Territory Northern Territory MP Terry Mills Demographic Urban Area 18 km² Elector 5,576 (2016) Party Independent politician | Created 1997 Electors 5,576 (2016) Founded 1997 Member of parliament Terry Mills Namesake Adair Blain | |
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Blain is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory. It was first created in 1997 and is named after Adair Blain, the second member for the federal Northern Territory electorate, and the only Australian sitting federal MP to ever become a prisoner of war. Blain is an urban electorate, covering 18 km² and taking in Palmerston suburbs of Bellamack and Woodroffe, and most of the suburb of Rosebery and a small section of the suburb of Moulden. There were 5,576 people enrolled within the electorate as of August 2016.
History
Palmerston has always been a staunchly conservative area, and all the electorates in the city have almost always been held by the Country Liberal Party. Blain has even amongst the Palmerston electorates been in the past a particularly safe seat for the CLP, with successive members having little trouble being re-elected. This was further emphasised at the 2005 election, when Blain was one of only four CLP-held seats retained by the party after a landslide victory by the Australian Labor Party, and the only CLP seat in the Darwin/Palmerston area.
A 2014 Blain by-election was triggered as a result of the resignation of former Chief Minister Terry Mills. Nathan Barrett retained the seat for the CLP despite a 10 percent swing.
Barrett was forced out of politics in 2016 after he sent a lewd video to a constituent. At the 2016 election, the CLP was pushed into third place after its primary vote plummeted to 25 percent, losing more than half of its primary vote from 2012. The seat was nearly swept up in the massive Labor wave that swept through the metropolitan area. However, Mills, contesting his old seat as an independent, narrowly defeated former federal MP Damian Hale to return to the legislature.