Electoral division of Spillett

Spillett is a division of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in Australia. It was created in 2016, for the 2016 general elections, and surrounds Palmerston. It is named for Peter Spillett, a historian and former member of Darwin City Council.

Spillett Northern Territory—Legislative Assembly
Interactive map of boundaries as of the 2024 election
Territory	Northern Territory
Created	2016
MP	Lia Finocchiaro
Party	Country Liberal
Namesake	Peter Spillett
Electors	5,863 (2020)
Area	67 km2 (25.9 sq mi)
Demographic	Urban
Electorates around Spillett: Nelson Nelson Nelson Nelson Spillett Nelson Nelson Drysdale Brennan Nelson

Historically, Palmerston has been a stronghold for the conservative Country Liberal Party. However, Spillett is based on a particularly conservative portion of Palmerston. It was created with a notional CLP majority of 17.9 percent, making it on paper the CLP's safest seat.

History

Before the election Lia Finocchiaro, the then-CLP member for Drysdale, opted to transfer to Spillett after much of her old base was redistributed there. She defeated former Treasurer Dave Tollner for preselection; Tollner had contested Spillett after his old seat of Fong Lim saw most of its more conservative sections transferred to Spillett, resulting in Fong Lim becoming extremely marginal.

Finocchiaro weathered the massive Labor wave that swept through the Territory at the 2016 election—a wave that saw Labor win her old seat of Drysdale on a large swing. In the end, Finocchiaro proved to be in the least danger of the CLP's elected members. She was the only CLP member to win a majority of the primary vote, and went on to win with only a small two-party swing against her. This left Spillett as the only CLP seat in the metropolitan area, and the only safe CLP seat in the legislature. After the election, Finocchiaro was named deputy leader of what remained of the CLP, and hence Deputy Leader of the Opposition. She then became Leader of the Opposition after Gary Higgins's retirement in 2020.

Demographics

A large portion of voters in Spillett are military personnel.

Members for Spillett

Image		Member	Party	Term	Notes
		Lia Finocchiaro	Country Liberal	27 August 2016–present	Leader of the Opposition (2020–present). Previously served as the member for Drysdale.

Election results

See also: Electoral results for the division of Spillett

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2024 Northern Territory general election § Spillett.[edit]

Results as of 2:30 UTC, 5 September

2024 Northern Territory general election: Spillett

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Country Liberal	Lia Finocchiaro	3,685	79.5	+23.4
	Labor	Caleb Burke	951	20.5	−12.4
Total formal votes			4,636	97.5	+0.2
Informal votes			121	2.5	−0.2
Turnout			4,757	78.1
	Country Liberal hold		Swing	+16.0

External links

• Division Profile at the Northern Territory Electoral Commission