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will commence next month for New South Wales with its current 47 seats, but that redistribution may end up being superseded in the middle of the year if New South Wales loses a seat, which is quite possible.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).
Ben, generally the people chosen to have seats named after them are either former prime ministers, or people that have had an extremely significant impact on Australian society as politicians and colonial administrators, artists, scientists, engineers, and the like. The only senators that I can think of that have their own seats are Bonner, the first Indigenous federal politician, and Gorton, the prime minister.
You also forget he served in the military before that. I’ve crunched the numbers and it’s my opinion Blaxland should be the seat that is disbanded. Il publish what I’ve calculated later on
@Daniel t this is federal politics
I would prefer Queensland to gain a seat over WA because WA previously gained a seat then lost a seat and now gaining? The cycle shouldn’t keep going back and forth, the AEC should make their mind up and base it off of long term trends and projections.
There is a bigger case for another Queensland seat, and a case for an odd number of seats nationally than an even number of seats. (Can you imagine a deadlocked 75-75 parliament??) 151 prevents this.
Stirling should never have been abolished in the first place if they knew this would happen (although the Liberals are probably happy it was abolished because it would have easily gone Labor)
The question is, will the redistribution cost Labor Tangney even though the Liberals would be favoured to take it back anyway with a general swing back to them?
@daniel t it can’t be deadlocked at 75-75 because the speaker does not vote unless there is a tie so your making g a case for an even number. The wa seat is because it’s the law. Qld may also gain a seat in July if they get enough to get them over the threshold.
ive changed my opinion of the electorate to be abolished from blaxland to barton however blaxland should be renamed watson and watson barton after the population largely move west.
Previous redistribution was 25 Feb 2016, so I had thought there might be a notice in the Gazette today deferring the new NSW redistribution until after the entitlement determination, but it isn’t there. However it seems that the AEC has 30 days from the end of the 7 years to commence the redistribution and I assume they can take the same time to decide on a deferral.
I’m now wondering if they might wait until after the next population update (due 16 March) to see if that might offer clarity. Note that only clarity in favour of 47 divisions would be useful. Even if it makes clear that it will be 46, they can’t pre-empt the official determination in July and start a 46-division redistribution before then.
based on the january numbers they gained 17000 new electors and only need a 22,000 increase in population to maintain their 47 seats if this trend continues in february numbers they will retain the 47th seat though we will see a either new seat in the regions and one abolished in sydney or sydney seats will expand north and south given both are massively over quota and sydney under quota
@Dean, yes I expected there would be an announcement on Monday, but still nothing. As you said they have 30 days to start the process. The FAQ says that it may be deferred if “formal direction to start the redistribution is due within 13 months” so I guess that means they can allow the 30 days before deferral. I’d say they most likely are planning to defer but maybe want to see the March numbers first.
@ben the entitlement determination is based on the quarterly ABS population statistics, not the monthly electoral roll numbers, so the numbers on the AEC website aren’t relevant. That’s probably why you’re seeing Queensland pick up an electorate, when the ABS figures say it’s not going to happen.
@Darren if you look at the parliament house numbers Queensland requires a population increase of 8000 between December and July/August. Nsw needs 22000 to keep its 47th seat
It appears they decided to defer the redistribution until after the state seat entitlements have been determined.
https://www.aec.gov.au/media/2023/03-01.htm
Thanks I read somewhere they will be relying on final numbers released shortly before the distribution meaning June numbers which are released in july
Sept 2022 population estimates are out.
NSW has slipped to 46.43 quotas, so the loss of a division now looks very likely.
@ Dean link please also is that projected?
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/latest-release
Not projected. But NSW has been growing slower than the country as a whole, so the trend is firmly away from retaining the 47th division.
By my calcs they would need to grow by about 0.2% more than the rest of the country in the next quarter to retain the division. So it the other states grow by 0.4%, NSW would need to grow by 0.6%.
they had a net loss of population and they needed a net gain so its loss is almost inevitable. qld is in my opinion on track to get its 31st seat they only need another net gain of 28,000 before they get it and thats not including projected numbers so id give 80-20 odds on getting that fourth seat il wait til projected number s are relased and then i should be able to make a defeinte call
sorry if this is a stupid question but whats the perfect quota number for each division? should each electorate have 100,000 people? ideally.
