Rob Knight (politician)
Daniel Robert Knight (born 1967) is an Australian politician.[1] He has been an Australian Labor Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly since June 2005, representing the remote electorate of Daly.[1] He served as Minister for Local Government and Minister for Central Australia from 2008 to 2012.[2][3] He also served as the Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 2006 to 2012, having been appointed to the position after the resignation of Len Kiely.[4]
Prior to entering politics, Knight was a park ranger. He contested the newly created seat of Daly in 2001 election against the incumbent Country Liberal Party member Tim Baldwin, but was unsuccessful.[5]
He contested Daly again at the 2005 election after Baldwin retired, and was initially thought to have little chance of winning. Daly was a fairly safe CLP seat on paper; after a redistribution, the CLP held it on a notional majority of 9.5 percent. However, on election night the CLP primary vote almost halved, and Knight gained the seat with a swing of 24.6 percent, turning Daly from a safe CLP seat into a safe Labor seat at one stroke. Knight actually won a majority on the first count, allowing him to take the seat off the CLP without the need for preferences.[6] Even considering the size of the Labor wave that swept through the Territory, Knight's victory was considered a shock result, as a swing of this magnitude is almost unheard of at any level in Australia.[5]
Knight was reelected in 2008, but was defeated in 2012 by the CLP's Gary Higgins amid Labor's collapse in the remote portions of the Territory.
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Northern Territory Legislative Assembly | ||
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Preceded by | Member for Daly 2005–2012 |
Succeeded by Gary Higgins |
- Use dmy dates from August 2012
- Use Australian English from August 2012
- All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English
- 1967 births
- Living people
- Australian Labor Party members of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly
- Members of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly
- People from Launceston, Tasmania