Federal redistributions will commence this year in three states. Victoria will lose a seat, Western Australia will gain a seat, and New South Wales will also have a redistribution. A redistribution will commence next month for New South Wales with its current 47 seats, but that redistribution may end up being superseded in the middle of the year if New South Wales loses a seat, which is quite possible.
In this post and tomorrow’s post, I’m analysing the intra-state enrolment data to get some sense of how electorates might shift, and which areas might gain or lose a seat, in the upcoming redistributions. I’ve produced maps of all three states, along with tables showing breakdowns of enrolment trends by region.
Today’s post is focused on New South Wales, and specifically explores how such a large gap has emerged between enrolments in Sydney electorates and those in the remainder of the state.
New South Wales hasn’t had a redistribution for seven years, while Victoria and Western Australia were last redrawn prior to the recent election (indeed the change in seat numbers for those two seats simply reverse the changes at the 2020 entitlement). You can see the length of time since the last redistribution in the intra-state statistics – there is much greater intra-state variety in enrolment in New South Wales.
All the maps and tables in this post use the monthly enrolment statistics as of December 2022, but the clickable maps also show you the same statistics as of September, so you can see a bit of a trend.
We don’t know whether the NSW redistribution will be drawing 46 or 47 seats, so we need to analyse both. The 46-seat map will have higher quotas, so each seat will need to include more voters than the 47-seat map.
This chart has divided the state into eight regions, four in Sydney and four outside. I have added up how much the seats in those regions deviate from the 46-seat and 47-seat quota.
| Region | Seats | Deviation (46) | Deviation (47) |
| Hunter & Central Coast | 6 | 12.98 | 26.3 |
| Northern NSW | 4 | 17.22 | 26.3 |
| Southern NSW | 5 | 11.46 | 22.6 |
| Western NSW | 5 | -12.56 | -2.0 |
| Regional NSW | 20 | 29.10 | 73.2 |
| Central Sydney | 7 | -40.33 | -25.9 |
| Northern Sydney | 6 | -50.23 | -38.2 |
| Southern Sydney | 3 | -28.18 | -22.3 |
| Western Sydney | 11 | -10.38 | 13.3 |
| Sydney | 27 | -129.12 | -73.1 |
Overall Sydney is currently over-represented relative to regional NSW. If NSW doesn’t lose any seats, Sydney’s 27 seats only have about 26.27 quotas.
This map can be toggled between showing the 46-seat and 47-seat quotas.
Most of Sydney is currently under quota even if NSW doesn’t lose a seat. The only exceptions are in the outer south-west and north-west.
Macarthur and Werriwa in the south-west are about 27% over quota between them, and are still growing fast. Lindsay, Chifley, Greenway and Mitchell in the north-west are about 23% over quota. That’s half a seat worth of surplus voters in that region.
Across the whole of Sydney, there is a deficit of 73% of a seat, but if you subtract those six outer suburban seats, the rest of the city has a deficit of 1.2 seat quotas.
The most severe deficit is the six seats of northern Sydney, which are 38% of a seat under, with Warringah particularly underpopulated.
No one region is far enough under deficit to abolish a seat just in that area. I suspect a seat around the middle of Sydney (such as Blaxland) could be abolished. Seats in northern Sydney and eastern Sydney will then expand towards the west to fill that gap.
The seats along the regional NSW coast, including the Hunter and Central Coast, are mostly over quota. The Hunter, Central Coast, North Coast and New England are collectively about half a seat over quota, with Hunter and Paterson particularly over quota.
If NSW can maintain its 47 seats, it seems likely that a new seat will need to be created somewhere around the Hunter, pushing seats in Western NSW further south and towards Sydney.
If NSW loses its 47th seat, the higher quota absorbs most of the surplus in regional NSW. The Hunter-Central Coast-North region is only about 0.3 of a seat over now, rather than 0.5. In this case you’d expect to see these seats contract.
The reduction in seats worsens the deficits in established parts of Sydney and reduces the surpluses on the outer edge of Sydney. At this point there is no doubt that a seat in Sydney will have to be lost, probably one in the middle suburban ring.
The sixteen seats in the eastern half of Sydney are collectively 118% under quota, which means you could abolish a seat and absorb its population entirely within the remaining 15 seats and still have too few people to justify those 15 seats.
