Solomon AustralianHouse of RepresentativesDivision
Interactive map of boundaries since the2019 federal election
Created	2000
MP	Luke Gosling
Party	Labor
Namesake	Vaiben Louis Solomon
Electors	71,888 (2022)
Area	337 km2 (130.1 sq mi)
Demographic	Inner metropolitan
Territory electorates	List Blain Brennan Casuarina Drysdale Fannie Bay Fong Lim Johnston Karama Nelson Nightcliff Port Darwin Sanderson Spillett Wanguri
Electorates around Solomon: Pacific Ocean Pacific Ocean Pacific Ocean Pacific Ocean Solomon Lingiari Pacific Ocean Lingiari Lingiari

TheDivision of Solomon is anAustralian Electoral Division in theNorthern Territory. It is largely coextensive with theDarwin/Palmerston metropolitan area. The only other division in the territory, theDivision of Lingiari, covers the remainder of the territory.

Federal electoral division boundaries in Australia are determined atredistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by theAustralian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state or territory, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state or territory's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state or territory are malapportioned.^[1]

Since the 2024 redistribution, the division is co-extensive with theCity of Darwin andCity of Palmerston local government areas, as well as theDarwin Waterfront Precinct and the unincorporatedNorthern Territory Rates Act Area.^[2][3]

The division was one of the two established when the formerDivision of Northern Territory was redistributed on 21 December 2000. It is named for HonVaiben Louis Solomon, aPremier of South Australia, a delegate to thesecond Constitutional convention and member of thefirst Australian Parliament. He had represented the Northern Territory in theSouth Australian House of Assembly, when it was still part of that colony.

The Division was first contested at the2001 federal election. Although the Darwin/Palmerston area had historically been a stronghold for theCountry Liberal Party at the territorial level, recent gains byLabor made it much more competitive by the time the seat was created. It has taken on a character similar tomortgage belt seats. As such, for most of its history, it has been a marginal seat usually held by the party of government.

The CLP'sDave Tollner very narrowly won the seat in2001, then increased his majority in2004 before narrowly losing it toLabor'sDamian Hale at the2007 election, where Labor won a landslide victory. At the2010 election, the CLP'sNatasha Griggs won Solomon back with atwo-party-preferred margin of 1.75 percent from a 1.94 percent swing. She therefore became the first opposition member in the seat's history. Griggs was re-elected with a reduced two-party margin of 1.4 percent at the2013 election as theCoalition won government.

AMediaReach seat-level opinion poll in Solomon of 513 voters conducted 22−23 June during the2016 election campaign unexpectedly found Labor heavily leading the Liberals 61–39 on thetwo-party vote from a large 12.4 percentswing.^[4]

Griggs and the CLP lost Solomon to Labor'sLuke Gosling, at the2016 election held on 2 July, with Gosling becoming the first Labor candidate to win the primary vote and defeating Griggs on a 56–44 two-party vote from a record 7.4 percent swing—in both cases, thestrongest result in the seat's history.^[5][6] Gosling, who had previously run in 2013, is the second opposition member to hold the seat. This was later seen as a forerunner to the CLP's disastrous performance atthe NT general election held later that year, where the party won just 2 seats out of 25, including only one in the Darwin area. Gosling retained the seat in2019 with a reduced majority, but won in2022 by a margin just under the threshold for making Solomon a safe Labor seat.

Image		Member	Party	Term	Notes
		Dave Tollner (1966–)	Country Liberal	10 November 2001 – 24 November 2007	Lost seat. Later elected to theNorthern Territory Legislative Assembly seat ofFong Lim in2008
		Damian Hale (1969–)	Labor	24 November 2007 – 21 August 2010	Lost seat
		Natasha Griggs (1969–)	Country Liberal	21 August 2010 – 2 July 2016	Lost seat
		Luke Gosling (1971–)	Labor	2 July 2016 – present	Incumbent

• Division of Solomon - Australian Electoral Commission

12°25′23″S130°56′10″E / 12.423°S 130.936°E /-12.423; 130.936

• Electoral divisions of Australia
• Electoral divisions of Australia in the Northern Territory
• Constituencies established in 2000
• 2000 establishments in Australia

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