The NSW Electoral Commission has released the draft boundaries for the NSW state redistribution this morning.
I’m at work today so won’t be able to do any in-depth analysis until later. I’m sure Antony Green will post his analysis today, and in the meantime you can post your comments about what this means in the comments section below.
Some quick thoughts:
- Marrickville has effectively been split into two seats: Summer Hill and Newtown. Newtown stretches from Petersham to Redfern and Surry Hills and is likely to be very strong for the Greens.
- Balmain has been largely left alone – losing Haberfield and gaining a bit of Ultimo.
- Sydney has lost part of Ultimo and all of Surry Hills.
- Summer Hill covers all of the suburb of Marrickville, most of Lewisham, all of Dulwich Hill and most of Ashfield LGA.
Please have a look at the maps and post interesting information you find below.
I have the day off on Wednesday, so I hope that by the end of Wednesday I can complete a new Google Earth map of the boundaries.
Good redistribution for the Greens, Balmain is strengthened (IIRC) and Newtown looks good for them.
Not so great for Tebbutt though. Looks like Summer Hill shifting west makes it better for the Liberals, though she should still win.
Other notes:
* Oatley loses Hurstville, gains parts of the Georges River – makes it very hard for Labor to win in the future.
* Holsworthy looks like it could lean Labor if they’re going OK (though still notionally Liberal), but the knock-on changes probably makes Macquarie Fields notionally Liberal, Campbelltown more swingy, and Heathcote fairly solidly Liberal.
* Prospect looks like it may be notionally Labor, but Seven Hills becomes swingy/lean Labor (expect it to be notionally Liberal)
* Mulgoa looks solidly Liberal as it’s basically just semi-rural areas between Penrith and Campbelltown, but Labor looks better in Londonderry (should be a gimme if they’re going OK) and Riverstone (will still be a swing district). Hawkesbury now makes a lot more sense, though it looks like it could be well over quota.
* Wyong gains those rural areas between the Central Coast and Newcastle from Lake Macquarie – unclear who this favours.
* Barwon gains Broken Hill, but it probably won’t matter these days barring an utter rout.
* Wollondilly a sure thing for the Liberals now given much of it is the Southern Highlands – most of Campbelltown is gone.
* Orange and Dubbo go from west to east to north to south – a lot of residents swapped but partisan impact is probably negligible.
This redistribution makes a lot of sense, btw. Pretty much no bits-and-pieces districts although what they did with Marrickville seems strange.
I’ve mostly looked at the non-metro seats to start with.
A big priority given to aligning seats with local government boundaries by the look of things, and prioritising that over keeping current boundaries – at least that’s what it looks like from an initial look at the non-metro seats. A lot of the new boundaries do seem to make sense and are more simplified, but some surprisingly far more radical changes in some areas than I had expected the commissioners to consider.
The Illawarra seats have been left significantly over quota and this may be a source of objections.
Moving the Tenterfield Shire into Lismore was an option I didn’t expect the commissioners would consider, but it has allowed much more simplified boundaries for the mid north coast seats.
I would’ve expected removing that rural expanse of Wyong Shire from Lake Macquarie would help Greg Piper, but haven’t looked at the figures.
Just looking at my old corner in the East, I would expect Maroubra to become stronger for Labor with the addition of Daceyville and the loss of South Coogee, Coogee would probably become slightly stronger for both Labor and the Greens, with the loss of Kensington and picking up South Coogee. Heffron would become stronger for the Libs with the addition of the rest of Kensington and Moore Park and weaker for Labor and in particular the Greens with the loss of Redfern and Eveleigh, which made up some of the Greens best booths. I would guess that Heffron would change by a point or two to the Libs but more to the point make it a far more solid Labor v Lib battle.
Probably a good result in each for Labor, while the Greens won’t complain about Heffron falling out of their grasp given some of their best booths are proposed to transfer to Newtown.
Newtown will be hard to put a figure to because of the Surry Hills/Clover factor.