Well the quota is the total enrolment for the state divided by the number of seats. So if NSW is reduced to 46 seats, the quota would be 1/46th of the total enrolment in NSW. So the quota is constantly increasing with population growth and is slightly different from state to state.
Almost all under-quota seats are east of Parramatta’s CBD. This includes electorates from Fowler to Berowra and everything except the seat of Sydney itself. I sense an abolition of a seat in metro Sydney. The last redistribution saw abolition and name changes in the Illawarra and Hunter.
It might be another safe Labor seat that gets the chop, this time south of the Parramatta River (e.g. Blaxland), if not one of the safe inland Liberal seats (Bradfield or Berowra) so that the coastal electorates can expand westward.
168,652 is way too high of an average for a seat!!! Australia is severely underrepresented compared to other countries if you factor in population. Please increase the parliament seat count to 250 or 300. or slowly increase after each cycle. USA also is underrepresented using this rule. UK would be overrepresented.
In 30 years time as the population keeps growing, 200k people per seat would be way too many. too much for an MP to handle. and it will become impossible to contact your local MP as the more electors, the more workload.
Why has the Australian house got stuck at 150-151 seats? Is there a particular reason? If anything, all states should be gaining seats to keep up with this countries population increase.
I actually think 100k people per seat would be much fairer than the current average of 170k.
Daniel T,
In response to your query “Why has the Australian house got stuck at 150-151 seats? Is there a particular reason? If anything, all states should be gaining seats to keep up with this countries population increase.”
Section 24 of the constitution limits the number of representatives to twice that of the senators. So the house of reps is capped at 152.
Also there is the complication that the Original States – practically only relevant to Tasmania – are guaranteed 5 seats in the representatives regardless of population. Which is why the quota in Tasmania for the HOR is much lower than main land Australia……
Hope that assists.
Pollster and Daniel,
I have thought we should start with working out the Tasmanian Quota, then use that Quota for all house seats.
I did a quick and dirty calculation a while ago, I think I ended up with about 200 house seats and 100 Senate seats, but someone with better access to data could work it out better than my back of the envelope calculation.
It would improve the Senate, but might just mean a lot more ‘safe’ house seats?
Political science research suggests that increasing the number of seats in an assembly, even if they are all single-member, still increases the amount of diversity in terms of parties elected – look up the Seat Product Model.
I know that many people are proposing the loss of a seat like Blaxland, but I think NSW losing Bradfield is a better option. The teal seats are currently WELL under quota. With the abolition of Bradfield this is what I would envisage would happen.
Scenario 1)
North Sydney would move east to pick up the rest of that peninsula up to Mosman from Warringah.
Warringah would move north, possibly even up to Lake Narrabeen Lagoon, depending on population numbers.
Mackellar would move west taking in about 1/3 of Bradfield, while the much more under quota Berowra would move east to take up Hornsby, Wahroonga and Waitara, which identify more closely to the Hornsby Shire Council than to other parts of the present-day electorate near the border with North Sydney.
Scenario 2)
Waringah pushes north, and west to meet up with the Warringah Freeway.
North Sydney is squeezed upwards into Bradfield, taking in suburbs like Killara and Lindfield.
Mackellar would push only slightly west, so that its deficit is around 2-4%.
Berowra would take in the rest of currently Bradfield
Scenario 3)
Waringah pushes north, and west to meet up with the Warringah Freeway.
North Sydney is squeezed upwards into Bradfield, taking in suburbs like Killara and Lindfield.
Mackellar pushes MAJORLY west, taking in suburbs like Turramurra and North Wahroonga.
Berowra takes the rest of Bradfield, around an equal 50/50 split between it and Mackellar.
To fix up the rest of the deficit in Berowra, that electorate would expand into Mitchell, taking the newer suburbs of Box Hill, Gables and Nelson, and potentially (unlikely) the rest of West Pennant Hills and a bit of North Rocks.
This area of Sydney is in a much greater deficit than Blaxland, Watson, Barton and Banks is. We also have to look at population projections. The Northern Beaches will grow much slower than the aforementioned electorates, they should be kept to safeguard that area’s growth, especially considering the growth there that has been driven by the Sydney Metro South West. Trends are just as, if not more important than current electoral rolls (As we have seen in state electorates like Riverstone and Kellyville).
