Sandra Nelson (politician)

Sandra Nelson is an Australian politician. She successfully contested the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly seat of Katherine at the Northern Territory general election, 2016 for the Australian Labor Party. She is the first Labor member to represent the Katherine area. She defeated former Deputy Chief Minister Willem Westra Van Holthe.

Early life and career

Sandra and her family left Timor in 1975 at the height of the civil war, and were granted permanent residency in Australia in 1977. The family first settled in Sydney before Sandra moved to the Territory in 2012. Sandra has a 15-year-old son and her partner, Iain, is a GP in remote Aboriginal health centres.

Sandra has served as an active duty soldier, worked in the transportation industry, before moving on to local government work in Western Australia, work with the United Nations, and now works in the health and legal sector in Katherine.

Sandra’s professional career has focused on community development. Sandra has previously worked as the Executive Officer of Katherine Women's Information & Legal Services and is a member of the Katherine YMCA board. She has worked with the Stronger Smarter Sisters Committee. Through her work in the community legal sector and health sector, Sandra has also served on community advisory panels that focused on domestic and family violence. Sandra is passionate about social justice, community development and empowerment, and the environment.^[1]

2016 election

On paper, Nelson faced nearly impossible odds when she was preselected as the Labor candidate in Katherine, a seat long considered Country Liberal Party heartland. Katherine's predecessor seat, Elsey, was a comfortably safe CLP seat for its entire existence, and the CLP kept this tradition going after Elsey was significantly reduced in size and renamed Katherine in 1987. Labor had only come reasonably close to winning it twice. Going into the election, it was the safest seat in the entire Territory; Nelson needed a 22.3 percent swing to win it.

However, Nelson led Westra van Holthe by a margin of less than one percent on election night amid the massive Labor wave that swept through the Territory. According to ABC projections, Westra van Holthe's primary vote almost halved, to only 35.2 percent—just four percent ahead of Nelson. Preferences allowed Nelson to narrowly pull ahead, and she continued to lead Westra van Holthe on a knife-edge as counting continued. It was eventually announced on 9 September that Nelson won by 28 votes on a swing of 22.6 percent—just barely what she needed to win.^[2]

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