Labor wins both NT seats after knife-edge election race against the CLP in Solomon
The Australian Labor Party has held onto its two seats in the Northern Territory despite the Country Liberal Party (CLP) challenger running a tight race to try to claim the Top End seat of Solomon.
Late on election night, the ABC called the NT's two seats of Solomon and Lingiari for Labor.
Long-term Labor MP and army veteran Luke Gosling held off a knife-edge challenge by former police officer Lisa Bayliss to win Solomon for a fourth term, marking a new record tenure for the seat.
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The seat takes in the NT capital of Darwin and its neighbouring satellite city of Palmerston.
Despite Labor's win, Ms Bayliss eroded Mr Gosling's margin of more than 8 per cent to come within an inch of winning the NT electorate for the CLP for the first time in more than a decade.
Lisa Bayliss came close to unseating Luke Gosling in Solomon, but ultimately fell short.
(
ABC News: Hamish Harty
)
The CLP ran hard on a platform of stamping out crime and anti-social behaviour in the urban seat, which has been increasingly gripped by community concerns over high crime rates.
The seat had been considered in play this election and
Mr Dutton made repeated trips to the seat during the campaign, as recently as late in April, in the days after
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also visited the seat, including to promise more than $60 million for a new aged care centre in the area.
NT CLP senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price told the ABC on Saturday night she attributed the swing in Solomon to the ongoing impacts of serious crime.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says crime has been a key concern for Solomon voters.
(
ABC News: Pete Garnish
)
"Crime's a huge issue right throughout the Northern Territory," Ms Nampijinpa Price said.
"There was obviously the stabbing death of the shop owner in Nightcliff just the other week.
"
Those issues … a lot of Territorians are doing it bloody tough and they're feeling the impact of things like crime, and that is why we're getting the swing in terms of Solomon.
"
The tight race came nine months after
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It also featured an impressive run by community independent Phil Scott, who claimed nearly 3,500 first-preference votes during the election, taking him to third place, ahead of the Australian Greens and Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party.
In Lingiari, the vast NT bush seat that takes in all of the territory's Aboriginal communities as well as its regional towns of Alice Springs, Katherine, Nhulunbuy and Tennant Creek, Labor has also held onto and extended its margin.
Lingiari
Ms Scrymgour fended off a challenge by former Australian Federal Police officer Lisa Siebert, and continues the Labor Party's hold on the seat for more than two decades.
Marion Scrymgour has won the seat of Lingiari for Labor.
(
ABC Darwin: Peter Garnish
)
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