The Australian Electoral Commission has now officially published the population projections to be used when redrawing Victoria’s federal electoral map prior to the next federal election. This follows on similar moments in the NSW and Western Australia federal redistributions in recent weeks.
Electorates must be drawn within 10% of the average enrolment as of the start of the process (August 2023, in this case) and within 3.5% of the average projected enrolment as of April 2028.
The second set of numbers is the more crucial restriction on mapmakers, so that will be my focus today.
Victoria is losing its 39th seat, so understandably most seats are now under the average quota. Just six seats are projected to be above the quota as of April 2028. Mallee is by far and away the largest, projected to be 3.2% above average as of 2028. The other 33 seats are all under the average, with Hawke and Higgins standing out, falling about 6% short of the average.
I’ve divided the state up in a few ways. I’ve split it between Melbourne and regional Victoria, and in Melbourne I’ve split seats between those north and south of the Yarra. I’ve also divided seats into six sub-regions.
While Melbourne is growing faster than regional Victoria, more than three quarters of the population deficit is in Melbourne, so it seems pretty certain that a Melbourne seat, will need to be abolished.
About half of the deficit is south of the Yarra, with just one quarter north of the Yarra.
There are deficits in all of the southside sub-regions – east, south-east and south-central.
Up next, this map shows the relative quota position of each seat. It looks like the deficit is biggest in a strip of seats stretching from Goldstein to Aston, via Higgins and Chisholm. These four seats between them make up about a quarter of the statewide deficit.
Overall I expect the map will need to be significantly redrawn statewide. The northern and western suburbs also feature quite a few seats significantly under quota. Ultimately a seat somewhere in the south-east of Melbourne will be abolished, but the knock-on effects will spread throughout the state.
Holt – Current Enrollment 113159 – Projected enrollment 122766
After redistribution – Enrollment 120285 – Projected enrollment 130524
If you don’t use Melbourne/Macnamara as a Yarra-crossing and instead do Casey/McEwen you can do some very nice boundaries for the inner city.
– Macnamara gains Prahran/Sth Yarra and loses all Glen Eira
– Higgins gains all of Macnamara’s Glen Eira part and everything in Goldstein north of North Road + Hughesdale and loses Boroondara council to Kooyong
– Goldstein than gains all of Bentleigh East from Hotham + all of Moorabbin west of Warrigal Rd. It’s within quota with just the Bentleigh East part so maybe you could just leave it at that.
– Kooyong loses it share of Whitehouse council and becomes entirely Boroondara council
– Melbourne gains Kensington from Maribyrnong
– Wills gains the small bit of Brunswick from Melbourne and maybe Coburg part of Cooper
– Cooper gains Clifton Hill from Melbourne
And if Gellibrand gains Williams Landing from Lalor it can lose everything Nth of Francis St to Fraser. Ideally you’d put the rest of Yarraville in Fraser but the numbers don’t really work.
I think McEwen needs to go tbh however the name can transfer to jagajaga
Jagajaga is an indigenous name so will be opposition to abolishing it. Hotham can be renamed as it is not a name worth keeping. Casey also could go worst case as there is already an LGA named after Casey.
@Drake
If Gellibrand gains the remaining pocket of Point Cook in Lalor (SA2 Werribee – South 213051368, SA1’s 29,30,31,32,33,37,38,40,41 & 44) the bit enclosed by the Princes Freeway, Sneydes Road and Hacketts Road in addition to gaining Williams Landing.
And Lalor gains from Gellibrand the chunk of Truganina bounded by Leakes Road, Skeleton Creek, Dohertys Road, Woods Road and the North-South running bit of Alcock Road (SA2 Truganina – North 213051586, SA1’s 04,05,11,12 & 16).
Then all of Yarraville (even the bits south of Francis Street) can move into Fraser. It also leaves plenty of space for the faster growing Lalor to expand.
Fraser Projected 129,943
Gellibrand Projected 122,856
Lalor Projected 122,910
given the way certain diviions are contained within different lgas ive decided to move holt east into la trobe and the move la trobe in gippsland abd have gipplsland take part of indi then indi nicholls then have nicholls take a bit more of mcewen otherwise se melboure will be a bit deformed
John, Gippsland will never move into Indi, The GDR can be impassable in winter.
May I suggest you look McEwan taking part of Casey, which takes part of Latrobe, and Latrobe move into Holt.
Gippsland doesn’t need to move, in fact using the numbers provided by the ABS I dont think the following seats need to move boundaries
Gippsland
Mallee
Indi
Nicholls
Wannon could pick up Gherang and Inverleigh from Corangamite
Ballarat Central Woodlands and West Moorabool from Hawke to bring to quota
Bendigo should pick up Woodend from McEwan to also bring to quota
If the ABS numbers were based more upon reality I would suggest changes to Corio and Corangamite but the number’s dont support this.
The key question in the western suburbs to me is what to do with Maribyrnong, The answer here unlocks a number of scenarios
Considering the federal seat of Melbourne is amongst the first metro seats drawn, I think you could keep its current boundaries but it could take more of Flemington / Ascot vale
I have start modelling a scenario in which Higgins gets abolished due to its lack of a cohesive community of interest, being significantly under quota, and each of its 3 distinctly different communities of interest bordering seats which better suit them.
So far it’s going pretty well, here is a link to the southeastern suburbs which have been done so far, and all are within quota (most between the 125-129k range):
https://ibb.co/KmYdV6x
I think the spillover effects of abolishing Higgins have been really good for the south-eastern suburbs where I think the boundaries of seats like Macnamara, Hotham and Chisholm were questionable.
