to do with politicking and everything to do with a collective collusion to use abuse of legal process to affect numbers in the house and effect a change of government.
[There is scarcely a worse form of electoral fraud than buying off an elected member.]
Except (glaringly) this one. Obviously you don’t get out much.
[All the legal ins and outs, which certainly don’t reflect well on Ashby et at, do not undermine this basic fact, which is why Psephos is right about an inquiry: the Government is living in a glass house.]
You are, of course, entitled to your point of view, no matter how misguided. I on the other hand would like an inquiry and I will continue to advocate for one regardless of which party is in government.
Psephos on the other hand is a student of democracy and government, and should know better. Why he wants it swept under the carpet is beyond me. But like you he is entitled to his opinion.
[I suspect the LNP will ignore the IMF.]
No need to suspect it, Mod Lib.
That is pretty much standard practice for them. Ignore, IMF, Treasury, Fed Court, Precedent, Natural Justice, Climate Change…ignorance!
Anyhoo, bbpseph, back to my main contention – if (obviously to your great regret) Abbott loses the election this year and therefore the LOTOship, how will history remember him?
6
The CLP`s alcohol policies are increase drinking type policies.
They have scrapped the banned drinkers list and plan to allow more Aboriginal communities to have alcohol sold in them.
There won’t be an inquiry now. No self respecting lawyer will head a commission while the legal process is ongoing. if an inquiry started, a court injunction will stop it.
Any inquiry will not proceed on the basis of Rares J’s findings but from scratch.
[Can you provide an example?]
Changes to parliamentary superannuation which Latham forced Howard into.
Gecko @ 10: Your comments provide a perfect example of the sorts of attitudes on the part of partisans which brass off the rest of us because they are reflect an assumption that we are blind.
You shouldn’t even waste your time trying to argue that the Slipper move wasn’t an attempt by the Government to take a vote away from the Opposition: as a form of implausible denial, that’s worthy of the professional admiration of Lord Monckton. It’s just an applied version of “four legs good, two legs bad”.
Bottom line is, the Government tried a swift one with Slipper. Like Colston, he turned out to be somewhat damaged goods. It’s all pretty much ended in tears, as was eminently predictable from the outset. Outside the various parties’ echo chambers, the general view is likely to be that none of has reflected very well on any of the key protagonists.
Good evening, Poll Bludgers.
Most of today I have been conversing face-to-face with my kindly hostess, doing my exercises, or shamelessly indulging myself by reading Jeffrey Archer’s The Fourth Estate (while I despise the author’s morals, he spins a damn’ good yarn).
Betweentimes I have read comments, and have thoroughly enjoyed the cut-and-thrust of argument. Looking forward to more of the same tomorrow.
Over and out.
[Psephos on the other hand is a student of democracy and government, and should know better. Why he wants it swept under the carpet is beyond me. ]
Because I want a re-elected Labor government. That requires an election year focussed as far as possible on things that will help us win the election. A Slipper-Ashby inquiry will not do that. It will just remind voters of the whole dodgy and sleazy Slipper saga, which was to no-one’s credit.
bbpseph
Your comments about Oakeshott and Windsor are excactly what National Party members have been saying about them here in Lyne since the last election. Which makes me wonder…
Strictly speaking it’s not necessary for independent MPs to have their own policies, they are free to choose which government and opposition policies they will support and which ones they will vote against. They do not have to toe a party line and support policies which they and their electorates do not like. Look at their voting records and you will see that they have done exactly that. And despite that these two men have worked hard to develop their own policies and, in Oakeshott’s case, to get then debated in parliament.
Oakeshott and Windsor have always campaigned strongly on climate change, communications, health, regional development, education and more. In addition they have always said they are there to get the best posssible deal for their electorates and regional Australia and that’s exactly what they have done.
[Oakeshott and Windsor have always campaigned strongly on climate change, communications, health, regional development, education and more]
I remember , Sky News trailing W around during the 2010 election campaign. He made it very clear at that time that he supported a price on carbon emissions.
z,
Abbott is likely to be remembered as a “Don Quixote” type tilting against Carbon Price widmills, catching himself on one of the wings and spending the rest of is life in public going around and around and around.
[They much preferred Labor’s version of the NBN and in Windsor’s case that was what it came down to. It was not as though, either of them had some whiz bang policy they had tried to get up for years. They were also attracted to 3 years assured salary and influence and that was not something Tony Abbott was going to promise.]
You don’t reckon TA’s offer of his arse put them off?
Pedant
[Your comments provide a perfect example of the sorts of attitudes on the part of partisans which brass off the rest of us because they are reflect an assumption that we are blind.]
Me partisan? F%^K you’re bright! That it brasses you off though does strike as a tad bizarre since I’m doing it on a political blog… but nevermind.
[You shouldn’t even waste your time trying to argue that the Slipper move wasn’t an attempt by the Government to take a vote away from the Opposition:]
I’m not. You were trying to tell me that the governments actions were akin to taking away a vote from the people of Fisher – ergo Ashby/Brough/their backers.
[as a form of implausible denial, that’s worthy of the professional admiration of Lord Monckton. It’s just an applied version of “four legs good, two legs bad”.]