Indeed across the whole of Sydney the region is 129% under quota, and once you factor in the surplus growth in the six outer suburban seats, the remainder of Sydney is about 1.6 quotas in deficit.
So I think in a 46-seat map we will see a mid-suburban seat such as Blaxland abolished, and despite that we will still see the seats to the west of the abolished seat move further west to absorb the surpluses in outer suburban Sydney, ultimately shifting the south-western Sydney seats further south-west to absorb the surplus in regional NSW.
I was planning now to move on to Victoria and Western Australia but I’ll leave them for another post because I want to answer another question: why is there such a huge divergence between enrolments in Sydney and regional NSW?
My first thought was that this is explain by differential rates of growth since 2016, but that isn’t true.
The final redistribution was based on enrolment data as of December 2014. The election rules require seats to fit within the quota as of the time of the redistribution, but also within a quota based on projected estimates 3.5 years after the conclusion of the redistribution. In this case, projections were created for the population as of August 2019.
On the December 2014 data, the 20 seats in regional NSW had an average enrolment of 106,473, while the 27 in Sydney had 101,264: a gap of 5.1%.
The projections suggested an average enrolment of 110,245 in regional NSW and 110,762 in Sydney in August 2019, a gap the other way of 0.5%. Instead regional NSW had already cracked 110,000 by the time the enrolment statistics began to be reported on the new boundaries in February 2016.
The redistribution had been based on projections of 3.5% in regional NSW and 9.4% in Sydney, but the reality was 10.1% in regional NSW and 8% in Sydney.
So it’s not a story about COVID-19 shifting population away from Sydney – indeed all of these incorrect projections cover a period before the pandemic. This next chart shows how the gap in enrolment shifted over the last seven years.
The gap between regional and Sydney enrolments actually peaked in early 2019, and since then has slightly shrunk, although it is still above the levels in 2016, let alone the projected trends expected at the time.
I'm not sure I fully understand why things went wrong, but the simplest explanation seems to be that Sydney had been growing faster in the years leading up to the redistribution, and the redistribution expected those trends to continue. They did not, and thus the numbers have fallen quite far out of line.
Finally, this chart shows every seat in NSW. Seats are colour-coded according to whether they are in Sydney, and the chart shows how much the seat grew in excess of the projection leading up to August 2019 (negative numbers indicate that actual growth fell short of the projection).
would expect in northern sydney that perhaps Mackellar is lost with Warringah taking over and losing the Mosman bit to a rejigged north shore arrangement
I think Northern Sydney will be expanding further west, being pushed along by Warringah expanding a bit more into Mackellar and North Sydney, pushing North Sydney further into Bennelong and also seeing Bradfield expand further into Berowra, which will then push west.
Agreed as well that the most likely seat to be lost would be Blaxland, as it will be squeezed beyond recognition.
It won’t be Mackellar. It’s a corner seat. If you abolished it, you’d suck up Warringah to the point where it would basically become Mackellar.
I don’t think NSW will end up losing a division, but given that they would do so on the latest data, it seems almost inevitable that the AEC will make a declaration under section 59(5) of the Electoral Act to defer the redistribution until after the determination of entitlements in July.
Regardless of the seat entitlement in the end, the electoral map in NSW will look very different post the next redistribution.
There are some seats which logically can’t be abolished or significantly altered due to geography – Kingsford Smith, Wentworth, Warringah, Mackellar, etc. These seats will all need to shift west causing a knock on effect.
I’m particularly interested on the effects on the seat of Sydney. Kingsford Smith and Wentworth are both under quota and the only seat they can both take territory from is Sydney (it doesn’t make sense for them to trade with each other). I would expect Sydney to look remarkably different post redistribution as the two Eastern Sydney seats move more into the Inner City.
Blaxland is probably the most logical seat to abolish. Alternatively another middle ring seat like Watson or Parramatta could make way for the westward shift of seats.
On Ben’s question of “why is there such a huge divergence between enrolments in Sydney and regional NSW?” – my theory is – and theory is all it is – is that the AEC use ABS generated forecasts for the projection. These would be based on population forecasts and then worked backwards to get the voter projections. When the working backwards is done, the measure of voters will be fairly crude and not take into account different levels of citizenship (and hence voting enrolment). Sydney has a much larger share of non-citizens due to immigration whilst regional NSW has a much higher citizenship level and this is reflected in the enrolments.
isn’t Victoria population due to grow & if so why remove a federal seat?
