Electoral division of Namatjira

Namatjira
Northern Territory—Legislative Assembly

Namatjira in the Northern Territory

Territory

Northern Territory

Created

2012

Bill Yan

Party

Country Liberal

Namesake

Albert Namatjira

Electors

5,728 (2020)

Area

198,384 km² (76,596.5 sq mi)

Demographic

Remote

Electorates around Namatjira:
Gwoja	Barkly	Gregory (QLD)
Gwoja	Namatjira	Gregory (QLD)
Stuart (SA)	Stuart (SA)	Stuart (SA)

Namatjira is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory. It was created in 2012 when the former division of MacDonnell was renamed after the Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira. Namatjira is an almost entirely rural electorate, covering 198,384 km², and taking in the resort town of Yulara, the remote communities of Hermannsburg, Kintore and Papunya, and part of southern Alice Springs. There were 5,728 electors enrolled in Namatjira as of August 2020.

The seat's first member, Alison Anderson, the former Labor-turned-independent-turned-Country Liberal (CLP) member for MacDonnell, won the seat handily at the 2012 Territory election amid a large swing to the CLP in the remote portions of the Territory. Anderson left the CLP in 2014, and briefly served as Territory leader of the Palmer United Party before serving out the rest of her term as an independent.

Anderson did not contest the 2016 election. Despite her previously fraught relations with Labor, she endorsed the Labor candidate in the seat, Alice Springs councillor Chansey Paech. Although a redistribution seemingly consolidated the CLP majority in the seat by pushing it into Alice Springs, most commentators believed Anderson's endorsement,^[1] combined with the CLP's lackluster polling numbers, made Namatjira a likely Labor gain. Paech took the seat on a swing of over 29 percent—large albeit not the largest at the election—amid Labor's landslide victory that year. However, a redistribution erased Paech's majority and made Namatjira notionally a marginal CLP seat. Paech switched to the neighbouring seat of Gwoja (formerly Stuart) at the 2020 election, and the CLP candidate Bill Yan regained the seat for his party.^[2]

Members for Namatjira

	Party	Term
Alison Anderson	Country Liberal	2012–2014
	Independent	2014
	Palmer United	2014
	Independent	2014–2016
Chansey Paech	Labor	2016–2020
Bill Yan	Country Liberal	2020–present

Election results

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2020 Northern Territory general election § Namatjira.[edit]

2020 Northern Territory general election: Namatjira^[3]^[4]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Country Liberal	Bill Yan	1,066	29.6	−14.0
	Labor	Sheralee Taylor	977	27.1	−8.2
	Territory Alliance	Matt Paterson	809	22.4	+22.4
	Australian Federation	Catherine Satour	344	9.5	+9.5
	Greens	Nikki McCoy	279	7.7	−1.5
	Independent	Tony Willis	131	3.6	+3.6
Total formal votes			3,606	95.2	N/A
Informal votes			180	4.8	N/A
Turnout			3,786	66.1	N/A
Two-party-preferred result
	Country Liberal	Bill Yan	1,814	50.3	−1.7
	Labor	Sheralee Taylor	1,792	49.7	+1.7
	Country Liberal notional hold		Swing	−1.7

References

^ "Election Preview - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)".
^ "NT election goes down to the wire as final four seats are announced". ABC News. 4 September 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
^ "Electorate summary: Namatjira". NTEC. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
^ "Namatjira". ABC Elections. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 7 September 2020.