David William Tollner (born 31 January 1966) is an Australian politician. He was the Country Liberal Party member for Solomon in the Australian House of Representatives from 2001 to 2007, and then served in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly as the member for Fong Lim from 2008 to 2016. He was the Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory under chief minister Adam Giles from 2013 to 2014. During his time in federal parliament, he sat with the Liberal Party.
Tollner sat with the Liberal Party in federal parliament during his time as member for Solomon.
Tollner was appointed deputy chief minister of the Northern Territory on 13 March 2013. He caused controversy in August 2014 when he referred to the gay son of fellow CLP MP Gary Higgins as a "pillow biter" and "shirt lifter". NT Deputy Chief Minister Dave Tollner keeps job despite gay slurs against son of colleague: ABC 20 August 2014 CLP turmoil after Tollner’s homophobic rant at staffer: The Advertiser 20 August 2014 As a result, it was announced that Tollner's resignation as deputy leader of the CLP had been accepted. Despite that, Tollner said a few days later that he wanted to be restored to his former position or he would quit the party, leaving it in a precarious position on the floor of the Legislative Assembly. On 1 September, Chief Minister Adam Giles threw open the leadership and deputy leadership to a party room ballot. Giles was re-elected as CLP leader, and Peter Chandler was voted in as his deputy. He has also been accused of making racist comments; in 2014 he was accused of calling two women "lubras", which is a racial slur targeted at Indigenous women.
A redistribution ahead of the 2016 election all but erased Tollner's majority in Fong Lim, slashing it from a fairly safe 7.3 percent to an extremely marginal 0.2 percent. Tollner tried to transfer to the newly created seat of Spillett, which had absorbed much of the eastern portion of Fong Lim. However, he lost a November 2015 preselection battle to Lia Finocchiaro, the member for neighbouring Drysdale. His senior advisor, Tim Dixon, was pre-selected for Fong Lim, but lost the seat to Labor.
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