Seat of the week: Solomon

The Darwin seat of Solomon has been on a knife edge since its creation in 2001, but only with Kevin Rudd’s election win in 2007 was Labor able to get over the line.

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.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

549 comments on “Seat of the week: Solomon”

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  2. Good morning, Bludgers. Good morning, Dawn Patrol.

    In Canberra’s 2003 bushfires, we lost a national treasure with the destruction of the venerabls Mt Stromlo Observatory; overnight, parts of the Anglo-Australian Siding Springs Observatory, with Oz’s largest optical telescope as well as 10 smaller ones – a key international sky-mapping and comet-watching observatory in the Warrumbungles, west of Coonabarabran – have been destroyed: ‘It looked like an atom bomb’

    [Brian Schmidt, a Nobel laureate and celebrated ANU astronomer, posted a statement online about the obervatory’s fate.

    ”I have had what has to be a quintessential experience of the current era – watching a firefront pass through Siding Spring Observatory live via the internet, using all of the remote observing information we have on various telescopes, while getting simultaneous news and views via Twitter,” Professor Schmidt said.

    ”I fear a lot of damage has been done … even if not the wholesale destruction we faced in 2003 at Mount Stromlo Observatory. Tomorrow will tell and then will come the long, slow process of recovery.”]

  4. The Civil Service wouldn’t do a Yes, Minister, would it?
    [Steve Hilton, the prime minister’s former policy guru, has been criticised in Whitehall after he suggested Downing Street often learns about government announcements through the media.]
    [In remarks reported in the Sunday Times, Hilton said: “Very often you’ll wake up in the morning and hear on the radio or the news or see something in the newspapers about something the government is doing. And you think, well, hang on a second – it’s not just that we didn’t know it was happening, but we don’t even agree with it! The government can be doing things … and we don’t agree with it? How can that be?”

    Hilton, who complained how bureaucrats learn to master politicians, said he was amazed to find, when he entered Downing Street in 2010, that ministers can only control around 30% of government activity. He said that 40% of government business relates to implementing EU regulations and 30% relates to “random things … which were not anything to do with the coalition agreement”.]
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/13/david-cameron-steve-hilton-criticised-policy

  5. Sometimes there are six degrees of separation and sometimes not:
    [George Osborne’s father-in-law was accused of a conflict of interest last night after it emerged he is being paid by a Japanese high-speed rail firm with commercial interests in the UK at the same time as having top-level access to the Foreign Office as William Hague’s personal adviser.

    Lord Howell of Guildford, who was Margaret Thatcher’s transport secretary and one of David Cameron’s ministers until September, is being paid as a “European consultant” to JR Central, a train company which could be a bidder for multimillion-pound contracts connected to the controversial HS2 rail line.]
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-osbornes-fatherinlaw-in-conflict-of-interest-row-8449390.html

  7. Starting to come back to normal at this house another part of the family depart today only one to go on Thursday, love them all but pretty full on for the “hostess”

  8. Morning All

    Some of the quotes here at times make me wonder if I’ve logged into Andrew Bolt’s blog instead – e.g. WeWantPaul going on about not wanting his taxes going to single parents and Oakeshott Country’s line about not being the father wtf???

    Seems to be a lot more debate about climate change again now the weather has warmed up a bit. Will be interesting to see how that plays out – as Tony once said, “if you want to put a price on carbon why not do it with a simple tax”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckcH0Wrmy74

    Makes a lot more sense than Direct Action which hasn’t been explained anywhere near enough as of yet – it’s time to start asking some questions about what the policy is and how it would be paid for.

