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will commence next month for New South Wales with its current 47 seats, but that redistribution may end up being superseded in the middle of the year if New South Wales loses a seat, which is quite possible.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).
I second what posters above have mentioned about Gwydir. Gwydir’s successors – Parkes and New England are under quota. I still think AEC should’ve kept its name as it is an original seat from 1901.
In hindsight, Charlton was the wrong seat to abolish last redistribution. Maitland and Cessnock were the two fastest growing LGAs in regional NSW in 10 years. Add to that, Byron and Clarence Valley LGAs are also fast-growing. The north coast from Lake Macquarie to the QLD border are full of over-quota seats.
A possibility is to create a seat around Port Stephens or Mid-North Coast and its neighbours will shrink geographically and maybe shift inland to take in smaller, rural communities and less large coastal towns.
Parkes, being so under-quota, can take Parkes and Forbes from Riverina. At least the electorate has something to do with Parkes, the town. Parkes, the electorate, doesn’t have either the namesake town nor Henry Parkes’s old constituency of Tenterfield. Riverina can shift east and take pieces of Hume and Calare.
It was unavoidable that a seat in the Hunter/North Coast region would be abolished given the massive enrolment shortfalls at the time. The part they got wrong was the projections: forecasting even greater enrolment shortfalls. So whilst an amalgamation of Hunter and Charlton was logical, in hindsight we can say it should not have been drawn all the way out to Muswellbrook.
Those errors will be rectified this time. But with NSW set to lose a seat there’s not likely to be a new electorate anywhere.
I wonder how they do the enrolment projections, because I read somewhere that projections for some rural WA seats (namely Durack and O’Connor) at the recent redistribution were forecast to decline. However, both have continued to grow at considerable rate almost on par with some of the urban districts.
@david walsh he retired because of its abolition. why he didnt try for new england against tony windsor is beyond me. gwydir was absorbed by parkes and the rest by hunter
theres no way gwydir could come back. parkes and new england dont even have enough for 2 atm
@votante the problem is new england was an original division to so was parkes(though it was revived from the old one) and Parkes is named after a former prime minister so they probably had little choice as anyway you look at it an original division would need to be abolished as they tend to want to keep divisions named after prime ministers. in regards to parkes im gonna suggest that it takes in Parkes and liverpool plains but lose the remainder of gwydir to new england to reunite that shire
@High St
My idea around Castle Cove is at least not as stupid or insane as some would think, even if still not the “best” option (and we will have crap boundaries at least somewhere in Northern Sydney no matter what this time. We can’t help this).
Also, it turns out even if St Ives gets into Mackellar, The 2 Northern Beaches seats need to expand further and I would rather not have Cremorne/Neutral Bay in North Sydney.
School catchment boundaries show that Castle Cove, 90% of Middle cove, and 5% of Castlecrag would be allocated to Killarney Heights High School (Unless they go to Willoughby Girls). This section of the catchment was actually the exact same as Warringah 2007.
If there was not to be a seat abolished in NSW then a new version of Gwydir might be feasible extending way down into the Hunter Valley. This was because the 10 coastal seats are currently – when combined – over 50% when the quotas are combined and a new seat or radical change would be the only way to avoid a continuation of the intrastate malapportionment. When the abolished seats is taken into account this comes down to about 30% which can be largely accommodated within the seats.
“I don’t think King would get up, naming after a colonial governor is very 20th century. I think unless they are someone extraordiary, naming a division for any white male from the 18th or 19th century is probably past its time.”
That is a disgustingly racist statement. Refusing to use names, or deleting names from existing localities, based on the skin colour of the person is a shameful approach to the issue.
@ Entrepreneur, are white people victims of racism in this country or could they ever be?