@Bajoc il be proposing either Whitlam or Cunningham be abolished. Given Whitlam is after a Prime Minster most likely Cunningham, however its not unheard of for a division named after a PM to be abolished then brought back re Watson. But il be saying Whitlam moves north and Cunningham goes. il also be combiing blue mountain, wollondilly, oberon and lithgow. then those under quota seats can be moved west and south
Neither of them need to or should be abolished. They are both over quota. All surrounding seats (excluding Hughes) are also over. There are much more important regions of NSW that need to have their boundaries changed or a seat abolished. You can argue the case for Watson, Blaxland, Barton, or Bradfield like I have. But I do not believe that there is enough of a population deficit in Whitlam and Cunningham to render their abolition. It is absurd to even promote that! Warringah and Wentworth need serious attention. Cunningham and Whitlam should be the least of your concerns, and they will most certainly be the least of the AEC’s concerns.
@waiting for July Cunningham is definitely one thing I’ve considered, in fact I suggested it in 2016.
Although id essentially remove Hughes, which has no coherent focus. Whitlam moves into Illawarra and Shellharbour, losing Kiama and the Southern Highlands. Meanwhile Cunningham is renamed Hughes and moves up to the excess Sutherland and northern Illawarra. Cook can then hopefully move back across the St George’s River too.
The changes with Whitlam then allow Hume and MacArthur to move out and then that carries cascades right through to Sydney.
The only issue then is that it doesn’t do anything to help the Northern Beaches and North Shore, so that would need some friends refinement.
@bajoc it probly wont be either depending on numbers as il probly just move them both further north. was just stating what i was planning in relation to a neighboring area and this will see them redrawn at very least. as i dont yet have access to the numbers is all
there was a news report this morning people are deserting nsw for qld.
I personally never liked Whitlam/Throsby taking in parts of Wingecarribee. Can someone justify this? Or else I will attempt to find a way to fix that.
Also, none of Camden LGA should be paired with any of Wingecarribee LGA and that is something the current iteration of Hume have somehow managed to do. Someone called Hume the 2nd worst drawn boundaries (worst being the chopped up one in TAS (Franklin)) and it seems quite justified.
I am trying to sort out both regional and Sydney seats by starting at the corners. I am in the middle of the process but I think we will end up with VERY radical stuff. I will upload an idea when it is all done.
Maitland and Cessnock were the two fastest growing LGAs in regional NSW in 10 years. Add to that the abolition of Charlton (on the western shores of Lake Macquarie) at the last redistribution. Byron and Clarence Valley are also fast-growing. It’s not hard to see why the many of the most over-quota electorates are in the Hunter and on the north coast.
Camden LGA is the fastest-growing in the state. The greenfield housing estates are popping up in Macarthur, especially west of M31 – Hume Motorway. Macarthur is the most over-quota electorate in metro Sydney.
The projections are going to be key as they will dictate where the growth seats are. It will need to be a radical redistribution – one seat may be abolished – but also so many are well under quota (Wentworth, Warringah come to mind but there are also big swathes when seats are combined in Southern and Northern Sydney)- and some such as Macarthur, Hunter, Paterson, Gilmore that are well over quota. My view is that two seats may need to be abolished and one new one – possibly around Camden – created.
Agree Leon, the current version of Hume is like the old districts of Wakefield (SA) or Pearce (WA) that were drawn as hybrid urban-rural districts with no coherent focus/community of interest.
Ideally, Hume should be redrawn as a purely rural/regional district by losing its share of Camden Council. As many districts in the middle ring of Southwest Sydney are under quota, those seats (Fowler, Blaxland and Watson) can all be boosted by shifting outwards to absorb the rapidly growing suburbs around Badgerys Creek. This would allow Werriwa and Macarthur to push further south and return to their old pre-2016 configuration.
@yoh an my suggestion is going to involve merging wollondilly, blue mountain, lithgow and oberon just waiting on elector numbers
Bajoc,
If a north of the harbour seat is to be axed then it should be Berowra. Why ? Because in itself; it has become a cobbled together mess of a seat which; whilst largely corresponding to the Hornsby LGA; has effectively 0 commonality of interest and has 3 very different voting demographics.