  9. Morning all. With gun laws in the news internationally I found this story interesting:
    [AUSTRALIANS own as many guns now as they did at the time of the Port Arthur massacre, despite more than 1 million firearms being handed in and destroyed, new research reveals.
    A University of Sydney study has shown there has been a steady increase in guns imported into the country over the past decade, with the number of privately owned guns now at the same level as 1996.
    Estimates suggest there were 3.2 million firearms in Australia at the time of the Tasmanian tragedy, in which 35 people were killed and 23 injured.
    Philip Alpers, an adjunct associate professor at the university’s school of public health, said only time would tell what impact the restocking would have. ”Australia’s public health effort to reduce the risk of gun violence led the world,” he said. ”After melting down a million guns, the risk of an Australian dying by gunshot fell by more than half. Plus, we’ve seen no mass shootings in 16 years,” Professor Alpers said.]
    Guns don’t import themselves. There is a whole industry out there selling them. So, far be it for me to suggest an issue that might wedge the Liberals and nationals but, why not tax them? We tax lots of other things less dangerous, why not guns? It would be a public health issue, and preserve the legacy of John Howard’s one courageous decision. Should get bipartisan support from Abbott. It would cost Labor votes among the far right in rural seats, but still…

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-reloads-as-gun-amnesties-fail-to-cut-arms-20130113-2cnnq.html#ixzz2HtLndZeB

  11. Where is BK I need my early morning editions, will have to look them up myself, BK has made me lazy 😉
    Hope all OK though BK?

  13. Tom

    [New recipients then were to get Newstart from their youngest child tuning 8 with existing recipients getting it until their youngest child turns 16. This is not about searching for work,]

    Well, of course it is. Otherwise, like other Newstart recipients, they’d be expected to look for work regardless of the age of their child.

    On Newstart, I was expected to work when my son was six weeks old (the only reason it wasn’t earlier was that I had had maternity leave from my old job). I actually started work, whilst still breast feeding, when he was about three months old.

    [There is a reasonable argument for single parents to get higher payments because they have greater cost pressure than partnered parents. Just like a single aged pension is larger than half a couple aged pension.]

    And indeed they do, even under the new regime. The payments, however, are linked to the child, so of course the media aren’t accounting for them.

    In most cases, as has already been pointed out, the single parent is also receiving some kind of child support from the non custodial parent.

    Womble

    more than anything, I’m correcting ignorance here.

    Any single parent going onto payments in the last six years has (if their child was over eight) gone straight on to Newstart. Why hasn’t there been any angst about their plight?

    Given the period of time this also means that any parent who went onto payments before this had ample time to prepare for it. It isn’t the sudden shock being portrayed by the media.

    If you were under the regime where you lost payments when your child turned sixteen, in reality, nothing changed for you. All pension recipients lose their payments when their child turns sixteen. The payment follows the child; at sixteen they are eligible for Youth Allowance, so in reality, the family loses no income at all, it just comes from a different bucket. (Morever, parents can request that the YA payment be paid directly to them and not the child who is technically the recipient).

  14. Good Morning

    Sad to hear the loss of firie in Tasmania. Hopefully there will be no more.

    The Australian defending John Howard’s financial record today. They must be worried.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/deceptive-attack-on-howards-record/story-fn7078da-1226553110377

    [Deceptive attack on Howard’s record
    BY: HENRY ERGAS From: The Australian January 14, 2013 12:00AM

    YOU don’t need to be a professor of economics to know John Howard was more fiscally prudent than Silvio Berlusconi. And if an econometric study suggested the opposite, you would look very carefully at its data and methods before placing much weight on its results. Unless, that is, you were the Fairfax press and the ABC.

    That the ABC wouldn’t bother to do so may come as no surprise. But one expects better of The Age’s Peter Martin, who is a decent person and a respected professional. However, that didn’t stop Martin beating up the claim that an International Monetary Fund staff working paper found Howard to be fiscally imprudent while exonerating the Whitlam government of any such charge.]

    The rest is behind the paywall.

  15. Mari

    [Starting to come back to normal at this house]

    I can relate to that. Still at the “catching up with & being caught up by friends” stage! And the “putting things back in place” stage that comes with having cleaned out a rarely used bedroom-cum-storage/ boxroom etc.

  18. [OzPol Tragic
    Posted Monday, January 14, 2013 at 8:38 am | PERMALINK
    Mari

    Starting to come back to normal at this house

    I can relate to that. Still at the “catching up with & being caught up by friends” stage! And the “putting things back in place” stage that comes with having cleaned out a rarely used bedroom-cum-storage/ boxroom etc.