It’s a good point that redistributed mentioned. When working out the determination, the commisison have to take the entire population into account, but then the indiviaul seats are based only on enrolled voters. That means any area with high migrant permanent residents or non-enrolled citizens will be under-represented. Same for any areas with high numbers of children.
I think another issue that is particular to NSW is the Sydney basin is so constrained by geography. Logically the over-populated Central Coast and Hunter seats would probably shift and Berowra and Mackellar move northwards to take some of that excess. However Broken Bay is such an impenatrable boundary that there’s no logical or feasbile way to cross it.
Same in the south, there was a lot of furore in 2014 when Cook crossed the Georges River. Even within Sydney, Warrringah or Wentworth aren’t crossing the Harbour any time soon.
The same situation occurs in the west, where the Blue Mountains virtually constrain Macquarie and by extension stop any expansion of the western Sydney seats. The only real place to shift voters out of or into Sydney is via the Hume corridor, which leads to a massive dump of electors in the Macarthur area.
But then who’s willing to cross the natural boundaries.
If Blaxland was to be the seat abolished do you think Jason Clare would run in Fowler or Banks or another seat/retire?
Darren, I think it may be possible to have a district straddle the Sutherland Shire and northern Wollongong suburbs in a manner similar to the state seat of Heathcote. In fact, either a revised Hughes or Cunningham will likely have that configuration due to the need for Hughes, Cook and the middle ring districts around Bankstown (namely Watson and Blaxland) to gain electors.
Bob, whilst NSW and Victoria are likely to see their populations grow with the resumption of international migration, it will take time for this effect to flow through. That is the problem with the current methodology, it uses data that is at least 6-12 months old and with recent events like covid, it results in states having frequent redistributions almost every election cycle. Perhaps having a system similar to the US where the entitlement determination is made after each 5-year census and all states/territories go through the redistribution process simultaneously will be better. Obviously, this would also require fixed terms for it to work properly.
To Ben’s question – I think the Redistribution Committee squibbed some hard decisions in 2016 – and kicked a few things down the road, justifying that they were able to do it under the projections. For one bizarre example, the moved the northern boundary of North Sydney, south, instead of the general expectation that they would move it north, to take in all of Willoughby Council (making it geographically smaller when eastern Sydney seats needed to get bigger). This split the major centre of Chatswood precisely in two. This would have been done to avoid knock on effects into Bradfield.
The current boundaries in many electorates in both NSW and VIC split major centres into different divisions when they should be united into one for example, Chatswood is split between North Sydney and Bradfield; Hurstville is split between Banks and Barton; Box Hill is split between Menzies and Chisholm; Dandenong is split between Issacs and Bruce. I believe there are more but I can’t think of them on top of my head. Not to mention there are some boundaries just flat out bizarre geographically and demographically such as Barton crossing the Cooks River, Fowler crossing the Georges River and Cook crossing the Georges River. The upcoming redistributions in both states should rectify this.
Blaxland is a clear candidate for the chop but the other one that I could make a case for is Berowra which, whilst it may conform to the Hornsby LGA, is essentially made up of 3 very different electoral demographics and no common community of interest.
My submission along those lines would be:
– for the northern boundary of North Sydney to move north taking in all of Chatswood and Willoughby.
– Warringah’s northern boundary could extend further up the peninsular with McKellar taking St Ives and areas west of Arterial Road from Bradfield.
– Bradfield would then take in all of Hornsby and extend all the way up the nothern transport corridor to the Hawkesbury River and potentially down the Northern line to probably Pennant Hills.
– Bennelong picks up Beecroft and Cheltenham
– West Pennant Hills and Cherrybrook gravitate more to Castle Hill as a hub as may much of the semi-rural parts of Berowra so would probably allocate most to Mitchell. Will there be some degree of boundary reajustments for Mitchell … probably but WPH/Cherrybrook would be what makes up the numbers. Semi rural booths are generally small albeit overwhelmingly Lib. Some could conceivably go to Macquarie or even Greenway.