Sydney should remain safely Indi despite losing Clover’s best booths in Surry Hills. The changes there take away Labor’s best areas, which will make a Lib v Indi contest the most likely result for some time.
No change in Vaucluse.
Slightly optimistic for the Libs in Sydney, which is beginning to look a bit more like the old Bligh, losing Surry Hills and Ultimo – very difficult areas. Agree, the Greens should do well in the next runs at Balmain and Newtown, although I suspect demographic trends will be against them after that. Doubt the Libs have much more chance in Heffron.
“Slightly optimistic for the Libs here – it’s turning into the old Bligh” – eh?
And is Newtown really turning right?
Newtown is still very grungy/studenty/lefty but is slowly getting more new developments, which introduce a perhaps slightly more young capitalist professional dimension. This may make it ever so slightly more liberal-leaning, but remember that people choose to live here because of it’s culture, so I would still expect the new residents to be very strongly to the left, just perhaps slightly less so than the ‘resistance’ left that hangs around Newtown Town Hall.
And I wouldn’t think the Libs have any shot in Heffron, but their position compared to the Greens will sure up a bit. Heffron is as solidly Labor as anywhere in the state and I can’t imagine Labor would be at all concerned about having to accomodate a small pocket of Kensington conservatism.
OOPS – misread where the orange line runs – thought Centennial Park was left in Sydney …
However, this represents a slight improvement of the Libs in Sydney – the areas in the centre and closest to the Harbour tend to be Lib, or at least persuadable – Pyrmont, Walsh Bay, the CBD etc.
People live near the city because city-workers don’t like commuting, and that trend is likely to be sustained, tending to price out students etc from Newtown.
The proposed redistribution in the inner-city looks fair and reasonable. ‘Newtown’ should be won by either the Greens or a strong progressive Independent fairly easily. Balmain will probably remain the same (for now), however, demographic change will surely make it notionally Liberal within a decade I would imagine.
It is also interesting to note how the proposed ‘split’ of Marrickville roughly follows the current polarised voter divide between the Greens heartland in the northern half of the electorate and the strongly ALP leaning southern half.
I applaud the changes to the regional and rural seats as boundaries by local government area are logical and make much more sense. I am saddened Murrumbidgee is gone, but the new Cootamundra seat makes a whole lot of sense. Having those councils lumped in with a Wagga, Goulburn or Griffith based seat hurt local representation.
Young, Temora, Cootmundra, Gundagai, West Wyalong, Narrandera etc suit being in together instead of with a big regional town that will dominate them.
I like most of the Sydney changes along the north shore, hills district and west Sydney. The new Hawkesbury boundary makes much more sense. Everything seems to flow very nicely from the Riverstone adjustment. Seven Hills will be a very interesting seat, Rees could be in trouble. It is fair though as Parramatta looks to have lost its Liberal voters to Seven Hills and Baulkham Hills.
I haven’t had time to look at the north of the state yet.
Antony’s estimated margin for the new Cootamundra is Nationals 40.2%!
Surely that must be a record?
Cootamundra makes Pittwater look very marginal at 34.5%………
Another country seat abolished and the Nationals continue their decline……
Cootamundra huge margin Labor mining seats in days of old had comparable margins. 30 yrs ago Labor was polling 60+ in town of Cootamundra.
Looks like Nathan Rees’s career is over.
I think Cootamundra is so safe as there is no real regional city in the district. It’s just a bunch of small country towns.
Turns out Cootamundra’s only 30.2%. Antony must’ve made a mistake.
Would Seven Hills be that much of a problem for Rees? It might have a notional margin of 8.5%, but the whole state has a Lib 2pp margin of 14.2% after 2011. That would make it a Labor seat once their vote rebounds to anywhere near 50-50. He’s a high-profile local member who held on while other seats with larger margins turned blue (Smithfield, Campelltown), so he’d be the ideal person to (notionally) win it back.
