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| Wagait Shire Northern Territory | |||||||||||||||
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 Location of Wagait Shire | |||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 12°27′00″S130°44′24″E / 12.4501°S 130.7401°E Coordinates: 12°27′00″S130°44′24″E / 12.4501°S 130.7401°E | ||||||||||||||
| Population | 463 (2016 census) [1] | ||||||||||||||
| • Density | 82.38/km2 (213.4/sq mi) | ||||||||||||||
| Established | 1995 | ||||||||||||||
| Area | 5.62 km2 (2.2 sq mi) | ||||||||||||||
| President | Peter Clee | ||||||||||||||
| Council seat | Wagait Beach | ||||||||||||||
| Region | outer Darwin | ||||||||||||||
| Territory electorate(s) | Daly | ||||||||||||||
| Federal Division(s) | Solomon | ||||||||||||||
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| Website | Wagait Shire | ||||||||||||||
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The Wagait Shire is a local government area in the Northern Territory of Australia. The council was established as the Cox Peninsula Community Government Council on 28 April 1995 and renamed with effect from 1 July 2008. [2] The shire is located west of Darwin, as a 15-minute ferry ride, or a 138 kilometres (86 mi) drive on fully sealed roads.
Local government in Australia is the third tier of government in Australia administered by the states and territories, which in turn are beneath the federal tier. Local government is not mentioned in the Constitution of Australia and two referenda in the 1970s and 1980s to alter the Constitution relating to local government were unsuccessful. Every state government recognises local government in their respective constitutions. Unlike Canada or the United States, there is only one level of local government in each state, with no distinction such as cities and counties.
The Northern Territory is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. It shares borders with Western Australia to the west, South Australia to the south, and Queensland to the east. To the north, the territory looks out to the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Western New Guinea and other Indonesian islands. The NT covers 1,349,129 square kilometres (520,902 sq mi), making it the third-largest Australian federal division, and the 11th-largest country subdivision in the world. It is sparsely populated, with a population of only 245,800, fewer than half as many people as Tasmania.
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. The population of 25 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide.
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The council derived its previous name from the Cox Peninsula. It was named after Matthew Dillon Cox who was regarded as the Northern Territory's first pastoralist, who applied for a lease over the peninsula in 1869, just after the establishment of Darwin. The current name is derived from the name of the township located near Wagait Beach.
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory of Australia, situated on the Timor Sea. It is the largest city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, with a population of 148,564. It is the smallest, wettest and most northerly of the Australian capital cities, and acts as the Top End's regional centre.