@entrepreneur precisely I for one am proud to be white and of our colonial history. Were there people who did the wrong thing? Yes did we do somethings we shouldn’t have? Probably would we do it different if given our time over? Yes we would. But it isn’t a reason to try and erase and rewrite history. King should be honoured for his achievements especially in bringing prosperity that still exists today to that particular reason
@nimalan yes they are
Surely if Phillip Gidley King was thought a deserving recipient to have a division named after him, it would have happened at any of the dozens of previous redistributions dating back to 1900. That it hasn’t happened may tell us something.
The most recent divisions created in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and (renamed) in Tasmania have all been after white men, or, as I prefer to refer to them, deserving Australians. Every single one of them have a stronger claim to have a division in the federal parliament named for them than the aforementioned King.
@nq view tell me how a poet or a union rep is deserving? They’re just names someone came up with. I myself wasn’t aware of him until I went looking at the history of newcastle
Potatoes, the key word the Aec use is ‘outstanding service to the country’. Sure providing economic development to an area like Philip king did is serving the country to some extent, but I see that others have actually been actively involved in supporting the community, which ia what the other individuals have done.
Potatoes, I suggest you read up on Judith Wright. One of the minority of seats named for women, and deserving in every sense. I confess the QLD division I was thinking of was Flynn, still an outstanding Australian and worthy of a division name.
Clark should have had a division named for him decades ago, for his role in Federation. It’s ironic and somewhat counter to your point that the division they renamed was Denison, named for yet another governor.
When the parliament is next expanded there will be plenty of discussion about division names. The discussions will certainoy be robust and ultimately there is a large pool of significant contributors to our nation and our Federation to choose from, and some may yet miss out!
“They’re just names someone came up with” is hardly the convincing argument you think it is.
Agree NQ View, Judith Wright although being known as a poet also did some community work for charity/non-government organisations. I guess it is easier for more recent individuals to perform these sorts of actions rather than past figures.
The next time QLD gets a new seat I’m gonna suggest Irwin
anyone know where we ca get suburb specific enrollments?
an update on my plans
Macquarie -> i will be looking to split the LGAs of Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury. Blue mountains will combine with Lithgow, Wollondilly and Oberon to form Burragorang after the burragorang lake. the hawkesbury lga will carry the Macquarie name after combining with Singleton and Cessnock LGAs from Hunter. With Calare taking Muswellbrook from Hunter and Upper Hunter from New England. Hunter will then be in the Lake Macquarie area and Shortland abolished as the Hunter name taking precedence being an original division and any excess will be divided between Newcastle, “Macquarie” and “Hunter”. Central Coast LGA being Dobell and Roberston can be divided into 2 divisions. Port Stephens then combines with Maitland for the new Paterson.
I wonder if Labor are considering expanding the parliament to 7 senators per half election. It’s been a long time and they probably aren’t too happy about losing a seat in Victoria.
Is there a tool to redraw like the U.S Daves redistributed atlas? Because without any information on the now populations, or demographics. It would be impossible to know where to draw fair new boundaries.
I would give it a crack myself if there is a dataset or tool with the numbers.
@Potatoes, Good point about New England and Parkes getting retained for being original 1901 divisions. By the way, Henry Parkes died before 1901 and was never our PM. He was the Premier of NSW at one point. Most electorates north of Port Stephens still have original names e.g. New England, Cowper, Parkes, Richmond.
I also agree that Macquarie should go westward and reunite Lithgow (and maybe Oberon) with the Blue Mountains, and remove the Hawkesbury (Windsor and Richmond). At least the electorate will look nicer. Macquarie even had Bathurst back in the 2000s before it shrunk and moved east.
I don’t agree with Wollondilly being moved in with the Blue Mountains. They’re far apart and a few electorates away. Katoomba and Picton are on either side of the Blue Mountains NP. Macathur/Werriwa should shrink, leave out the suburbia of Campbelltown/Liverpool LGAs and move south or west and absorb semi-rural areas like Camden, Appin and Picton.
