Yesterday’s post analysed the intra-state trends in terms of enrolment for each NSW federal electorate. Today I’m looking at the trends in Victoria and Western Australia. These states are slightly simpler since we know they will be losing and gaining a seat respectively, and there has been less time since the last redistribution.
Victoria gained seats at the last two federal elections after being stuck on 37 seats for a very long time. Western Australia gained a sixteenth seat prior to the 2016 election, and then lost that seat prior to the 2022 election.
Let’s start with Victoria. The current 39 seats need to be redrawn into 38, so most seats are currently too small and will need to add population.
| Region | Seats | Deviation |
| Central Melbourne | 7 | -27.82 |
| Eastern Melbourne | 8 | -23.31 |
| South-Eastern Melbourne | 5 | -14.00 |
| Western Melbourne | 6 | -23.42 |
| Melbourne | 26 | -88.55 |
| Eastern Victoria | 5 | -4.93 |
| Western Victoria | 8 | -6.50 |
| Regional Victoria | 13 | -11.43 |
Most of the shortfall is in Melbourne, but is reasonably evenly spread across the city.
The seats on the south side of the Yarra have slightly more of a shortfall than those on the north side, but wherever the seat is abolished will have knock-on effects all over Melbourne.
It’s a bit hard to pick which way they go. There are significant deficits on both the north side and south side of Melbourne, but neither of them is enough to absorb the abolition of a whole seat.
The story is similar in Perth, but with a lowered quota putting every seat over the quota. The biggest surpluses are in central Perth: Tangney, Swan, Perth and Cowan are collectively 37.75% over quota. I suspect the new seat will be somewhere close to the centre of Perth – possibly quite close to the location of Stirling, which was abolished at the last redistribution.
*based on estimated Dec 2022 growth figures (Sep 2022 applied linearly)
Yes – no projection. But from those figures it is unlikely to change – and definitely not enough for QLD to make up that gap.
I also looked again at the latest Vic enrolment figures assuming 38 seats – would be 20.5 seats north / west 17.5 seats south / east of the Yarra. A seat or seats will need to jump the divide in a pretty big way.
@seq the projections ive seen are at
New South Wales 46.376 46 -1
Victoria 37.667 38 -1
Queensland 30.457 30 0
South Australia 10.366 10 0
Western Australia 15.885 16 +1
Tasmania (c) 3.249 5 0
that was based on projections as of dec 2022
@redistributed can you post a link?
The AEC has released their Victorian enrolment in each seat for February (which is less than the VEC) and interesting it still slows that Aston has less voters than when the seat was reconstituted at the last redistribution in July 2021.
In reducing the number of seats by one at the next Victorian redistribution the following is the status of each region compared to July 2021.
Global North – 55,973 Short Feb 2023 compared to 68,428 short in July 2021
Northern Country – Mallee, Nicholls, Indi, Bendigo, Ballarat, Wannon, Corangamite and Corio being a total of 1,152 electors short of 8 quotas Feb 2023 compared to 787 in July 2021
Metro West – Fraser, Gellibrand, Gorton, Hawke, Lalor Maribyrnong being a total of 25,366 short of 6 quotas in Feb 2023 compared to 32,934 short in July 2021
Metro North – Melbourne, Wills, Cooper, Calwell, Jagjaga, McEwan and Scullin being 29,455 short of 7 quotas in Feb 2023 compared to 34,707 short in July 2021
Global South – 59,488 Short in Feb 2023 compared to 41,605 in July 2021
Eastern Vic – Gippsland, Monash, Casey, Latrobe being 8,397 short of 4 quotas in Feb 2023 compared to 13,598 short in July 2021
Metro South – Dunkley Flinders, Goldstein, Higgins, Hotham, Issacs, McNamara being 23,936 short of 7 Quotas. Compared to 13,182 short in July 2021
Metro East – Aston, Bruce, Chisholm, Deakin, Holt, Kooyong, Menzies being 27,133 short of 7 Quotas in Feb 2023 compared to 14,825 short in July 2021
Looking at these figures, I am more convinced that the Boundaries Review commission will not cross the Yarra as the Global North is outpacing the Global south by enough that a seat will be abolished south of the Yarra.
My 3 leading seats that could be abolished are, Aston, Chisholm and McNamara.
If it is the last I believe that the entire Caulfield section will go to Higgins (which in turn will lose all of its Boroondara Council to Kooyong.