You need to read first and talk later.
[Bottom line is, the Government tried a swift one with Slipper. Like Colston, he turned out to be somewhat damaged goods. It’s all pretty much ended in tears, as was eminently predictable from the outset. Outside the various parties’ echo chambers, the general view is likely to be that none of has reflected very well on any of the key protagonists.]
Bottom line is Gillard cleaned Abbott’s clock and preserved her government because Abbott’s a moron. The line you’re selling is classic Liberal propaganda and I’m not buying. Tick tick tick.
Gecko @ 23: The following advice re the Slipper matter is equally applicable to the Government and to you: when you are in a hole, stop digging.
[David Horton @watermelon_man
Disgraceful @abcmarkscott absolutely fucking disgraceful. You let @abcnews “balance” a climate change report with an Alice Springs denier?]
Pedant,
Most voters have no idea about Slipper, Ashby or the mechanics of how Slipper became Speaker and how he subsequently resigned.
More importantly, I doubt they really care.
It’s a non issue.
Tony Windsor, in a radio interview just before Christmas, said Abbott was practically begging the indies to make him PM. So much so that it was embarassing. Abbott was only interested in becoming PM with no mention of what he could do for the country. Julia Gillard was very different and was keen to work for Australians. That difference played a part in their decision, as did the NBN and Labor’s climate change policies.
Let’s not foget that both Windsor and Oakeshott had been in parliament long enough to know Abbott well. Rob Oakeshott happily admits to having been friends with Abbott – they’ve surfed together, competed in triathlons together, I think Rob even said they’d been camping together. He knows Abbott well. The two indies, with their inside knowledge, believed that Abbott was not PM material. Time has shown then to be very good judges of character and ability.
Psephos
[Because I want a re-elected Labor government. That requires an election year focussed as far as possible on things that will help us win the election. A Slipper-Ashby inquiry will not do that. It will just remind voters of the whole dodgy and sleazy Slipper saga, which was to no-one’s credit.]
So do I. But I’m not prepared to allow criminal scum who would foul our democracy to rejoin the ranks without a whimper for fear it will affect labor’s chances… particularly when it has absolutely nothing to do with Labor.
Seems JG has done a year ahead piece, open letter to the Australian public style, for the Murdoch Sunday tabloids.
“I can win this; the hard things are behind me.” quotes from editor tweets.
GG @ 26: I am sure you are correct on that. It’s worth remembering that in the Watergate scandal, there was small beer stuff going on as well as the big stuff. The Slipper/Ashby saga is much more like the “ratf***ing” practised by Donald Segretti than the major abuses of power which brought Nixon down.
Pedant
You think the biggest political scandal since the dismissal is a hole? How amusement.
pedant,
The important thing is no one actually cares.
It’s a media controversy designed to sell advertising and keeping opinionated ne’er do wells off the street.
When do the CLP hold their pre-selection? Has Griggs got the numbers? If she loses the “sophomore surge” advantage will be lost.
The Public service cuts and utility price increase surely will be a drag on the CLP vote?
Gecko @ 31: When you talk about “the biggest political scandal since the dismissal” do you mean the biggest in Australian federal politics, the biggest in all Australian politics (federal, State and Territory), or the biggest anywhere in the world?
GG
It may well be a non-issue with some voters. So are most murders, but that does not mean the perpetrators are not caught and charged.
Concerning Abbott’s low popularity and any effect of it on the 2PP.
I think we’re on new turf here. Whilst numerous LOTOs and PM’s have had very low popularity which did not effect the 2PP to the extent of the unpopularity, I wonder if the nature of Abbott’s rejection is qualitatively the same as Howard’s, Hewson’s, Downer’s Peacock’s, Beasley’s, Crean’s or any other example.
To my recollection the low esteem in which these were held related to their “style”. Many of them lacked oomph and go-forward and or were seen to be vacillators, lacking a dominant leadership style. Few of them if any were viscerally despised by so many as Abbott is.
In short, those other “leaders” were seen to just not possess leadership personalities. The electorate by and large saw them as “not bad blokes” but in the wrong job.
Abbott is altogether different. Many dislike him viscerally, deeply, not out of any lack of leadership qualities per se, but in relation to his actual character and deep beliefs. His conviction views about the spectrum of female roles in society vis a vis his religious ideology and dogma is a strong example. His negativity, pugilism, and do whatever it takes conduct, again related to his religiosity (“I can easily confess and be forgiven for anything”) is another deep character trait despised by many.
There are few in the electorate who about Abbott would say he’s “not a bad bloke but just in the wrong job.”
For this reason I think that anyone who predicts that Abbott’s poor popularity won’t reduce the opposition’s vote on election day, based on past history is entering new territory.
Anyway, I suspect that in the next six months we’ll see the gap between the LOTO’s popularity and the opposition’s 2PP reduce and see those 2 scores come into a bit better kilter. But the narrower gap will not be the result of any increase in Abbott’s popularity.
Gecko,
Last time I checked the Government was responsible for and usually judged on its governing capacity and the police and legal system were responsible for catching criminals.
Never the twain shall meet.
