Electoral division of Braitling

Braitling is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory. It was created in 1983, when the electorate of Alice Springs was abolished as part of an enlargement of the Assembly. Braitling is an almost entirely urban electorate, covering 9 km² in north-western Alice Springs. The electorate takes its name from the Braitling family, an early pioneering family in the district. There were 5,830 people enrolled in the electorate as of August 2020.

Braitling Northern Territory—Legislative Assembly
Location of Braitling in the Alice Springs area
Territory	Northern Territory
Created	1983
MP	Joshua Burgoyne
Party	Country Liberals
Namesake	Braitling family
Electors	5,830 (2020)
Area	9 km^2 (3.5 sq mi)
Demographic	Urban

The city of Alice Springs has, along with the Darwin satellite city of Palmerston, traditionally been one of two conservative bastions in the Northern Territory. For most of its first three decades, Braitling was a comfortably safe seat for the Country Liberal Party. The seat's first member, Roger Vale, transferred here after his former electorate of Stuart was made somewhat less friendly for the CLP. Indeed, Braitling included most of the Alice Springs share of the old Stuart. Vale retired in 1994 and handed the seat to Loraine Braham of the CLP. Braham, who served as Speaker and later a cabinet minister, was stripped of her CLP preselection before the 2001 election amid accusations of branch-stacking. She won re-election as an independent, and was narrowly re-elected in a very close race against the CLP in 2005. Braham opted to retire at the 2008 election, and Adam Giles won the seat back for the CLP, reverting it to its traditional status as a comfortably safe CLP seat. Giles became the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory in March 2013.

Although opinion polls and commentators had already universally written off the CLP government both before and during the 2016 election campaign, there was no suggestion that Giles was in any danger in his own seat. He sat on a seemingly insurmountable margin of 19.6 percent, and Labor had never come close to winning the seat. Even during the Labor landslide of 2005, Labor was pushed into third place. However, in a result not foreseen by any commentators, let alone either party, Labor challenger Dale Wakefield narrowly led Giles on election night. Ultimately, Wakefield defeated Giles by a knife-edge margin of 27 votes. Not only is Wakefield just the second challenger to unseat a sitting Chief Minister/Majority Leader in their own seat and the third challenger to oust a major-party leader in the Territory, she is also the first Labor member to represent an Alice Springs seat. Wakefield served only one term before the CLP's Joshua Burgoyne narrowly reclaimed it for the CLP in 2020.

Members for Braitling

Member		Party	Term
	Roger Vale	Country Liberal	1983–1994
	Loraine Braham	Country Liberal	1994–2001
		Independent	2001–2008
	Adam Giles	Country Liberal	2008–2016
	Dale Wakefield	Labor	2016–2020
	Joshua Burgoyne	Country Liberal	2020–present

Election results

2020 Northern Territory general election: Braitling[1][2]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Country Liberal	Joshua Burgoyne	1,548	35.2	−4.3
	Labor	Dale Wakefield	993	22.6	−11.2
	Independent	Kim Hopper	648	14.7	+14.7
	Territory Alliance	Dale McIver	488	11.1	+11.1
	Greens	Chris Tomlins	379	8.6	−2.3
	Independent	Scott McConnell	199	4.5	+4.5
	Australian Federation	Marli Banks	140	3.2	+3.2
Total formal votes			4,395	97.0	N/A
Informal votes			137	3.0	N/A
Turnout			4,532	77.7	N/A
Two-party-preferred result
	Country Liberal	Joshua Burgoyne	2,256	51.3	+4.3
	Labor	Dale Wakefield	2,139	48.7	−4.3
	Country Liberal gain from Labor		Swing	+4.3

References

1. "Electorate summary: Braitling". NTEC. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
2. "Braitling". ABC Elections. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 7 September 2020.

External links

• Division profile from the Northern Territory Electoral Commission