Electoral division of Barkly

Barkly Northern Territory—Legislative Assembly
Barkly in the Northern Territory
Territory	Northern Territory
Created	1974
MP	Gerry McCarthy
Party	Australian Labor Party
Namesake	Barkly Tableland
Electors	5,183 (2016)
Area	448,576 km2 (173,196.2 sq mi)
Demographic	Remote

Barkly is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory. It was first created in 1974, and is named after the Barkly Tableland area, which occupies much of the electorate. Barkly is a rural electorate, covering 448,576 km² and taking in the towns of Tennant Creek, Borroloola, Ali Curung, Warrego, Tara Aboriginal Community and Alpururulam. There were 5,137 people enrolled in the electorate as of August 2012.

Barkly was created along with the creation of the Assembly in 1974 as a conservative-leaning marginal seat centred on the town of Tennant Creek. It was won at that election by Country Liberal Party candidate Ian Tuxworth, who later became a high-profile Cabinet minister and served as Chief Minister from 1984 to 1986. Tuxworth was comfortably re-elected as a CLP member in 1977, 1980 and 1983, but faced an extremely close race in 1987 after he quit the CLP in order to head the rival conservative NT Nationals party. He won a narrow victory over Australian Labor Party candidate Maggie Hickey, but saw the win overturned by the Court of Disputed Returns upon a legal challenge from Hickey before again winning the resulting by-election. A redistribution ahead of the 1990 election turned Barkly into a nominally Labor-held seat, and Tuxworth chose to contest Goyder instead. Hickey was comfortably elected in Tuxworth's absence, and went on to serve as Opposition Leader from 1996 to 1999, before retiring due to ill health in 2001. Labor candidate Elliot McAdam was comfortably elected at the 2001 election before going on to serve as a minister in the Martin and Henderson Labor governments. He retired at the 2008 election, in which Labor's Gerry McCarthy was elected as his successor.

Members for Barkly

Member		Party	Term
	Ian Tuxworth	Country Liberal Party	1974–1987
		NT Nationals	1987–1990
	Maggie Hickey	Australian Labor Party	1990–2001
	Elliot McAdam	Australian Labor Party	2001–2008
	Gerry McCarthy	Australian Labor Party	2008–present

Election results

See also: Electoral results for the division of Barkly

Northern Territory general election, 2016: Barkly

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Gerry McCarthy	1,387	43.1	−2.0
	Independent	Elliot McAdam	869	27.1	+27.1
	Country Liberal	Tony Jack	595	18.5	−17.7
	Independent	Jack Green	367	11.4	+11.4
Total formal votes			3,218	98.4	+2.1
Informal votes			53	1.6	−2.1
Turnout			3,271	63.1	−4.0
Two-candidate-preferred result
	Labor	Gerry McCarthy	1,739	58.0	+0.4
	Independent	Elliot McAdam	1,260	42.0	+42.0
	Labor hold		Swing	N/A

External links

• Division profile from the Northern Territory Electoral Commission