Casuarina is an

electoral division An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provid ...

of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. It was first created in 1974 and was named after the adjacent suburb of

Casuarina ''Casuarina'', also known as she-oak, Australian pine and native pine, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Casuarinaceae, and is native to Australia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and e ...

. Casuarina is an entirely urban electorate, covering only 12 km² and taking in the suburbs of Brinkin, Nakara, Tiwi and part of Alawa, as well as the

Charles Darwin University Charles Darwin University (CDU) is an Australian public university with two campuses in Darwin and six satellite campuses in metropolitan and regional areas of the Northern Territory. It was established in 2003 after the merger of Northern Ter ...

. There were 5,647 people enrolled in the electorate as of August 2020.

History

For the first three decades of its existence, Casuarina, like most seats in the Darwin area, was a stronghold for the

Country Liberal Party The Country Liberal Party of the Northern Territory (CLP), commonly known as the Country Liberals, is a centre-right and conservative political party in Australia's Northern Territory. In territory politics, it operates in a two-party system wi ...

Clare Martin Clare Majella Martin (born 15 June 1952) is a former Australian journalist and politician. She was elected to the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in a shock by-election win in 1995. She was appointed Opposition Leader in 1999, and won ...

did nearly manage to take the seat for the Labor Party upon the retirement of long-serving CLP member

Nick Dondas Nicholas Manuel Dondas (26 October 1939 – 8 September 2024) was an Australian Country Liberal politician in the Northern Territory, representing the seat of Casuarina in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1974 to 1994, and the ...

in 1994, but lost out to the CLP's Peter Adamson, who held the seat for the next seven years. It was still widely presumed to be a safe Liberal seat in 2001, when it unexpectedly fell to Labor challenger

Kon Vatskalis Konstantine Vatskalis (born 4 April 1957) is a Greek-Australian politician and the current Lord Mayor of Darwin. Before becoming Lord Mayor in 2017 he was a Labor Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from September 2001 ...

as part of Labor's sweep of the northern suburbs that year en route to winning government for the first time. Vatskalis easily retained the seat in 2005, 2008, and 2012. He resigned on 18 September 2014, which triggered a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...

. It was won by Labor candidate

Lauren Moss Lauren Jane Moss (born 6 May 1987) is an Australian politician. She was elected the Labor member for Casuarina in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in a by-election held on 18 October 2014 to replace Kon Vatskalis, a seat which she hel ...

with a reduced margin. Moss picked up enough of a swing in

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

to make Casuarina much more secure for Labor, and consolidated her hold on the seat in

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

. In 2024 CLP candidate Khoda Patel won the seat.

Members for Casuarina

Election results

References

External links

Division profile from the Northern Territory Electoral Commission
{{coord, 12, 22.4, S, 130, 52.9, E, display=title