WA federal redistribution – official numbers published

By
Ben Raue
-
46

The Australian Electoral Commission has now released the numbers to be used when drawing new federal electoral boundaries for Western Australia. This follows up on the NSW numbers released last month, with Victoria due next week.

Western Australia will get a sixteenth seat, making up for the seat lost three years ago. This means that all fifteen seats in Western Australia are currently over quota.

The most important statistic is the projected enrolment as of March 2028. Electorates need to be drawn within 3.5% of the statewide average on that statistic, whereas seats can vary by more from the average as of current day enrolment.

Every existing electorate has more voters than needed with the new lower quota. Forrest is 2.54% over quota, while Cowan is 9.22% over quota.

To get a sense of the broad trends, I’ve grouped together WA electorates into northern Perth, southern Perth and regional WA.

The new seat will definitely be in the Perth area. The twelve existing seats are collectively almost 86% of a seat over quota. But that surplus is reasonably evenly spread between north and south.

It seems likely that a new seat will need to straddle the north and south sides of Perth. At least one Perth seat will need to expand further out into the country to absorb the sixth of a seat of surplus voters in the three regional seats: Pearce or Canning could play this role, or they could both expand by a smaller amount.

When you look at the map, the most over-quota seats are four inner-city seats: Perth, Cowan, Swan and Tangney are all collectively about 36% over quota.

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46 COMMENTS

  3. Not me calculating all the new boundaries getting everything in quota, then coming to splitting Hasluck into the new seat and having only 90,000 electors.

    Then realising I was trying to get them all in between the 125k upper threshold and the 121k quota instead of the 117k lower threshold. Oops.

    The good news is now some of the things I tried that didn’t work out because the numbers were too low can propbably work. Hopefully I get them finished this week before Victoria opens for suggestions on Wednesday.

  6. Durack – Current Enrollment 123278 – Projected enrollment 130980
    After redistribution – Enrollment 116243 – Projected enrollment 123537
    loses Bullsbrook, avon valley and walyunga national park and york sa2s

  7. O’Connor – Current Enrollment 120803 – Projected enrollment 128787
    After redistribution – Enrollment 112982 – Projected enrollment 120335
    loses manjimup and pemberton sa2s

  8. Forrest – Current enrollment 116614 – Projected enrollment 124708
    After redistribution – Enrollment 117511 – Projected enrollment 125678
    gains manjimup and pemberton sa2s from o’connor and loses harvey sa2 to canning

  9. Canning – Current Enrollment 119832 – Projected enrollment 128424
    After redistribution – Enrollment 116419 – Projected enrollment 124952
    gains harvey sa2 from forrest loses ashendon, mount nasura, roleystone and lesmurdie sa2 to hasluck

  10. Brand – Current Enrollment 122608 – Projected enrollment 130547
    After redistribution – Enrollment 116947 – Projected enrollment 124491
    loses casuarina to fremantle

  11. Fremantle – Current Enrollment 120007 – Projected enrollment 129429
    After redistribution – Enrollment 111540 – Projected enrollment 120137
    gains casuarina from brand and cedes Banjup to Burt

  12. Tangey – Current Enrollment 122930 – Projected enrollment 132721
    After redistribution – Enrollment 109506 – Projected enrollment 118129
    loses bentley adn riverton sa2s to swan

  13. Burt – Current Enrollment 116852 – Projected enrollment 125827
    After redistribution – Enrollment 109593 – Projected enrollment 117957
    gains Banjup from Fremantle loses Maddington to Hasluck and Beckenham to Swan

  14. Swan – Current Enrollment 122417 – Projected enrollment 131984
    After redistribution – Enrollment 112698 – Projected enrollment 121483
    gains beckenham from burt riverton and bentley from tangey and loses belmont perth airport forrestfield high wycombe and kalamunda to hasluck

  15. Pearce – Current Enrollment 119233 – Projected enrollment 128436
    After redistribution – Enrollment 108893 – Projected enrollment 117727
    loses landsdale ballajura ellenbrook and melaleuca to hasluck

  16. Curtin – Current Enrollment 120661 – Projected enrollment 130773
    After redistribution – Enrollment 111287 – Projected enrollment 120580
    loses Karrinyup and Trigg to Cowan

  17. Moore– Current Enrollment 120509 – Projected enrollment 127144
    After redistribution – Enrollment 113421 – Projected enrollment 119441
    loses Karrinyup to Cowan

  18. Perth – Current Enrollment 123454 – Projected enrollment 132518
    After redistribution – Current Enrollment 111761 – Projected enrollment 119828
    loses Bassandean to Hasluck

  19. Cowan – Current Enrollment 124073 – Projected enrollment 132834
    After redistribution – Enrollment 111293 – Projected enrollment 119406
    gains karrinyup from moore and curtin and trigg from curtin loses lockridge malaga beechboro balljura and noranda to hasluck

  21. My WA is done.
    I’ve left Forrest alone – the only thing I wanted to do was put Nannup back in, but it’s over. I didn’t want to push Canning down any further – it would ruin the rest of my plans.

