Race to change law that could leave NT with one less MP after AEC redistribution plan

The NT could be left with just one Federal MP if Labor doesn’t secure the law change needed to keep the seats of Lingiari and Solomon in existence.

Lingiari MP Warren Snowdon, and Solomon MP Luke Gosling.

THE NT could be left with just one Federal MP if a law change needed to keep the seats of Lingiari and Solomon in existence isn’t supported by the majority of Parliament.

The Australian Electoral Commission has flagged that a redrawing of Federal electoral boundaries is due within the life of the current parliament, with Victoria, Western Australia and the NT in the firing line.

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There are only two seats in the NT; the Darwin-Palmerston city-centric seat of Solomon, held by Labor’s Luke Gosling, and Lingiari, held by Labor’s Warren Snowdon, which covers the rest of the jurisdiction.

At the 2019 election, Lingiari and Solomon had a combined 139,326 registered voters. In comparison, an average Federal seat is meant to have about 111,000 voters.

In a bid to prevent the NT being left to cover an electorate of more than 1.4 million sqkm, including the remote Indian Ocean Territories of Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands, Federal Labor will support a private Senator’s bill in parliament when it next sits in June.

It is understood Chief Minister Michael Gunner also wrote to the Prime Minister seeking his help to prevent the NT from losing a Federal voice.

“Allowing the AEC to grant just one House of Representatives seat to the NT would be unfair, unrepresentative and unworkable,” Mr Gunner wrote.

“Our size, our diversity, our demographics and our unique challenges need proper representation.”