Blain – NT 2016

CLP 15.1%

Incumbent MP
Nathan Barrett (Independent), since 2014.

Geography
Palmerston. Blain covers southern parts of the city of Palmerston, including the suburb of Woodroffe and part of Rosebery.

Redistribution
Blain previously covered a larger area in the southeastern corner of Palmerston as well as Moulden Park. The southeastern corner was transferred to the new seat of Spillett and Moulden Park was transferred to Drysdale. Blain gained part of Rosebery from Brennan.

History
The electorate of Blain has existed since 1997, and has always been won by the Country Liberal Party.

Blain was first won in 1997 by the CLP’s Barry Coulter. Coulter had sat in the Assembly since 1983, first representing Berrimah from 1983 to 1987 and then representing Palmerston from 1987 t0 1997. Coulter had served as deputy chief minister from 1986 to 1995. Coulter resigned from his seat in 1999.

The 1999 by-election was won by the CLP’s Terry Mills. Mills became CLP leader in 2003, serving as leader until shortly before the 2005 election. He served as deputy leader from after the 2005 election until shortly before the 2008 election, when he again became the party’s leader. Mills led the CLP to a strong result in 2008, recovering from the 2005 defeat and bringing Labor close to losing their majority.

Terry Mills led the CLP through the 2008-2012 term, and led the party to victory in 2012, becoming chief minister. Mills was replaced as party leader and chief minister in early 2013, and resigned from his seat in 2014.

The 2014 by-election was won by the CLP’s Nathan Barrett despite a swing of 10% to Labor. Barrett became a minister in the CLP government, but was forced to resign from the ministry in 2016 over a video sex scandal. He quit the CLP two weeks later.

Candidates
Sitting independent MP Nathan Barrett is not running for re-election.

• Gregory Knowles (Independent)
• Damian Hale (Labor)
• Marie-Clare Boothby (Country Liberal)
• Terry Mills (Independent)

Assessment
Blain is one of the safest CLP seats in the territory. While the CLP is expected to lose ground, the party will be strong favourites to hold onto Blain. The only thing that might make the Country Liberal Party nervous is that they don’t have an incumbent MP to help protect their vote in a tough year.

2012 result

2012 two-party-preferred result

2014 by-election result

2014 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown
There are now two booths in Blain: Rosebery and Woodroffe. A third booth, Moulden Park, was contained in Blain at the time of the 2014 by-election but has since been redistributed into Drysdale. Rosebery was a dual booth between Blain and Brennan in 2012 – for the 2012 results, part of the Brennan votes at Rosebery have been included in Blain due to a shift in the boundaries.

At the 2012 election, the Country Liberal Party polled 64-65% of the two-party-preferred votes in the two booths, compared to 63% of the pre-poll vote and 66% of other votes.

In 2014, the CLP primary votes ranged from 38.6% in Moulden Park to 49% in Rosebery. Labor won the primary vote in Moulden Park, while the CLP won the two other booths.

2012 booth breakdown

2014 booth breakdown