These being:
– the central railway road corridor which largely gravitates to the hub of Hornsby except for the southern end which is more towards Epping. Traditionally Lib leaning but increasingly less so with the turnover in housing stock towards medium/higher density
– the West Pennant Hills/Cherrybrook sprawl which now gravitates towards Castle Hill as a hub. Whilst less religious, this area votes much along the lines of Mitchell
– the semi rural areas of Hornsby LGA (Galston/Dural/Arcadia/Glenhaven/Glenorie. Again this area has more commonality with the Hills LGA to which it largely gravitates. Electorally, they don’t count the Lib vote but rather weigh it instead.
The service “hub” centre of Hornsby was split a decade ago between Berowra and Bradfield so why not unify it in the one seat ?
My boundary changes to accomodate said abolition would entail:
– North Sydney moving north to take it the entire Willoughby LGA. I could be open to taking it slightly further north maybe even to Lindfield. May be open to some flexibility on the eastern border with Warringah (ie Neutral Bay/Cremorne).
– Warringah moves further north up the Peninsular
– Mackellar moves west and takes in St Ives and all areas east of Arterial/Archbold Road from Mackellar. St Ives is already in the same state electorate (Davidson) as a large slab of Mackellar
– Bradfield moves north and west taking in all of Hornsby taking in the “corridor” north to the Hawkesbury River and south to Pennant Hills with Berowra Creek becoming the western boundary.
Most of the western part of Berowra should go to Mitchell with maybe some western semi-rural booths finding their way into Macquarie/Greenway. Beecroft/Cheltenham could find their way into Bennelong with the tip of Carlingford going to Parramatta.
This will drag Mitchell further north losing the areas south of the M2. This may also push Greenway east of Old Windsor Road but such a move has probably been inevitable.
The fall-out ?
Mackellar essentially becomes effectively unlosable for Libs but its loss to Scamps was really an outlier/anomaly and the most unlikely to defend.
North Sydney becomes a legitimately marginal seat.
Warringah probably remains status quo. It does lose some fertile ground for Stegall but much of its new turf was won by Scamps at the last election.
Bradfield will remain Liberal leaning but much less so. A lazy Lib MP could be bitten hard.
Mitchell regains unlosable status.
mackellar and warringah are the hardest one for me. i was thinking warringah should move north but after looking at a detailed map it appears mackellar takes in pittwater and half of the warringah lga. maybe the better poption would be to have mackellar take in the rest of the warringah lga and have warringah move west from mosman
I think we need to ditch the locality names at a federal level. Places like Parramatta and Sydney etc are duplicated at both state and federal levels. And as such will proposing changes.
@Commonwombat, I removed Bradfield with the intention of unifying the Hornsby region so Berowra would be able to take up most of that. These are my draft submissions:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1MoS8vmfwGXrp1JE1GJES33RqWZuuCpk&usp=sharing
Note: I’ve mainly focused on Northern/Northwestern Sydney, the rest is only in the early draft stages.
Mitchell Losses: Box Hill and regions south of the M2 as well as a bit of the “Knightsbridge” area around Glenhaven.
Mitchell Gains: West Pennant Hills
Berowra Losses: West Pennant Hills and Carlingford
Berowra Gains: Box Hill, Hornsby, Wahroonga, Turramurra and Pymble. This is to account for Berowra being -10% on population, and then loosing a large population centre around Carlingford/WPH.
Bennelong Losses: N/A
Bennelong Gains: the rest of the eastern peninsula to Hunters Hill
Parramatta Losses: parts of Merrylands and Granville
Parramatta Gains: Northmead, North Rocks, Winston Hills, Girraween
North Sydney Losses: Hunters Hill Peninsula and territory east of the Warringah Freeway
North Sydney Gains: Up to Gordon, although this might be a bit too much
I’ve only had a rough look at the population statistics, so these mighn’t line up to population as well as they otherwise could have.
There are also two key changes that I think NEED to come into effect. Cook needs to extend out to Sutherland and loose regions North of the Cook River, and Hughes needs to expand up to Chipping Norton. I don’t think the Electoral Commission likes major electoral crossings like these; the only one left in place is Warringah because of an obvious population deficit north of the harbour.
Please critique!
Looks good, @Bajoc certainly for northern Sydney if the population stats work out.
Your new Berowra contains a far bit of the old Bradfield and could therefore be re-named.
Good proposal Bajoc, I presume Hughes expands into Cunningham by absorbing northern parts of Wollongong council.