Winston Hills is very Liberal, while Northmead and Seven Hills have more young couples who are the children of people from Castle Hill, kellyville etc moving in. It is becoming more conservative.
According to Antony’s figures it looks like the Liberals margins will be boosted in most of the seats they hold on a margin under 10%.
Geoff, I think you are referring to Terry Sheehan’s vote and its somewhat extraordinary. One thing you need to remember in country Seats is that the politics is very different to that of the city.
In many cases the vote in the country is for the person and I am sure that Terry Sheehan had a significant following in an area which is noted as largely conservative. We should also remember that during much of the period when Terry Sheehan was the Member, the Conservatives dominated the Federal Electrates in this area and it took the likes of Alby Schultz who is retiring to end Terry Shhhan’s reign when the Unsworth Government was defeated in 1998.
Well, here’s Antony’s new pendulum (partial)… all Liberal seats with a notional margin under 10%:
0.3% Swansea
0.5% East Hills
1.2% Macquarie Fields (ALP held)
1.4% Prospect
2.3% Newcastle
2.4% Monaro (NAT)
3.4% Granville
3.6% Rockdale
3.7% Oatley
4.4% Londonderry
4.4% Wyong
5.0% Strathfield
5.1% Maitland
5.4% Blue Mountains
6.8% Campbelltown
7.5% Charleston
8.3% Coogee
8.5% Seven Hills
That’s 18 seats, in addition to the 18 they notionally hold (I think he’s counted Newtown as notionally Green, despite the question marks next to it). Monaro is probably out of reach without Steve Whan, but the others should be mostly winnable. They aren’t going to win with the fallout from the ICAC inquiry, but if they can’t at least get to 36 seats out of 93, something’s very wrong.
There’s also the seats which got absurdly huge swings in 2011. Ryde, Penrith, Bathurst and Riverstone, for example. They should be on Labor’s must-win list.
Nick C,
I don’t see a big trend in the 2PP changes for the 15 Coalition-held seats with margins under 10% on the old boundaries. If anything, it looks like the commission aimed at keeping the 2PP similar in those marginal Coalition seats:
* 10 seats move by 1% or less (East Hills, Swansea, Monaro, Granville, Rockdale, Strathfield, Blue Mountains, Kiama, Coogee and Charlestown)
* 3 seats shift to the Coalition by more than 1% (Oatley, Wyong, Campbelltown)
* 2 seats shift to Labor by more than 1% (Smithfield/Prospect, Maitland)
Possibly the
Bird of paradox, I’d also say Oatley isn’t winnable without Greene. He’d have one of the biggest personal votes out of urban MP.
Most of the others are winnable, though it depends on the candidates.
@Edward
Yes it’s not big, but on average it’s a little more favourable. Given the atypical nature of the 2011 results though it is hard to judge how noteworthy that is.
Wouldn’t Rees Contest Prospect. That contains a large part of his existing seat, south of the railway line.
I have NFI if that contains Rees’s base though. It’s still largely based on the Italian Catholic suburbs of Fairfield.
There’s probably enough of Toongabbie in Prospect to justify Rees moving over, though this is obviously made easier by the fact that Smithfield has a Lib MP. I would expect him to make the move should the NSWEC adopt these boundaries. I’m not sure about the branches in that area, but I would think that they would in general be happy to accomodate a pretty strong MP/candidate like Rees.
The good doctor McDonald should be able to pick up the additional 1-2% required, remembering that his new turf, old Campbelltown, had one of the biggest swings to the Libs in 2011 (in large part because the old Labor MP for Campbelltown left office some months before the election) and I would expect this margin to correct itself back to Labor with a sitting MP.
Something that has gone fairly un-noticed is Heathcote’s move away from the Illawarra and into the Sutherland Shire. This will make it far harder for Labor to win back in the long term and has probably shifted it from, in normal circumstances, a marginal Labor seat to a status quo to marginal Liberal seat.
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