Spillett – NT 2016

CLP 17.9%

Incumbent MP
Spillett is a new seat. Sitting CLP member for Drysdale, Lia Finocchiaro, is running for Spillett.

Geography
Spillett straddles the Darwin and Palmerston areas. Spillett covers the Palmerston suburbs of Durack, Johnston, Marlow Lagoon, Pinelands and Zuccoli, the Darwin suburbs of The Narrows and Berrimah, as well as the airport and the RAAF base.

Redistribution
Most of Spillett was previously contained in Fong Lim. This area includes the Darwin suburbs, the areas between the two cities, and the Palmerston suburb of Marlow Lagoon. Spillett gained Durack from Drysdale, Johnston from Brennan and Zuccoli from Blain.

History
The electorate of Spillett is a new seat, which primarily takes in parts of the old Fong Lim, which has now shifted to be a central Darwin electorate. The rest of this history refers to Fong Lim.

The electorate of Fong Lim was created in 2008, largely replacing the seat of Millner. Millner had been held by Labor from 1977 until 1994, when it was won by the Country Liberal Party’s Phil Mitchell.

Mitchell held Millner until 2001, when he was defeated by Labor’s Matthew Bonson. Bonson held Millner for two terms.

Millner was renamed Fong Lim in 2008, due to the suburb of Millner being removed from the seat. In 2008, Bonson was defeated by CLP candidate Dave Tollner, who had previously served two terms as federal MP for Solomon before losing in 2007.

Tollner has held Fong Lim for two terms. Tollner was appointed as a minister after the CLP won the 2012 election, and served as deputy chief minister from 2013 to 2014.

Following the redistribution, Tollner contested preselection for the new seat of Spillett, but lost preselection to sitting Drysdale MP Lia Finocchiaro.

Candidates

• Jeff Norton (1 Territory)
• Phil Tilbrook (Labor)
• Lia Finocchiaro (Country Liberal)
• Trudy Campbell (Citizens Electoral Council)
• Richard Smith (Independent)
• Sonia Mackay (Independent)

Assessment
Spillett is a reasonably safe CLP seat, although the lack of an incumbent MP in a majority of the electorate may make the party slightly nervous.

2012 result

2012 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown
There are three booths in the new boundaries of Spillett. Durack was transferred from Drysdale, and Marlow Lagoon and Berrimah were transferred from Fong Lim. Berrimah was a dual booth, and only those votes from Fong Lim have been included. Durack makes up the largest proportion of the electorate.

The CLP two-party-preferred vote ranged from 71% in Durack to 77.3% in Berrimah. The CLP did much less well in the pre-poll vote (63%) and in other votes (60.5%).