    I make some changes to boundary between O’Connor and Durack moving Cunderdin, Tammin, Kellerberrin and Merredin into Durack. They then lose Bullsbrook and all of Swan LGA, Northam, York and Beverley between them. I wanted to include Toodyay as well (as I think it goes with Northam) and the numbers would have allowed it, but it would have made Durack pretty low in the threshold. Also, it didn’t work as well in the new division.

    Brand is the same except the Kwinana Fwy is the eastern boundary. The addition of this to Canning means everything from Armadale and north is out of Canning.

    Fremantle loses the little bit of Melville it had to Tangney. I wanted to get all of Canning Vale (both the west and east SA2s) out of Tangney without splitting it, so I kept Wilson in there and added Langford.

    Burt gains Canning Vale and loses everything north of the Canning River, and east of the Albany Hwy.

    Swan gains Beckenham, Kenwick and part of Maddington, using Kelvin Rd as the boundary then along the Tonkin Hwy and the rail line next to the airport.

    Curtin retracts to Karrinyup Rd, and all of that Karrinyup and Gwelup, using Beach Rd, goes into Cowan. It means it crosses Wanneroo Rd, but I like it better than Cowan taking Kingsley from Moore which was the other option.

    Pearce loses the small unnecessary part of Swan LGA and then drops to Kingsway in Madeley, and Lansvale.

    Cowan and Perth both then use the Tonkin Hwy as an eastern boundary, but Perth is just under so I include the little bit of Stirling and Osborne Park south of Karrinyup Rd in Perth.

    Hasluck moves pretty much into Swan LGA and Bassendean, as the majority of electors go with it. I use the Roe Hwy and Toodyay Rd up to the LGA boundary.

    South of that includes Kalamunda including High Wycombe, Maida Vale and Forrestfield, Armadale east of the Albany Hwy and Tonkin Hwy, Mundaring along with Northam, York and Beverley. That becomes my new division which I’m calling Bates after Daisy Bates. Although I’d like to call it Coombes after Nugget Coombes. Maybe that’s just my bias having a division named after a public servant instead of a politician.

    I’m drawing up the maps, and loading them soon. My report is mostly typed (a lot of it is the same as NSW) and I hope to get it submitted soon.

  23. @darren im going with Currie for my new division. also im suggesting that Stirling be revived to replace Perth as thats named after a place and another division at the state level. both of which conflict with aec guidleines

  24. ive amalgamated Hasluck into Current Enrollment 236574 – Projected enrollment 252761 now to just split in two

  25. @John iirc the push to remove Stirling last time included the reason that the real Stirling was, to understate it, a less than great person and I severely doubt the AEC would rehabilitate the name

  26. WA is done and submitted. My new division is the southern part of what used to be Hasluck. I’m calling it Bates after Daisy Bates, although I’d like to name it Coombes, i just don’t think there is enough traction for it.

    https://api.mapbox.com/styles/v1/dmcsw/clo6q5f8v009i01r7ahruh3fw.html?title=view&access_token=pk.eyJ1IjoiZG1jc3ciLCJhIjoiY2poa21kaGs4Mm95YjM2bzFxMmNkYmJnaCJ9.xhKyqTaibNsU01LzeWpjkw&zoomwheel=true&fresh=true#9.51/-31.8927/116.1503

    Now i need to work out what the heck to do with Victoria.

  27. @darren ive dont he same ive combined the south western part of hasluck with the excess from the other division south of the swan river.

  28. @ Darren

    Great Map, Daisy Bates is a good suggestion for a name as is Yagan which is who i will be proposing for the new seat.

  30. @Nimalan, I’d accept Yagan which I’ve seen suggested before. I’d not heard of Bill Dunn but just checking his details on Wikipedia, I’d support that too.

    I’ve always thought the idea of a divsion after Ernie Bridge would be a good idea, being the first indigenous cabinet member in Australia, but I think the division should be in the north, which obviously is currently called Durack.

  31. @Darren
    I will suggest Yagan to the AEC but will also put Daisy Bates, Bill Dunn and Ernie Bridge as other suggestions. This maximize the chance of a good decision being made when the Name is determined for the new Division.

  33. A new seat based on Midland seems to be the consensus – taking the Swan LGA and Bassendean. It could also take in Hazelmere and the Perth Airport.

    I wonder if Perth will move westward taking in West Leederville or Subiaco with the removal of Bassendean

  34. If the Bassendean SA2 is removed from Perth it will be within quota and won’t necessarily need to expand.

  36. i was just going thorugh my redistribution and i noticed i left beechboro in cowan whilst removing everythin that surrounds it. that could have been awkward

  38. my numbers are off in some places il have them fixed as well as maps by the end of comments (ive been suffereing a chest infection)

  39. I really don’t like the current shape of Fremantle. Fremantle being in the same electorate as Jandakot and Treby just doesn’t seem right. I would transfer everything east of Kwinana Freeway and south of Beeliar Drive out of Fremantle and add Bicton and Attadale to make it more of a Fremantle centric seat.

    Plus with it comes to communities of interest, someone in Fremantle and White Gum Valley has a lot more in common with someone in Attadale and Bicton than someone in Jandakot, Treby or Henderson.

Comments are closed.