Earlier this week, while most of us were distracted by the New South Wales election results, the ACT Electoral Commission released draft boundaries for the next election.
Electoral boundaries are reviewed after every election, but most changes have been minor since the ACT’s electorates were still used at the 1995 election.
In 2014, the ACT Legislative Assembly voted to expand the Assembly from 17 members to 25 members, and as part of that the existing three electorates (one electing seven and two electing five) will be replaced by five equally-sized electorates.
These boundaries are similar to most predictions.
The Belconnen-based seat of Ginninderra and the Tuggeranong-based seat of Brindabella have largely remained intact, simply shrinking to cover a smaller area.
Ginninderra lost all of its Gungahlin suburbs and a few Belconnen suburbs to a new Gungahlin-based seat of Yerrabi, and Brindabella has lost its northern suburbs to the Woden Valley-based seat of Murrumbidgee.
The central electorate of Molonglo currently covers a majority of both Gungahlin and Woden Valley, along with the entirety of the inner north and the inner south.
Gungahlin and Woden Valley have been lost to the new seats of Yerrabi and Murrumbidgee effectively, while the remainder of Molonglo has been renamed Kurrajong.
On these new boundaries, the five main centres of Canberra each now have their own electorate:
- Central Canberra – Kurrajong
- Belconnen – Ginninderra
- Gungahlin – Yerrabi
- Tuggeranong – Brindabella
- Woden Valley – Murrumbidgee
You can click on each electorate on the above map to see my estimates of the vote for each party on the new boundaries. You can download the map from the Tally Room maps page.
| Electorate | Labor | Liberal | Greens | Motorist | Bullet Train | Others |
| Brindabella | 2.11 | 2.87 | 0.42 | 0.25 | 0.21 | 0.14 |
| Ginninderra | 2.46 | 1.91 | 0.64 | 0.43 | 0.21 | 0.35 |
| Kurrajong | 2.42 | 1.98 | 1.03 | 0.10 | 0.33 | 0.15 |
| Murrumbidgee | 2.41 | 2.46 | 0.62 | 0.15 | 0.23 | 0.13 |
| Yerrabi | 2.27 | 2.45 | 0.51 | 0.32 | 0.22 | 0.23 |
On these figures, Labor would win ten seats, Liberal eleven, and the Greens one, with the remaining seats undecided.
In order for a party to win a majority, they would need to win three seats in at least three electorates, which either side could manage with a small swing.
Elsewhere: Antony Green crunched the numbers earlier this week.
I thought enlarging the ACT Assembly required the approval of the federal Minister for Territories, which in the past been refused on the grounds that the ACT Assembly even at its present size, let alone a larger size, is a massive waste of money. Has the current minister (whoever that might be*) approved this proposed enlargement?
*No such title exists in the current ministry, but someone must have the responsibility.
The other issues are- the Bullet Train vote – will it survive? where did it come from and where will it go if it doesn’t? There are some grounds for suspicion that it might represent the “soft’ Green
Will Motorists party vote survive?Will Brindabella Liberal vote survive the departure of Zed for the Senate?
Adam, the federal parliament amended that provision in March 2013 to give the Assembly the power to determine its own size, albeit requiring a two-thirds majority.
OK, thanks.
I reckon the key electorate for the Liberals if they want to get a third seat in is Murrumbidgee. Brindabella liberals can drop their vote and they will still get the third seat. Yerrabi Liberals have to be favourite for a third seat short of a major change.
Murrumbidgee the problem for the Liberals is that the motorists vote is low and if the Greens vote increases by even a small amount the third seat will be out of reach.
Comments are closed.