Goldstein will stretch to Port Melbourne and lose its southern section to Issacs
based on the numbers ive looked at Melton LGA should be able to fit in pretty much one division federally instead of being split into both Hawke and Gorton
march numbers have been released
https://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Enrolment_stats/gazetted/index.htm
Because there was a redistribution in the last term, it is not really clear where the boundary adjustments will need to be – except for the fact that there will be a seat lost. This is unlike NSW where after 7 years there are 7 or 8 seats at +/- 10%. In Victoria the east/ west split (the yarra boundary is 20.5 seats west and 17.5 east 38) so a seat will need to bridge the Yarra somewhere – whether it be Melbourne, Menzies or Casey – quite possibly a combination of the last two. As with NSW it will all become clear with the projections.
@redistributed i reckon it can be done without crossing the yarra in a major way as really all that needs to be done is move the numbers in the right places. i think it will need to be in the easter suburbs rather then the semi regional casey. somewhere around chisholm or hotham
@ Redistributed
Your assumption is based that both sides of the Yarra are growing at the same rate. They are not.
North of the Yarra is growing at double of the South of the Yarra.
Following the current trends, a seat south of the Yarra can be abolished and the Yarra can remain the boundary as it currently is
If the July 2021 figures where used to re-allocate 1 less seat to Victoria, the North was 68428 short of a quota as of the last figures it is 56,072 short of a quota
South of the Yarra in 2021 was 41,605 short of a quota where it is now 59,641
Inside the global north there will be massive changes, but I predict that only Mallee will keep the same boundaries.
In the global south, apart from one seat being abolished there will be radical changes.
Assuming that the AEC start the redistribution using their normal starting points (in the south McNamara, Higgins, Kooyong and Gippsland are drawn first and then the work to a middle point, I can see either McNamara, Deakin or Chisholm being abolished.
@moonlight assuming the yarra is the boundary macnamara will most likely remain as it is a “corner” seat.
@ potatoes, you could be right, but for me the other corner seat in the South, is Kooyong
It is currently a shrinking seat but if the Commission moves all of Boroondara council under one seat (eg 11,000 people out of Higgins) which would put Kooyong on the right side of quota.
Then the likely response to keep Higgins means moving it south into Caulfield.
The flow on of this is for McNamara to move into Goldstein, which I also believe will loose a lot of Territory to Issacs
If this happens the only way for Goldstein to survive is to into into Hotham making Goldstein a West East aligned seat having lost its North and South
Re’d
In the ‘underquota-ed’ South, a seat is set for abolition, after which time, the excess voters are located on the north side of the Yarra River. Hence the crossing will affect a ‘Northern” seat. i.e. Jaga Jaga
With WA re-gaining a 16th seat on current population Perth will be allocated about 12.5 seats and the rest of WA 3.5 seats. (Currently it’s more or less a 12-3 split with Canning being mostly a metro Perth based electorate with a few rural communities added on).
I would support reinstating a seat around the abolished Stirling. 12 clearly Perth based seats and then a hybrid urban rural one would be needed- best looking for a semi rural option would be Hasluck which could cover the outer suburbs and Perth Hills plus other rural areas close to the city
some name suggestions for Victorian divisions
Ballarat -> Yollie. renamed Yollie after the scottish family who settled the and named the area. and because the AEC states that place names should generally be avoided.
Bendigo -> Hoddle. renamed Hoddle after the Surveyor General of Victoria. and because the AEC states that place name should generally be avoided
Corangamite -> Connewarre. renamed Connewarre after the lake that resides in the division and because the AEC states that place names should generally be avoided and the lake from which it derives its name is no longer in the division it also maintains an Aboriginal connection to the naming of the division which has been a reason to hesitate changing it.
Kooyong -> Humphries. renamed after australian icon Barry Humphries. and because the AEC states that place names should generally be avoided and the suburb of Kooyong from which it derives its name is no longer in the division
Melbourne -> Batman revives the name of Batman after the cities founder and because the AEC states that place names should generally be avoided and the shares its name with the Victorian State District of the same name which is against AEC guidelines.
The AEC has posted the latest national enrolments as of April 30, 2023, today.
The trend of for every 1 elector enrolling south of the Yarra, 2.5 electors are enrolling north of the Yarra has continued.
Assuming Victoria loses a seat in the next redistribution. The new average elector per seat will be 116,234 with a range of 104,610 (min) to 127,857 (Max).
Interesting 2 sets that were over the average (Wannon and Gippsland) have now dropped below it. These seats have been above the 38-seat average since the new boundaries were established in July 2021.
These leave only 1 seat south of the Yarra that is above the 38 Seat Quota (Hotham)
The global north has reduced to 55,073 voters short for a full quota, where as the global south has increased to 61,178 voters short for a full quota a difference of 6,105 an increase of the margin of 2,550.