[Stephen @TheAviator1992
A voter writes a letter to the NT News, apologising for voting for the Liberal Party. Brilliant #ntvotes #auspol https://twitter.com/TheAviator1992/status/289677864981377024/photo/1
9:19 PM – 11 Jan 13]
Gold!
We may recall that although the CLP won the NT election, they did so entirely on the back of the Indigenous vote in the outback seats. Labor’s vote in Darwin held up well, no doubt because of the public service vote not wanting to see Campbell Newman II in power in the NT. So you’d have to think Labor has some prospects in Solomon, although it’s a pity Henderson didn’t have a go. It’s not a good sign for the CLP if Griggs is under challange for her endorsement.
A pen from the fire line.
For the last few days I have been involved in the Shoalhaven fire. There are many tales to tell.
Some funny, some involving the impact of politics and media. To the unsung workers who never appear on any news or media item. All the many people involved in providing meals and the many backup volunteers that make it all come together to make it happen. Everyone can volunteer for this type of assistance, can you?
On politics. A local well known identity insisting that she needs the helicopter to take the media on a fly around, holding a major burn for two hours while vols waited and waited.
The media, Asking crews the put water on none burning bush. Advising that “we can superimpose the fire later” or moving a fire sign to ‘catastrophic’ from ‘High’ to take vision.
There are more incidents but as we say they must remain on the fire ground.
This is a wonderful site and presents a great insight to the mixed world of Australian Politics.
( A life time labor supporter)
pedant@16
Sorry, what exactly do you you mean by that? As far as I can see, Slipper was placed in a no-win position by his own party, it was made clear to him that he would be disendorsed for the next election. They showed him no loyalty; it’d be a bit rich for them to expect it from him.
You can’t just lure a member of the opposition to quit his party with the bait of a Speakership. It’s not that enticing. There has to be a pre-condition, and the Liberal Party provided it. The ALP just stepped in and took advantage.
What’s happened since then has simply been the LNP exacting revenge on Slipper. It’s already been demonstrated that Parliament can function in his absence, so none of this is crucial to the ALP. It was handy while he was there, and it helped move pokies legislation through, where it might otherwise have been caught up in Wilkie’s intransigence. But that’s the extent of it.
Ashby had more ambition than brains, which has turned out nicely for the Liberals. Their own ambitions tied in neatly with those of major media and large business interests, so the Ashby affair has had a nice kick along and plenty of funding.
It would be a mistake to think that Slipper kickstarted it and just got what was coming to him. What he (and the ALP) did is standard political behaviour, seeing a possibility and taking it. The aftermath – particularly anything to do with Ashby’s shenanigans – has been disgusting.
Aguirre @ 41: “…What he (and the ALP) did is standard political behaviour, seeing a possibility and taking it….”
No, it’s substandard political behaviour, on both sides, and it says a lot for the state of modern Australian party politics that some people seem to regard it as defensible.
And the loyalty that Slipper owed wasn’t to his party: it was to the people who voted for him as the candidate of that party. Same as Colston.
pedant,
You need to read Edmund Burke, comrade.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/edmundburk166515.html
Sunday Telegraph Front page with JG’s open letter. The other fire tax story is a State Govt thing.
https://twitter.com/BrendenWood/status/290021543688429568/photo/1/large
Also see these tweets by the Sunday Tele editor…
$300 fire levy go ahead to fund NSW emergency services. How you will pay in tomorrow’s Sunday Tele #auspol
Julia #Gillard in tomorrow’s Sunday Tele – but not doing the #DownUnderDance (yet). The PM maps out election strategy. Exclusive #auspol
“We won’t go back to the days before the gender revolution” Julia #Gillard exclusive letter in tomorrow’s Sunday Tele #auspol
“The hard things are behind me” Julia #Gillard readies for election year. Exclusive in tomorrow’s Sunday Tele #auspol
He also tweeted several other things about other things in paper. Mainly uses his account for teasers before it comes out.
https://twitter.com/sundayteleed
Note, not the same editor who does the regular weekly editions.
GG @ 43: Burke in his Speech to the Electors at Bristol at the Conclusion of the Poll was not, however, arguing that MPs self-interest should trump the views of constituents, and in any case, I doubt very much that when the money is waved before their eyes, the Slippers and Colstons of this world ask themselve what Burke would have done in the circumstances.
pedant,
But, he was arguing that he had nothing to offer but his informed judgement.
Sleazing people’s motives is the easiest smear there is.
[Bottom line is, the Government tried a swift one with Slipper. Like Colston, he turned out to be somewhat damaged goods. It’s all pretty much ended in tears, as was eminently predictable from the outset. Outside the various parties’ echo chambers, the general view is likely to be that none of has reflected very well on any of the key protagonists.]
And the government got the Carbon Tax through, without having to rely on Wilkie.
Q.E.D.
BB,
Nice to see you, comrade.
GG @ 46: The notion that issues of principle, rather than baser motivations, drove the decisions made by Mr Slipper and Senator Colston strikes me as both fascinating and unusual, not to say somewhat revisionist in the case of the Senator. Can you elaborate?
pedant,
I can elaborate to the extent that they make their calls and they have to live with the consequences.