The four parties represented in the Victorian parliament have all put in submissions for the redistribution leading up the 2014 election.
These boundaries were last drawn prior to the 2002 election, and in some areas seat populations have diverged quite dramatically from the average.
Generally the Labor and Greens proposals suggest a substantial amount of changes, while the Liberal and Nationals proposals try to avoid significant changes.
Unfortunately I have found it harder to get solid information about this redistribution than in NSW. While the authorities have provided projected figures for 2014 and 2018, they have not broken these projections down by electorate, and only the Nationals have included estimates of the projected population in 2018 for each proposed seat in their submission.
The Victorian procedures don’t require a specific quota to be met on projected figures, although some consideration of future growth should be considered.
Overall, the Greens proposal is the most radical, while the Nationals is the least radical.
The Greens have only retained 28 names out of 88 seats, although in some cases a seat name has been maintained with the inclusion or removal of a geographical marker (eg. Ballarat North, Narre Warren). Because of the large numbers of seats renamed it is difficult to summarise overall how many seats have been abolished or created.
Three seats have maintained their name but been transferred between Legislative Council regions. Ivanhoe has moved from North Metro to East Metro, Pascoe Vale has moved from West Metro to North Metro, and Lowan has moved from Western Vic to Northern Vic.
In net, a seat has been abolished in Northern Victoria and a seat has been created in Western Victoria. Two seats have been abolished in East Metro. To make up for these abolitions, the Greens have included two more seats in East Metro north of the river (Ivanhoe and Greensborough). This means that 47/88 seats lay north of the Yarra River and the Greater Dividing Range, compared to 45/88 on current boundaries.
West Metro (which is substantially overquota) has seen the creation of one extra seat and the movement of Pascoe Vale to neighbouring North Metro.
In the Labor proposal, they have also shifted the balance towards the north. East Metro has gained Bundoora from North Metro, shifting the balance to 46/88 seats north of the river and the Great Dividing Range.
Labor has abolished four seats and created four new seats. They propose creating Werribee in West Metro, and like the Greens make up for this change by shifting Pascoe Vale from West Metro into North Metro. They abolish two seats and create two new seats in Northern Victoria and Western Victoria. In practice, the new Northern Victoria seat of Charlton is made out of areas previously contained in Western Victoria.
Labor also proposes creating Frankston East and abolishing Mordialloc, both in South-East Metro. They abolish Mitcham in East Metro.
Labor has managed to avoid changing boundaries for seven districts.
In the Liberal proposal, the party has tried hard to avoid making dramatic changes, even where they probably are necessary. They do not propose making any changes to the number of seats on each side of the Yarra River.
Three seats are traded back and forth between East, South and South East Metro. Five seats in Western Metro, Northern Metro and Northern Victoria are traded between regions. No seat is abolished. Only one seat (Currum) is left entirely unchanged, while Gembrook is proposed to be renamed Pakenham.
The Nationals did not put in a submission for the entire state, only focusing on the three regions that they contest. In these three regions, they did not abolish or create any seats, and tried to be as conservative as possible. Despite being conservative, they managed to balance out the populations of the three regions: all of them on 10.97 quotas.
Probably the quickest way to understand the proposals from each party is to look at how large the population of each Legislative Council region is under each proposal.
Prior to the redistribution, Western Metropolitan is almost a full quota over the average (11.94), Western Victoria is at 11.50 quotas, and Eastern Victoria is at 11.26 quotas. Northern Metropolitan, Western Metropolitan and South Eastern Metropolitan are all within 0.2 quota of the average. Eastern Metropolitan, Northern Victoria and Southern Metropolitan are all substantially under the average.
Without delving into the data myself, my understanding is that future growth is expected to be concentrated over the next two terms in Western Metropolitan, Northern Metropolitan and Western Victoria.
Under the Labor proposal, Southern Metro was the largest (11.31) while Western Metro is the smallest at 10.72 quotas.
Under the Greens proposal, Western Metro and Northern Metro are both drawn substantially underquota at 10.62 quotas each, to absorb expected population growth up to the 2018 election. The Greens also drew Southern Metro as the largest region, at 11.55 quotas.
The Liberal Party’s proposals see the largest varation between regions. Concerningly, their proposals barely reduce the surplus population in Western Metropolitan, and seem to have ignored the expected growth in that region. The Liberal proposal has Western Metro sitting at 11.8 quotas, with Southern Metro the smallest at 10.61 quotas.
Overall the Liberal proposal sees the four regions of North Metro, West Metro, South East Metro and Western Victoria collectively over quota by 1.1 seats. These four regions are those with the highest vote for the ALP.
The Liberal proposal barely bothers to bring regions within quota. Even if individual districts are close to quota, the slight variations per seat add up to large amounts when you look at a region. Only one seat in Western Metro is less than 5% over quota.
If you want to look into these issues in more detail, you can read the party’s submissions (including Google Earth maps from three out of four parties) at the Electoral Boundaries Commission website, and you can download the spreadsheet I have used to calculate quotas for districts and regions for all four parties’ submissions.