Since July 2021 there are 14 seats which have growth above the average, 10 are north of the Yarra and 4 are south of the Yarra.
im looking forward to this redistribution whole bunch of seats with divided LGAs so i looking forward to uniting those
Long time observer here, but first time commenting, here’s my predictions for WA.
New Seat:
Based in the southeast, taking parts from Fremantle, Burt and Tangney. New seat will be comprised of Thornlie, Canning Vale, Southern River, Piara Waters, Treeby and Aubin Grove.
This area is growing quickly but also contains a mix of established population centres with community of interest, and allows Burt to shift southwards and eastward.
Burt:
While Burt may be near-quota, it will be significantly redrawn to shift east to take pressure off Swan and Hasluck, losing close to half its western end to the new seat.
Burt gains Forrestfield off Swan and Kalamunda/Lesmurdie off Hasluck and also gains all of the northern end of Canning, taking Byford and Roleystone. Suburbs like Forrestfield has some community of interest with more working class eastern suburbs like Kenwick and Maddington (Forrestfield and Kenwick are in the same state seat). Burt becomes more of a hills-type seat with the inclusion of Kalamunda and Roleystone.
Canning:
With this change, Canning no longer groups together two disjoint communities like Mandurah and Byford (like Pearce pre-2022), and shrinks to be based on Mandurah and the Peel. There is an off chance that Canning may be forced to take in parts of southern Brand like Secret Harbour, Brand is notably over quota. Canning remains a hybrid urban-rural seat but actually takes into account communities of interest now.
Hasluck:
With the loss of Kalamunda/Lesmurdie, there is now less pressure on Hasluck. A few small changes will occur with Hasluck, possibly shifts to include Beechboro and Lockridge to take pressure off Cowan, wich may shift slightly south to take pressure off Perth, however Hasluck now contains almost all of the City of Swan which is rapidly growing.
A few small changes to seats north of the River, however the big changes will be to the seats of Fremantle, Burt, Hasluck, Canning and Tangney. It’s very unlikely that the new seat will be a recreated Stirling, doing this would force seats like Pearce to become hybrid messes which made very little sense. There will be limited changes to seats north of the River, given the previous distribution established unusually clear and sensible boundaries NoR.
Changes to margins:
New Seat – safe Labor, 2PP close to 65% with the inclusion of both traditional urban working-class areas (Thornlie, Huntingdale) with new fringe developments on the mortgage belt (which WA Labor has been sweeping in the past few elections, both state and Federal).
Burt – becomes fairly safe Labor, Matt Keogh’s margin will be cut to at most 60% with inclusion of more affluent areas in the Hills (Liberals won a significant number of booths here, unlike the rest of Perth)
Tangney – becomes even more marginal, loss of Canning Vale will hurt Sam Lim.
Hasluck – becomes safer for Tania Lawrence, margin will likely increase to above 60% with loss of the area around Kalamunda and inclusion of working-class neighbourhoods of Beechboro/Lockridge.
Canning – loss of Hills around Roleystone/Bedfordale hurts Andrew Hastie, if Canning takes in Secret Harbour, seat becomes genuinely neck-and-neck.
Swan – negligible change to margin, Forrestfield’s 2PP was very close to Swan’s as a whole
Fremantle – becomes more vulnerable to Greens with suburbs east of Kwinana Freeway lost (Greens always did poorly in that part of seat)
Cowan – Anne Aly’s margin may fall to high 50s with loss of working class suburbs like Beechboro.
My personal view for WA would be to split the existing Hasluck and Canning into 3 Divisions instead of 2.
One seat based clearly on Midland, Ellenbrook, and the Beechboro/Ballajura area (however much as numbers permit). This would allow Cowan to move north/west and soak up all the excess in the north.
One seat based clearly on the Hills and foothills suburbs. This would take in the eastern part of Swan and the northern part of Burt, so should allow some easy reshuffling throughout southern Perth.
One seat based on Serpentine-Jarrahdale and Mandurah. Might need to expand slightly into Forrest and/or O’Connor.
The rural seats wouldn’t need much change.
We’ll see what the numbers say in the end, but if possible I think that would be the cleanest “no mess no fuss” approach.
The latest ABS population figures are coming out later today. This will be the best guide for determining seat gains and losses between the states.
@redistributed, yep they just dropped. Huge population growth numbers by Queensland (2.2%). However due to international migration inflows, NSW (1.7%) and Victoria (2.1%) landed in the a similar ballpark in terms of population-growth.