    416
    shellbell
    Posted Monday, January 14, 2013 at 8:42 am | PERMALINK
    Great lightning show in Port Macquarie last night.. A bit of rain too so hopefully no fires started]

    Oz Pol yes I think we can safely say “love the visits” and the visitors but will be good to get back to a bit of normality again 😉

    Shellbell The lightening was spectacular as the front moved through, had a bit of rain here about 100 kms north of PM which is badly needed. Supposed to be heating up again on Thursday
    Lovely part of the world this mid north coast region isn’t it?

  19. Oakeshott @ 398

    I totally agree.

    For about 10 days I’ve been referring to the fact that all these kids have a non-custodial parent who the Family Law Act requires to pay parental support, usually deducted at source of wages.

    The question is, why has the matter of parental support from the non-custodial parent received virtually no mention in the OM, the blogetariat, or from any of the bleedin hearts screamin blue murder about this.

    To my knowledge it has not been taken up here at PB either.

    And in the many example where “experts” have provided the maths of how tough Newstart is, no mention in the equation of parental support payments. No pity is acknowledged for the others on Newstart who have no access to this extra funding.

    Sure, a (small) percentage of these rort the system and don’t pay, but why should the illegal conduct of the few determine the policy.

    In one Sunday paper a well dressed, articulate single mum admitted that her public assisted rent was low and that she could manage but bemoaned the fact that it would be harder for her to continue her son’s one-on-one trombone lessons. Of course she made no mention of other parental support.

    Womble @ 408

    “Some of the quotes here at times make me wonder if I’ve logged into Andrew Bolt’s blog instead – e.g. WeWantPaul going on about not wanting his taxes going to single parents and Oakeshott Country’s line about not being the father wtf???”

    Your post would look less like a rant and more like a thoughtful comment if you ceased lifting selective quotes out of context. WTF indeed!

  20. Morning all. Rudd still trying to undermine the govt, this time on foreign policy.

    [Former prime minister Kevin Rudd says the international community should consider arming Syrian rebels in a bid to end its bloody civil war.

    But the Gillard Government flatly rejected the idea that Australia might help supply the weapons and said it was only willing to provide medical aid to the war’s victims.

    Mr Rudd’s comments come before the British defence and foreign secretaries meet Defence Minister Stephen Smith and Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr in Perth this week for talks on Syria, Iran and regional security.]

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/15824184/arm-syrian-rebels-rudd/

    It always has to be about him.

  22. [victoria
    Posted Monday, January 14, 2013 at 9:00 am | PERMALINK
    morning all

    Is BK okay? Unless he has gone on a trip, he usually does the morning patrol]

    Yes I also wondered that see my comment above, he usually tells us if he is going away, so hope all OK

  25. Just on my way to work so a quick post from my phone, gotta love technology 🙂

    I’d be VERY surprised if child support payments aren’t taken into account in calculating pension amounts i.e. as income

    Remember the original change was made by Howard, Labor was rightly up I’m arms at the time.now some of their biggest fans are the loudest supporters 🙁

    Have a great day all

  26. [Blue-collar suburbs and areas with high proportions of ageing baby boomers lead the solar charge, countering claims only middle-class and affluent households can afford the systems.

    As the number of rooftop solar panels soars past 100,000 across Perth and the South West, electricity retailer Synergy released surprising figures showing where demand was highest.

    The figures show the working class southern suburb of Canning Vale had the most solar panels with 2239 customers sporting a photovoltaic system as of December 19.]

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/15825015/blue-collar-suburbs-go-solar/

    Interesting data about just who is installing solar panels.

  30. womble

    as you’ve been told before, the reason Labor was up in arms was because of the context of the times – namely, Workchoices.

    Also, don’t confuse ‘explaining’ and ‘correcting errors’ as ‘support’.

  31. psyclaw

    I do not know. So unless other posters know trial and error is the go.
    I saw the trouble BB has got into with italics so leave it alone myself.

  33. BTW people that Senator Wong post links to an article at unleashed with good points when confronting the LNP rhetoric @ 417

  34. Re the Syrian rebels. Are they not fundamentalist Muslims? If so why would we want to support such a group and end up with another Iran.