I think Fowler is likely to be the one abolished. Chipping Norton could move into Hughes, Liverpool could move into Werriwa, Abbotsbury/Greenfield Park could move into McMahon and Fairfield/Cabramatta could move into Blaxland. Not to mention the political ramifications make both major parties likely to support abolishing Fowler. Labor would avoid a musical chair scenario like in the state redistribution and it puts Dai Le in a tricky spot by splitting her base. Of course the down side for Labor is McMahon becomes more competitive to the Liberals but in the short term the Liberals would still be unlikely to win it and it makes the Liberals more open to endorsing Fowler’s abolition. It also means tactical voting for Dai Le in more affluent areas of Fowler like in the 2022 federal election won’t occur by putting them into seats where the Liberals actually have a shot at winning.
Bob, it’s not about whether you gain population, but whether you gain population faster than other states. Check out Monday’s blog post which shows the trends as a proportion of a seat quota.
Actually the population estimate for Victoria went backwards by about 83,000 between September and December 2021 (NSW went backwards by about 91,000) because the estimates were aligned to the new census.
Great point @redistributed. I also noticed this disconnect between population and enrolment numbers while digging into this for Queensland. To determine seat-entitlement quotas: population-count and crude population estimates are used. Not “enrolled-voters” or “eligible-voters”. Once a state has been assigned its quotas, the divisions themselves are configured based on “enrolled-voters”.
So an internationally-facing state like NSW, with strong migration inflows, gets a population boost that can allow it to achieve a pumped up quota. There is a lag between when a migrant arrives and potentially becomes a citizen and enrolled to vote. They might also end up in another region or state before then. Not all migrants decide to become a citizen and enrol to vote either.
A state with less international migration and a higher proportion of citizens will have a comparatively lower population count to contribute to its quota. Subsequently, they will have a higher average divisional enrolment in comparison to other states.
Theoretically, the same could also be true with states that are undergoing a baby-boom and which have a disproportionate amount of children in its population pyramid. Although these children are not eligible to vote, they still count towards the population-count used in determining the quota.
Another case in which population count would deviate significantly from enrolment is the states with high indigenous populations. Pretty fair to account for the potential improvements to enrolments of indigenous Australians.
Some would also argue that the benefit of using population instead of enrolment figures for the quota is that it provides longevity to the quotas for the next 5 – 10 years since they account for new voters that come of age in that period, or migrants that become citizens.
So many issues to address and I won’t cover them all here.
Re NSW’s entitlement. The latest population data published by the ABS on 15/12/22, shows NSW currently has 46.47 quotas, down from 49.4954 quotas in September 22. Unless population trends reversed prior to the end of last year, it’s almost inevitable that NSW will revert to 46 Divisions. Unless the parliament votes to increase the number of senators from the States. (I hear, second hand, that Malcolm Mackerras believes this to be an option under consideration.)
I have also been in communications with a person high up in the Redistribution section of the AEC. I am told that if NSW is at risk of gaining or losing a Division when it’s Redistribution is supposed to commence, the Redistribution can be deferred until the publication of the Determination mid-year.
Conor – Maybe Wentworth moves a touch west to align it’s current Sydney border but takes a larger strip off the top of Kingsford-Smith.
KS then moves west / north west / (south west?) as needed, perhaps taking in a southern section of Sydney? End result is Sydney looking largely similar to how it is currently.
RZ, if Fowler was abolished, Dai Le would just contest McMahon (which would contain more of her base of Fairfield).
IMHO there’s no way would Labor want to risk Chris Bowen being taken out.
Plus it would be so obviously a political hit job for Labor to push for abolishing Fowler, that Le would likely gain even more sympathy and Labor even more backlash locally.
@commonwombat
That was exactly my idea, except in my case it was Bradfield that got the chop but the new Berowra is essentially a renamed Bradfield. Bennelong may have to shed areas like Ermington if it expand north though – the numbers are basically perfect rn.
I also thought about renaming North Sydney (Yes, federation names, but so was Melbourne Ports).
Maybe Mack would be a good name, after Ted Mack. I reckon some cross-bench politicians should have divisions named after them (e.g. Brown, Katter, Chipp). I must concede that I ain’t so knowledgeable about North Sydney despite living in the electorate all my 21.5-year life, so maybe there is a better name.
Another option for Northern Sydney (that I haven’t thought in detail at all mind you) is to abolish North Sydney because I think it covers several disparate communities. You will notice that areas like St Leonards/Chatswood are VERY different to Northbridge/Castlecrag or even Longueville/Riverview who are also quite different to Lane Cove. I think it’ll be interesting how North Sydney gets chopped up in this circumstance.
