Electoral division of Spillett

Spillett is a division of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in Australia. It was created in 2016, for the 2016 general elections, and surrounds Palmerston. It is named for Peter Spillett, a historian and former member of Darwin City Council.

Spillett
Northern Territory—Legislative Assembly
Location of Spillett in the Darwin/Palmerston area
TerritoryNorthern Territory
Created2016
MPLia Finocchiaro
PartyCountry Liberal
NamesakePeter Spillett
Electors5,863 (2020)
Area67 km2 (25.9 sq mi)
DemographicUrban
Electorates around Spillett:
Fong Lim Nelson Nelson
Casuarina Spillett Nelson
Darwin Harbour Darwin Harbour Darwin Harbour

Historically, Palmerston has been a stronghold for the conservative Country Liberal Party. However, Spillett is based on a particularly conservative portion of Palmerston. It was created with a notional CLP majority of 17.9 percent, making it on paper the CLP's safest seat.

History

Before the election Lia Finocchiaro, the then-CLP member for Drysdale, opted to transfer to Spillett after much of her old base was redistributed there. She defeated former Treasurer Dave Tollner for preselection; Tollner had contested Spillett after his old seat of Fong Lim saw most of its more conservative sections transferred to Spillett, resulting in Fong Lim becoming extremely marginal.[1]

Finocchiaro weathered the massive Labor wave that swept through the Territory at the 2016 election—a wave that saw Labor win her old seat of Drysdale on a large swing. In the end, Finocchiaro proved to be in the least danger of the CLP's elected members. She was the only CLP member to win a majority of the primary vote, and went on to win with only a small two-party swing against her. This left Spillett as the only CLP seat in the metropolitan area, and the only safe CLP seat in the legislature. After the election, Finocchiaro was named deputy leader of what remained of the CLP, and hence Deputy Leader of the Opposition. She then became Leader of the Opposition after Gary Higgins's retirement in 2020.

Demographics

A large portion of voters in Spillett are military personnel, with the electorate being home to both Darwin International Airport and the RAAF Base Darwin, which are both in the suburb of Eaton.[2]

Members for Spillett
ImageMemberPartyTermNotes
  Lia Finocchiaro Country Liberal 27 August 2016–present Leader of the Opposition (2020–present). Previously served as the member for Drysdale.

Election results
See also: Electoral results for the division of Spillett
This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2020 Northern Territory general election § Spillett.[edit]
2020 Northern Territory general election: Spillett[3][4]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Country Liberal Lia Finocchiaro 2,921 59.0 −0.1
Labor Tristan Sloan 1,594 32.2 +2.9
Territory Alliance Vanessa Mounsey 434 8.8 +8.8
Total formal votes 4,949 97.5 N/A
Informal votes 126 2.5 N/A
Turnout 5,075 86.6 N/A
Two-party-preferred result
Country Liberal Lia Finocchiaro 3,219 65.0 −0.3
Labor Tristan Sloan 1,730 35.0 +0.3
Country Liberal hold Swing−0.3

References
  1. "Tollner fails to win preselection for NT election".
  2. https://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/labor-on-track-for-landslide-win-in-nt-election/news-story/2f05cc0cfb5a5b000b21dca80f64b3dc
  3. "Electorate summary: Spillett". NTEC. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  4. "Spillett". ABC Elections. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 7 September 2020.


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