@ daniel t I’ve been looking at lga numbers based on the numbers in this post and the ones in the data about 160k people are need per division in nsw to form a division at quota of electors but that’s guestimating
@votante in order to meet quota it require more electors after those 3 lgas are combined and wollondilly fits the nu,bers im estimating it needs and is one of the few adjoining lgas.
@Potatoes
Try adding Bathurst instead of Wollondilly.
If that isn’t enough then also add emu plains, emu heights and leonay from Penrith LGA and see how that turns out.
As much as I still want to separate Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains LGA, it may not end up happening.
I think very few would doubt that the 2 main things affecting this is:
– Knock-on effects from Northern Sydney, and how to draw a replacement for Berowra (assuming it does indeed get abolished because Bradfield takes in Berowra proper), and
– What configuration of Macquarie will enable Hume to become something that isn’t straight-up insane (Camden and Goulburn in 1 seat)
My guess for now is:
Macquarie: Add Emu Plains, Emu Heights and Leonay.
Lindsay: Remove Emu Plains, Emu Heights and Leonay. Add Ropes Crossing.
Chifley: Remove Ropes Crossing.
BTW I want to solve Blacktown being chopped up between Chifley and Greenway too but am struggling to find a way. I am also trying to unite each of Hurstville (Banks/Barton), Bankstown (Watson/Blaxland) and Chatswood (North Sydney/Bradfield) into a seat each though that will probably be much easier
If Lindsay is to expand eastward (which I agree is likely), surely it is more sensible to absorb the remaining parts of Penrith LGA: St Clair and Erskine Park.
I have a feeling that the Upper Hunter area is going to be a bit of a problem in this redistribution. Assuming the North Coast and Lower Hunter seats need to shrink, the existing Hunter will need to lose its western end….and there’s no obvious place where it can go.
Either New England or (at a stretch) Parkes will need to be dragged right down into the Hunter….or this area ends up becoming an awkward appendage of something like Calare or Macquarie.
Will be interesting trying to make that work.
Singleton and Muswellbrook would be a fine fit with an inland district. (Parkes might be best; territory swaps with Calare being necessary to make it work.) Hiving off bits of Cessnock and Maitland LGAs would be less than ideal though. An alternative might be to remove some western portions of Lyne.
I think the ideal approach would be for New England to align more closely with the New England region; Calare to align more closely to the Central West region, and Parkes with the Upper Hunter, Orana and Far West regions.
ive identified at least 2 areas where new seats can be created. i think at least 6 will require a name change.
anyone else excited for the redistribution?
when will the redistribution be?
If it follows the same schedule as the previous redistribution, I would expect the first round of submissions to be due in October, the draft map in March 2024 and the final map in June 2024.
Hopefully the AEC space out the NSW, Vic and WA redistributions a little, and don’t stack them all on top of each other.
Would make it much easier for those of us who want to contribute to all 3, if they were spaced like a month apart.
@ mark mulcair based on the last one they were a week apart I believe. Personally if I have to choose il pick NSW and Vic as wa will be fairly simple in the end. I’ve already finished my draft maps for NSW and part done Vic. Based on what I’d like to do and relevant data I’ve got on lga populations.
We might have an election before June 24. As Albos is threatening a double dissolution. How that effect it if it has already started?
@Potatques
Will you be willing to upload it (NSW)?
Also did you assume 46 or 47 seats?
It would trigger a mini redistribution. The two lowest-enrolment neighbouring seats in NSW and VIC would be amalgamated and the two highest-enrolment neighbouring seats in WA would be split in 3.
Il post what I’ve done to a blog as I don’t know how else to upload it here. I’m assuming 46. I’ve carved up Barton and north Sydney.. grayndler becomes Barton due to being a prime ministers name. I’ve also abolished Cunningham and Shortland due shifting hume and hunter eastwards after some of their lgas to pair with a new electorates after splitting macquarie. And created new seats elsewhere after moving populations in the outer west.. Cunningham due to Whitlam taking pre ednce as it was a prime ministers name and hunter over Shortland due to being a federation name. Though I’m not sure how much excess my changes will have in the northt coast above Newcastle so it’s just guesswork and il probably need to move them further south when the numbers come out but I’m doing what I would like to see atm as I doubt I cantain electorates within lgas.
