Surf Wiki
Save to docs
general/electoral-divisions-of-the-northern-territory

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Electoral division of Arafura

FieldValue
nameArafura
statent
image
captionInteractive map of boundaries as of the 2024 election
created1983
mpManuel Brown
mp-party
namesakeArafura Sea
electors5,536
electors_year2023
area57410
classRemote
near-nTimor Sea
near-neTimor Sea
near-nwTimor Sea
near-sArnhem
near-seBarkly
near-swDaly
near-eMulka
near-wGoyder

|mp-party = |near-n = Timor Sea |near-ne = Timor Sea |near-nw = Timor Sea |near-s = Arnhem |near-se = Barkly |near-sw = Daly |near-e = Mulka |near-w = Goyder

Arafura is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory. It was first created in 1983, and takes its name from the Arafura Sea, which adjoins the electorate. The electorate is predominantly rural, encompassing 57410 km2 in western Arnhem Land and the Tiwi Islands, and including the towns of Gunbalanya, Jabiru, Maningrida, Milikapiti and Nguiu. There were 5,183 people enrolled in the electorate as of August 2020.

History

Arafura was a safe seat for the Labor Party for most of its history. Its first MLA was Labor leader Bob Collins, who transferred to the seat from Arnhem upon the expansion of the Assembly in 1983. Collins retired 4 years later and was replaced by Stan Tipiloura. Tipiloura died of kidney failure in 1992, and was succeeded by former Australian rules footballer Maurice Rioli. Rioli retired at the 2001 election and was in turn succeeded by Marion Scrymgour. Scrymgour briefly left the Labor party in 2009 after being sacked as a minister, and retired at the 2012 election.

At that election, the CLP picked up a large and unprecedented swing in remote seats, which had traditionally been safe for Labor. Arafura was no exception, with CLP candidate Francis Xavier Kurrupuwu winning the seat on a 15 per cent swing. Kurrupuwu briefly left his party along with two other Indigenous CLP MLAs in 2014. Lawrence Costa regained the seat for Labor in 2016 as part of his party's landslide victory that year. The electorate has a particularly high Indigenous population, which has been reflected in its having been represented by five consecutive Indigenous MPs.

Members for Arafura

MemberPartyTerm
Bob CollinsLabor
Stan TipilouraLabor
Maurice RioliLabor
Marion ScrymgourLabor
Independent2009
Labor2009–2012
Francis Xavier KurrupuwuCountry Liberal
Independent2014
Palmer United2014
Country Liberal2014–2016
Lawrence CostaLabor
Manuel BrownLabor

Election results

References

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

electoral-divisions-of-the-northern-territory
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Electoral division of Arafura — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report