As for Western Sydney, I was thinking:
Greenway and Chifley shifts south, kicking McMahon out of Blacktown LGA but letting sections of Macquarie into the said LGA
McMahon becomes all of Fairfield LGA minus Horsley Park and Cecil Park (Close to current Fowler)
Fowler becomes the area of Liverpool LGA between Georges River and *whatever you call that waterway that separates postcode 2171 and 2179* (Close to current Werriwa)
Werriwa becomes all of Campbelltown LGA (Close to current Macarthur)
Hughes gains the area south of Georges River within Liverpool lGA (Ruixing basically said this one already)
Lindsay gains St Clair and Erskine Park but sheds Wallacia, Mulgoa, Badgerys Creek, Mt Vernon, Kemps Creek and Luddenham
Macarthur becomes all of Camden and Wollondilly LGA, plus scraps of Liverpool/Fairfield/Penrith LGA that didn’t make it to McMahon/Fowler/Hughes/Lindsay (IDK if this one in particular is numerically okay)
Hume gets pushed out back into the regions as if the 2016 redistribution never happened, thereby partly solving the issues with the Regions being underrepresented/over quota without creating a new regional seat.
In this case, Freelander moves to Werriwa, Stanley moves to Fowler and Le moves to McMahon where she has to fight Bowen (who used to be mayor). IDK who runs for Macarthur, because I assume Well-done Angus wants to stay in Hume (Wiki says he lives in Goulburn)
The current NSW boundaries have a few boundary horrors which it would seem could be taken out in a redistribution. The worst horrors at present are:
– Eden Monaro extending west of the Snowy Mountains into Tumut and Tumbarumba
– Hume extending from Goulburn to Camden but having the Southern Highlands taken out
– Whitlam joining the South Highlands to Shellharbour with little or no community of interest
– Cook extending north of the Georges River.
It would seem at present – and the projections may preclude this – that a combination of Sutherland Shire, Wollongong, Shellharbour, Kiama and Shoalhaven can comfortably accommodate 4 seats quite comfortably.
Cook could be a Sutherland Shire seat only. Hughes keep Menai and Bangor and extend south into Northern Wollongong. Cunningham would be abolished. Whitlam be a Wollongong seat. Gilmore take in part of Shellharbour, Kiama and Shoalhaven.
Eden Monaro could take the Batemans Bay area to allow the Western Snowy areas to go to an area of greater community of interest.
Hume can have the Southern Highlands back and possibly some of Wollondilly if needed. It would seem that there needs to be a new seat around Camden.
I agree with others that either Blaxland or Berowra would be a candidate for abolition.
@Leon,
I think redistributed lists the notable horrors, that are mainly in the ” (non)community of interest” bucket. I don’t think your qualms about North Sydney amount to much in comparison. Just because most of one suburb has harbour waterside views and the neighbouring ones don’t, doesn’t mean there isn’t a community of interest.
I can assure you that Chatswood and Northbridge are not very disparate communities. Nor is Longueville and Lane Cove. Unless you are thinking that there should be a single seat made up of all the high rise towers up the train line from Milsons Point to Hornsby and another seat comprising all the harbourside suburbs adjacent?? I am not sure even in Florida they draw seats like that!
Some of the worst seat Boundaries have been identified. COOK..put it solely in Sutherland Shire. Where Cook.ends Hughes starts..I would say Hughes should include all the state seat of Heathcote
Banks I would start with the entire state seat of East Hills.then build out
HUME… made up of Camden. Goulburn.and a lot of the Wollondilly area. Think the way to go is Take Goulburn out of the seat… is it possible for Bowral to be included. Maybe abolish Whitlam and see what the flow on is. Eden Monaro surrounds Canberra. Not that bad as relatively close. Would Goulburn fit there. Do you keep the same configuration for Calare.. Orange Bathurst Lithgow.. or do you put Orange in a different seat to Bathurst and Lithgow. Think both Bathurst and Lithgow need to be together. Just ideas..
Forget what I said about North Sydney
@Mick Quinlivan
Makes no sense to push Hume closer to Sydney when the reverse has to happen. The corridor of Werriwa, MacArthur and Hume all have to push southwest as it’s the only geographic barrier surrounding Sydney which reasonably should could be crossed. Sydney is under quota and all of the seats in greater Sydney generally have to get bigger and take some of the excess population from regional NSW. Not a fan of Hughes crossing into Wollongong, or Heathcote either. Wollongong and the shire are two politically distinct communities, one safely Labor and one more to the Libs. Crossing it is just creating another mess like Macquarie.
