Casuarina Northern Territory—Legislative Assembly |
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Location of Casuarina in the Darwin/Palmerston area
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Territory | Northern Territory |
Created | 1974 |
MP | Lauren Moss |
Party | Australian Labor Party |
Namesake | Casuarina |
Electors | 5,457 (2016) |
Area | 18 km2 (6.9 sq mi) |
Demographic | Urban |
Casuarina is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory. It was first created in 1974 and was named after the adjacent suburb of Casuarina. Casuarina is an entirely urban electorate, covering only 18 km² and taking in the suburbs of Brinkin, Nakara, Tiwi and part of Alawa, as well as the Charles Darwin University. There were 5,481 people enrolled in the electorate as of October 2014.
For the first three decades of its existence, Casuarina, like most seats in the Darwin area, was a stronghold for the Country Liberal Party. Clare Martin did nearly manage to take the seat for the Australian Labor Party upon the retirement of long-serving CLP member Nick Dondas in 1994, but lost out to the CLP's Peter Adamson, who held the seat for the next seven years. It was still widely presumed to be a safe Liberal seat in 2001, when it unexpectedly fell to Labor challenger Kon Vatskalis as part of Labor's sweep of the northern suburbs that year en route to winning government for the first time. Vatskalis easily retained the seat in 2005, 2008, and 2012. He resigned on 18 September 2014, which triggered a by-election. It was won by Labor candidate Lauren Moss with a reduced margin.