Would Wentworth and warringah classify as neighbouring seats?
Potatoes
In such a case, a selection is made of the contiguous pair of seats with the lowest combined enrolment, out of all possible such contiguous pairs. These are combined into one, and treated as a single division for the election and the subsequent parliament. THE REDISTRIBUTION CAN’T PROCEED beyond the mini-redistribution.
This is covered in COMMONWEALTH ELECTORAL ACT Section 76 titled “Mini-redistribution’. Sub-section 8 describes the non-alteration of the other divisions.
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2023C00067
In WA, the need would be for an extra Division, so the largest contiguous pair is divided into three for the mini-redistribution.
So, in VIctoria, the likely pair would be HIGGINS and CHISHOLM
In NSW, a pair of inner south-western seats are the likely combination – it maybe a close contest.
@phil by my estimation the two lowest are warringah and Wentworth and are technically neighbouring. If not it would be warringah and bradfirld or mackellar depending on if bradfirld was considered neighbouring
Maybe Warringah & Bradfield
Potatoes
Wentworth and Warringah do appear to be contiguous on the AEC map;- https://www.aec.gov.au/profiles/nsw/files/2016/2016-aec-nsw-a4-map-warringah.pdf
There are electors registered to moorings and island(s) in Division of Wentworth, so the maritime border seems as valid as any other border.
One for the lawyers?
I doubt also will go before august next year as triggering a double dissolution would not be beneficial as people would not like going to another election shortly afterwards and the fact that the last election gave them better numbers in the senate in relation to the additional senator in wa and qld as well as their ally in David pocock in the act. I reckon pocock will lose his seat and they would prolly lose the buoyed support in wa from mark mcgowans departure. They would lose a seat in vic due to the mini redistribution.
For those planning a suggestion for nsw where do you plan to start? My thoughts are Mackellar or possibly Wentworth but I’m leaning towards mackellar
If a mini redistribution were triggered it would combine Wentworth and Warringah as according to the AEC boundaries can touch over water and those two are the two with the most under quota
What factors will the Redistribution Commissioners consider when conducting a mini-redistribution?
The Electoral Act requires the Redistribution Commissioners to consider the following factors when conducting a mini-redistribution:
contiguous pairs of electoral divisions – that is, electoral divisions whose boundaries touch in at least one place. This may include the boundaries touching over water.
This mini-redistribution prospect in NSW is another disincentive for Albo to seek a double dissolution. It would make life difficult for Zali Steggall, Spender, or both.
This would be an ‘Allegra Non Starter’.
I’m not a fan of redistributing electorates across large geographical barriers like Sydney Harbour. Wentworth and Warringah merging is the most likely in the case of a quick, ‘mini-redistribution’, even though there’s no direct road connection between Wentworth and Warringah, without entering two other electorates (Sydney, North Sydney). After a double-dissolution election, I’m guessing there will be a proper redistribution? How soon will the proper post-election redistribution be?
I can’t see double dissolution happening in 2023 because of the Voice referendum. Mid-2024 would be a more likely time once the redistributions are done and dusted. The dilemma is that there’ll be NT/ACT/QLD elections in the second half of 2024.
What’s not to say that a double dissolution could be held at the same time as the Voice referendum? Albanese could frame a double dissolution election along the lines of delivering a mandate for the voice.
@votante if a double dissolution triggered the mini redistribution thats it. another wouldnt be held until 7 years, change in entitlement or in 1/3 exceeeded 10% its effectively a rushed reditribution to cater for the election
That’s not right Potatoes, they would need to hold a proper redistribution right after the early election.
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