Regional NSW will be interesting.
– Eden Monaro rightly should lose the parts west of the ACT and give them to Farrer and Riverina, take some of Gilmore which can push the seats on the south coast to the north until it hits the Cunningham/Hughes border. Understandable though if leaving EM generally the way it is is needed to not make Whitlam more of a Shellharbour mixed with Mittagong monstrosity.
– Hopefully one day the house is expanded to solve the issue of Wagga Wagga and Albury being too big to be in a seat together but too small to have their own seats. Riverina is barely based in Riverina by including Forbes and Parkes.
– Parkes will have to push out, probably to the east into New England as a result of the statewide clockwise movement in regional NSW from seats being pushed out through Werriwa, Macarthur and Hume into the rest of them.
– Hunter and Paterson being quite over quota is interesting. Hunter might become what Charlton once was before it was abolished, leaving a lot of its northern part to be taken by New England. Paterson moving north as the only one (can’t cross great dividing range) to take surplus from the north coast will be interesting as well, becoming more liberal most likely on an already small margin for Labor. All the seats north of the Hawkesbury will have to move a little north, and maybe a new seat in the area if NSW doesn’t lose one.
For metropolitan Sydney I’d personally like to see Berowra abolished and Bradfield pick up the pieces. Either way all the seats in northern Sydney are going to be largely unrecognised except for Warringah and Mackellar who have geography/corners to back up their existences. Hornsby to Bradfield and parts like Arcadia and Pennant Hills to Mitchell maybe.
At the end of the day on pure borders and % of it’s original territory retained we likely will see more than one seat “abolished”, probably both Berowra and Blaxland as both northern Sydney and eastern Sydney need to move west, and the flow on effects will be significant.
As for personal preference hopefully the house is expanded enough one day to give Richmond/Windsor their own seat and stop forcing them with the ardently Labor blue mountains, and vice versa. Political communities separated by a very strong geographic boundary forced together because crossing the borders into Lithgow is even more ridiculous, as is essentially tearing apart Lindsay/Penrith by mixing the blue mountains with parts of it around Blaxland to fill a quota.
@Smac
I always liked the idea of pairing the rural parts of The Hills LGA with Hawkesbury LGA, just like in the state seat of Hawkesbury. Given what is happening to Northern Sydney it might work.
But then again (as you mentioned), Blue Mountains LGA… Where can that be paired with???
Leon, I think the blue mountains area may end up having to be paired with lithgow and Bathurst. Whilst not an ideal configuration, a similar arrangement occurs with the district of groom in Queensland that covers both Toowoomba and the darling downs.
@Yoh An
Okay, numerically that would be great. If my suggestion on Hume/Western Sydney also gets applied then no new seats would likely have to be created in the regions as Hume and Macquarie gets pushed out enough.
I wonder how Templeman will think about this though? She has a personal vote apparently (source: others comments in Macquarie 2022 say she worked particularly in that area despite being from Blue Mts) in Hawkesbury that weakens the conservative-ness of their votes and that wouldn’t extend to Bathurst/Lithgow/surrounds.
Leon, it’s worth noting that in 2019 despite Hawkesbury being 65% Liberal Templeman still held on, so it’s not like she really needs it to hang on. Lithgow is traditionally quite left-wing and Bathurst is traditionally a swing city, in theory a Macquarie containing both cities should be more Labor than one containing Hawkesbury (indeed when Macquarie was the Blue Mountains/Lithgow/Bathurst it was solidly Labor – and was the last regional seat to have a Labor PM).
@Chaisa
Makes sense. By the way, what specifically causes Bathurst to be a swing zone rather than safe Labor?
Looking at the numbers in some Victorian provincial cities, it looks like Labor does well in Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat. Greens don’t do that badly there either. Hell, I could be wrong but aren’t they all mining cities as well? (I mean they’re no Hunter but still)
Since Bathurst is a swing area, but is a mining town like those 3, is there something I missed that distinguishes Bathurst from the 3 I said above? (Blue Mountains have a closer pattern to those 3 Vic cities)
Sorry, I am not all that familiar with regions.