Agree High Street, Bradfield is a better name to be retained since Berowra is just a locality and the AEC guidelines say ‘avoid using locality/geographic names where possible’
It might be an Aboriginal word that means “place of many shells” – but it must be said its a pretty low priority to keep such a link. If it is kept on that basis alone, then perhaps Cook should be re-named “Cronulla” as it means “place of the small pink seashell”!
@Bajoc I think you have a very solid proposal that rectifies many of the major issues of the last redistribution such as the splitting of major centres such as Chatswood, Fowler straddling the Georges River, Barton straddling the Cooks River and Cook straddling the Georges River. That being said, I would suggest trying to reorientate Greenway and Chifley into east-west directions rather than north-south which gives better communities of interest IMHO with one seat being focused on rapidly growing growth areas and another on the more established working class areas. I’d also say that the Barton/Banks border should be slightly rearranged such that all of Hurstville is united in one seat (ideally in Banks). I think the Fowler/McMahon arrangement could be looked at so areas like Abbotsbury and Cecil Hills are put in McMahon (similar to the Mulgoa state electorate) while Fairfield is put into Fowler.
I forgot to add that I think it would also work for Sydney and Grayndler to be rearranged as east-west seats with Sydney occupying the CBD + Balmain area along the harbour and Grayndler essentially becoming a larger version of the Newtown state electorate rather than splitting a major area like Newtown in half, though I imagine Albo will not be too happy about that.
@berowras namesake is the town not the aboriginal word even if that’s named after the aboriginal word same with warringah both need to go
@ high street cook is named after James Cook. No chance
@Potatoes, even still the AEC usually classifies it as an Aboriginal word, and is reluctant to change it.
Probably even more so after being an Aboriginal word was used as justification for not changing the name of Corangamite in Victoria.
But I agree, locality names restrict hour much movement a division can get. Remember the furore when Parramatta wasn’t in the division of Parramatta.
Agree Darren, although I read the last Victoria redistribution report and the reasons for retaining Corangamite were both that it was an Aboriginal word and an original Federation district name. I think the AEC may be more inclined to change a name like Sydney (non-Aboriginal) or Berowra (non-Federation name) compared to Parramatta or Werriwa which satisfy dual criteria (Aboriginal word and Federation name).
@Bajoc An interesting approach and some nice looking boundaries, but I see some problems:
Macquarie, which you haven’t drawn, is well under quota. It’s quite likely to expand into the Emu Plains area. Yet you’ve left Lindsay’s western boundary unchanged and instead made changes at its eastern end.
There will probably be minimal changes to the Illawarra/South Coast seats given they are all close to quota. Drawing Hughes down to Stanwell Park is problematic. Where do these Illawarra/South Coast go?
It’s also undesirable to have Hume gobbling up even more Camden council. Ideally it should go the other way. That’s where the expansion of the Greater Sydney seats needs to be, not down the Illawarra.
I’m a bit dubious about the numbers here. For instance, Watson is well under quota, but doesn’t gain any area (and loses Lidcombe). How is that possible? Similarly, Reid probably needs to enlargen, but it’s gotten smaller.
Can agree with a good quotient of your proposed boundary changes for north of the harbour but am firmly of the view that Berowra is the seat that should be consigned to the dumpster bin of history as it is a complete mess of a seat with minimal actual commonalities of interest.
I agree that the Hornsby region should be integrated into the one seat but we may differ with our definitions. I see this as being the rail/road corridor from Pennant Hills north up to the Hawkesbury River with Berowra Creek/Galston gorge being the western boundary. The northern end of the actual North Shore (particularly Wahroonga/Turramurra) gravitate more to Hornsby as a “hub” so I would keep the central highway/rail corridor in that seat. My one dissenting point I feel this seat does NOT venture any further west than the line I have stated and that the semi-rural areas as well as WPH & Cherrybrook be accommodated in seats where they have greater community of interest (be that Mitchell/Greenway or even Macquarie).
Agree with North Sydney moving north and not just stopping at the boundary of Willoughby LGA. I think taking it up as far as Gordon is maybe pushing the envelope but if you can find a suitable point around Lindfield ? Can agree with losing Hunters Hill but unless you could actually pull off your “heist”of setting the northern border at Gordon, I think it will need to move east and absorb Neutral Bay & Cremorne at least.
Mackellar moving west and absorbing St Ives (Cowan Creek becoming the eastern border of Bradfield/western border of Mackellar) plus all areas east of Arterial/Archbold Road should be an additional 20k voters.
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