Queensland needed to deviate quite far in front of NSW and Victoria in quarter ending Dec 2022 to have any hope of another Federal quota being assigned to it this cycle but this is definitely out of the picture now.
They are out now
Overall reduction of 1 seat nationally, with WA gaining one, Vic and NSW losing one
The ABS have now posted the population figures and it does look that NSW and Victoria will lose a seat and WA to gain. 150 seats in total.
agreed QLD just didnt get enough population. it will definately get another one at the next redistribution in 2025
@Mark Mulcair, I am leaning in a similar direction for WA, but am undecided on how to deal with the collective over-quota of Curtin and Moore. Maybe Kinross and Burns Beach into Pearce, albeit the current boundary is ideal as it follows an LGA boundary. Also not thrilled about the option of extending Cowan up the west side of the lakes into Kingsley and Woodvale. Options further south would be Subiaco and maybe Shenton Park into Perth. But I think all of those are ahead of the option of pushing Cowan west of the freeway, a la the old Stirling.
@dean WA is the one i probably wont get time for ive been concentrating on NSW and VIC as i dont think il have enough time to do all three
@potatques I haven’t decided which ones I will do. It may depend on the timetables. Expectation would be that the submission periods will overlap but hopefully at least be staggered by a week. Most likely I will do WA (where I now live) and one of the others, but yet try for all three. Then again I failed to get a submission in for the WA state one after doing a heap of work on it. I haven’t been able to bring myself to reengage with that process for later stages.
I think the best place would be between Hasluck and Perth as the excess is north and south of the swan
My plans for the Vic redistribution.
Indi – gains Moira shire from nicholls, cedes the rest of Strathbogle Murrindindi and Mansfield to Nicholls.
Nicholls – gains Murrindindi Mansfield and the remainder of Strathbogle from Indi, the reaminder of Mitchell from Bendigo and mcewen. Cedes Moira shire to Indi and campaspe shire to Bendigo. Possible name change to changes.
Bendigo – gains campaspe shire from nicholls. Cedes mount Alexander to Ballarat, remainder of Macedon ranges to mcewen and remainder of Mitchell to nicholls name change to Hoddle.
Ballarat – gains mount Alexander from Bendigo central goldfields from malle and Pyrenees from both mallee and wannon. Cedes moorabol to Hawke and golden plains to corio. Renamed Yollie.
Hawke – gains Macedon ranges from mcewen and moorabol from Ballarat. Plus any parts of hume if needed. Cedes Melton to Gorton. Cedes parts of hume to calwell if needed.
Corio and Corangamite. – form two divisions as best as practical from golden plains greater Geelong. And the parts of the surf coast. Cedes any remainder from the surf coast to wannon Corangamite renamed Connewarre
@ Potaques, what are your plans for a redrawn McEwen. There will need to be a seat that crosses the Yarra River, i think McEwen is the best bet. I would prefer that if Scullin needs to Grow it takes Donnybrook/Mernda from McEwen and not go into Nilumbik Shire which is very demographically different. The Whittlsea green wedge fits in McEwen however.
I’m gonna move mcewen east. Had it not been named after a prime minister I would have proposed abolishing it as its cobbled together from parts of heaps of different lgas. While where on the subject how did he become prime minister I know it was during the whole Harold holt disappearance. But wouldn’t he have become just acting prime minister? While the liberals found a new leader
Acting prime minister only applies when the prime minister is unable to do their job. The death of a prime minister requires the appointment of a new one. Hence Page, Forde and McEwen were all prime ministers even though the governing party subsequently decided on a different successor.
I think the idea is that you only have an acting PM if you first have a PM. In all three instances of a death in office, the placeholder has actuallly been sworn in. The others being Earle Page and Frank Forde, following the deaths of Joseph Lyon and John Curtin respectively.
But constitutionally it’s arguably unnecessary. The office of PM doesn’t exist in the Constitution and if a PM-less cabinet resolved for someone to just be appointed to administer the department (ie an acting PM) I suspect the GG would comply?
How? – by Vice-Regal appointment.
Why? – to avoid the optics of;- either the Governor-General ruling by fiat, or
– having a contested party room vote during a period of national mourning (which in the case of Joe Lyons included Easter, and arguably, the prelude to a World War, and in the case of Harold Holt included Christmas, and a Royal visit and US Presidential ( & ors ) visits.
When Spencer Perceval died, there was no Prime Minister of UK until 28 days later, so I guess the Prince Regent was comfortable to rule unaided.
Having a Country Party PM allowed the Governor-General to abstain from expressing a preference amoung the Liberal candidates. (Or being seen to do so).
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