Leon, I think Ballarat and Bendigo were former mining towns but now have the most focus on service based industries like hospitality and government functions such as education and healthcare. I believe Geelong is also in the same situation. Therefore, all three places are considered alp leaning to a certain degree.
In contrast, Bathurst retains a strong mining focus and hasn’t transitioned to the service based industry sector that the Victorian towns have, so it remains swing like or conservative leaning.
I agree with Yoh An, there has been a significant increase in public service employment in those 3 regional Victorian cities. This is a legacy of the Bracks election in 1999. Labor has invested in moving public service jobs and also invested a lot in the rail lines to those 3 cities. This has lifted the popularity of Labor long term in these areas.
Nimalan is right – NSW Govt never made the public sector investments in regional communities, and when they did it was concentrated in Wollongong and Newcastle (which are by coincidence are safely Labor). Bathurst is also nowhere near the size of Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong. A lot of those mid-size inland cities in NSW like Bathurst, Orange, Wagga Wagga and Albury still serve as agricultural centres.
On the idea of resurrecting the the 2007 configuration of Macquarie by drawing it out to Bathurst: that is a live possibility if NSW retains its 47 seats (to avoid having to abolish a seat in Greater Sydney); but unlikely if NSW drops to 46 seats (which would certainly see the abolition of a Sydney seat).
@Leon
The mining history of the four cities is complicated….Bathurst isn’t really a mining city and neither is Geelong (though it is heavily industrial), whereas Bendigo and Ballarat are gold rather than coal mining cities.
As Nimalan/Yoh An imply the difference is that the Victorian cities are larger and more public service reliant. In that sense, the closer equivalents are Newcastle and Wollongong which haven’t really shifted right (the parts of those cities which have aren’t as urban [i.e. the seat of Hunter]).
places im hearing about being abolished are the teal seats, Watson (which is Tony Burke) and even Grayndler (albos seat)
redistribution most likely going ahead in 3 weeks since theres been no announcement on a deferral probably best they do it now because that way its probably done by the time it comes july as they will be busy with wa and vic so its probably a good idea to get nsw out of the way
@Spiderman, the last time a redistribution was deferred – Tasmania in 2016 – there was no word of it until the day the scheduled redistribution was due to commence.
There are provisions in the Act to defer a redistribution under Section 59 if:
– the redistribution of scheduled to start after the first sitting of Parliament after an election, and
– before the determination is made (in the 13 months after Parliament sits)
– the Electoral Commission is of the opinion that the state may change the number of seats they are entitled to.
All three conditions will be met, so there is no way that they will start one now be able to have it finished in time for the determination in July.
All to probably redo it again because the determination changes the number of seats in NSW.
I think Greenway is more likely. Remember when it got chopped up around 2007 and got much of the Hawkesbury only to be reversed in 2010?
Mitchell could shift west, Chifley would also shift boundaries. The reason why I think this is because why would they abolish a seat held by a former prime minister? It doesn’t happen anymore. Name the last prime minister who’s seat was abolished, You would probably have to go back to McMahon, and he was ranked bottom tier of PM’s.
PM’s seats almost never get abolished is my point it just doesn’t really ever happen. So why would the AEC do it this time when they can just abolish another seat and shift the boundaries?
Blaxland isn’t going anywhere, Nor is Bennelong, Werriwa, Wills, Fremantle, Macquarie, Higgins, Kooyong, Wannon, etc.
I don’t think that’s a criteria, Daniel. They don’t abolish seats named after PMs but if a state keeps losing seats at a certain point your options are limited.
@Daniel T why would fremantle go anywhere that in WA
I will be making a submission that one electorate be renamed Molan after the recently passed Jim Molan for his great service to his country
I’m sure Jim Molan will be smiling down (or perhaps up) on you for having some new seat in Perth named after him.
@ Daniel Umm NSW?
Why Jim Molan out of everyone else it could be? For a start at least give a seat to Wran for Neville Wran. Or a seat of Stanley for the first woman elected to NSW parliament.
NSW is more likely to lose a seat than gain one Ben
Daniel cowboy, I think Ben is referring to renaming one of the existing seats rather than a new seat. Although I don’t really see much of an issue with the existing names and also Molan whilst being a former army general who did lead the Sovereign borders operation, is probably not that of a significant nationwide figure to warrant naming a district after him.
Oh I see, you want to rename an existing seat.
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