  35. Womble

    At $981.67 of other income per fortnight, Newstart cuts out (exceptions if a few other criteria are met).

    Few would choose this level of income but many single and non-single parents get jobs, often unpleasant and usually poorly paid, to improve their lot.

    I note that relatively few single parents of 8 year olds would be in the youth and older aged worker demographies where employment is harder to find.

  43. Dont know if this is accurate, or when it even occurred.

    David Ewart on twitter

    [Canb Capitals at training at AIS. Abbott says to lauren Jackson “thanks for having me here”, she says “wasn’t my idea” gold]

  44. “@TheKouk: @davidheth @Picketer The US labour market structure is to be avoided at all costs. High flexibility, falling real wages, high unemployment.”

  46. victoria@443


    Dont know if this is accurate, or when it even occurred.

    David Ewart on twitter

    Canb Capitals at training at AIS. Abbott says to lauren Jackson “thanks for having me here”, she says “wasn’t my idea” gold

    Loz just grew another six inches, in my estimation.

  47. [Is BK okay? Unless he has gone on a trip, he usually does the morning patrol]

    BK’s a volunteer firefighter. Irrespective of their home state/ territory, in the current emergency, most have either been called up or put on standby.

    In emergency situations involving very large areas, esp multiple-state and major OS disasters, eg 2010-11 floods & cyclones and current bushfire situation; earthquakes & tsunamis, eg Christchurch & Ache/ Japan), “fresh” or “rested” interstate & OS (esp Kiwi) back-up crews are driven/ flown in to relieve exhausted crews.

    Most of our volunteer “Fireies” and para/ medical volunteers are always ready for duty, carrying their kits with them – the very rapid response of local swift-water rescuers (inc RAAF & other choopers) demonstrated during the 2011 “Inland Tsunami”) was possible because volunteers try to have their kits & communication devices (& backups) always “at hand”, even on holidays.

    This story of a local boatie, on holidays in Tassie during the bushfire emergency, is (thankfully) typical of our volunteer and professional emergency responders – as were Aussie Emergency workers “embedded” with crews in New York on 9/11 Toowoomba man does “what any Aussie would do”

    [“It was nearing the end of our trip when the bushfires took hold,” Mr Richards said.

    “We knew the Port Arthur Road was cut and there was no way in or out.

    “The only way to get anything in or out of the area was by water,” he said.

    Mr Richards, along with his brother Leigh, hopped in their 56 foot Riviera boat and started ferrying much-needed supplies to trapped residents and weary emergency services personnel.

    “We hit up businesses in the local area who generously donated supplies for the relief effort,” he said.

    “We even took a boat full of nurses, doctors, hospital linen and medical supplies.

    “It was certainly a big change from the week before when we were out fishing on the boat.”…

    “We probably ferried about 12-13 tonnes of supplies and close to five tonnes of bottled water,” he said.”It was full-on, around-the-clock effort for about three days.”]

    If the ANZAC spirit is still alive & well, it’s kept that way by our volunteer emergency reponders. They are my heroes!

  48. David McRae@373


    I’m listening to the ABC news – I rarely bother nowadays – but I was so very pleasantly surpirsed.

    The announcer said that the ABC will do week long reports on climate change, predictions, effect on health, economy etc ..

    I’m blown away .. what has changed? (Don’t get me wrong, this is amazing .. I’m hoping they limit themselves to qualified experts CSIRO/BoM/AMOS/Universities .. but I wonder what brought this on)

    Mark Scott will probably pick Andrew Bolt .

  49. This article was the latest topic of discussion for Andrew Elder. I actually missed it on Saturday when published. Worth a look for those who missed it.

    [When Tony Abbott’s adviser Peta Credlin went public about her IVF battles to show her boss in a more compassionate and caring light, many political players rolled their eyes. ”We run presidential campaigns now and apparently we vote for the staff too,” Paula Matthewson, a former adviser to John Howard, drily observed.]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/image-is-everything-for-leaders-20130111-2clc6.html#ixzz2HtlXwomO

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