What it has allowed for is:
* Macnamara is now entirely dense inner-city suburbs with Prahran, Windsor & South Yarra joining the City of Port Phillip;
* The Yarra is breached in an appropriate way with South Wharf along with the area that will become Fisherman’s Bend joining the Docklands and the ‘City of Melbourne’ part of Southbank joining the CBD in Melbourne, and this will hopefully be the only Yarra crossing required;
*Goldstein is admittedly an odd shape (no worse than Macnamara & Higgins used to be, though) but it now loses Bentleigh, unites Elsternwick with Caulfield, and stretches up to Malvern Road making it entirely cover affluent inner-suburban southeastern suburbs, although it is the shape I’m least happy with;
* Kooyong barely needed a change, but lost a little bit in the east so it could absorb Toorak, Kooyong and the northern part of Malvern (north of Malvern Rd);
* Hotham, which was a real mess before covering everything from Bentleigh East to Noble Park, is now based more around the ‘Skyrail’ suburbs from Carnegie to Clayton, taking in the Carnegie & Murrumbeena, Bentleigh & Bentleigh East, Hughesdale, Oakleigh & Clayton areas which have a strong community of interest;
* Similarly, Chisholm now takes in the area roughly between Princes Highway and Burwood Highway including Malvern East, Chadstone, Mount Waverley & Glen Waverley, this is another strong community of interest based mostly around the Glen Waverley train line;
* Deakin becomes more middle-suburban, mostly covering the areas around Box Hill, Blackburn, Forest Hill & Burwood, stretching to Mont Albert in the west and Ringwood in the east. Interestingly, Deakin University now joins the seat named Deakin;
* Isaacs remains untouched, which is actually a shame because it is also a bit of a strange seat, but the numbers are within quota and it didn’t work to change it, but no change is better than a bad change;
* Bruce now moves back closer to where it used to be with Dandenong in the centre, stretching from Springvale & Noble Park in the west to Narre Warren in the east
* A very small change between Melbourne/Wills is the portion of East Brunswick that was in Melbourne now transfers to Wills, which puts both seats within quota (Melbourne went over after gaining about 7500 voters from Macnamara)
Of the 116,000+ voters in Higgins before it was abolished, I only have a surplus of about 21k left now after working on only those 9 seats in the screenshot. They are mostly around Croydon (removed from the east of Deakin), and the next step is to work on the boundaries of La Trobe, Casey & Menzies working up & around to McEwan. I hope to fix some of the issues these seats currently have covering too many mismatching areas. I can see:
– La Trobe moving down to take some areas I’ve removed from Holt and be more Pakenham/Cranbourne based;
– Casey moving south to take areas like Gembrook and some more of the outer eastern suburbs;
– Rural seats like Monash, Indi and Gippsland can take some more rural parts which puts them within quota;
– McEwan then moves east to be more of a northeastern seat taking some northern parts of Casey
– This then lets Hawke expand west, while Bendigo & Ballarat can take some more rural parts of both McEwan and Hawke putting them within quota too
This is only one scenario I’m working on. I’m doing 3, the others being the abolition of an outer seat (McEwan or Casey) and the abolition of an inner north-western seat (Wills or Maribyrnong).
But so far, this Higgins scenario is working out better than anticipated. Not without some flaws, but overall I think it’s better than the current boundaries in the south-east.
Typo above, the last dot point is meant to say it lets Hawke expand EAST, taking in some of the western portion of McEwan.
Ballarat will probably take the ‘Bacchus Marsh Surrounds’ area from Hawke and Bendigo will take the ‘Woodend’ area from McEwan, and the both Ballarat & Bendigo will be within quota too.
Once all that is done, there should only be some small swaps around the fringes throughout the remainder of the north, west & rural seats to move electors into seats that are just under quota.
The scenario that I am working with at the moment is that McEwen is the seat abolished.
Menzies crosses the river and takes all of Nillumbik. The regional seats do a shuffle.
Indi (which is over) loses the rest of Euroa to Nicholls. Nicholls includes all of the Mitchell Shire – so takes Kilmore and Wallan from McEwen.
Nicholls loses Rushworth, Echuca and Kyabram to Bendigo.
Hawke becomes a Central Victorian seat including Bacchus Marsh, Daylesford, Castlemaine, Woodend and Sunbury.
There needs to be some juggling between Ballarat, Mallee, Wannon and a small part of Corangamite but there seem to be enough voters to make it work.
Methinks that Hawke may be repackaged as McEwen and that Wills could become Hawke – after all it was his old seat – or Mallee becomes McEwen -after all Mallee has been out of the Mallee for a long time!!
golden plains south from ballarat -> corio and Maryborough and Maryborough surrounds to Ballarat from Mallee? thought?
They could work, Maryborough has moved around over the years, being in Bendigo, Wannon, and Mallee. Personally I think it has a closer connection to Bendigo if you are going to move it. (see local footy leagues etc)
However I dont think Mallee should be touched as the projections for its growth are not realistic
If Ballarat lost some south to Corio, I was looking at bringing Beaufort into Ballarat and the Edenhope into Wannon.
@witness ive done the same thing ive given south golden lains to corio beaufort and bacchus marsh surrounds to ballarat and then south golden plains from corangamite to wannon
ive left lalor as is and then done the following.
Gellibrand -> Fraser/Maribynong -> Gorton -> Hawke-> McEwen
il be abolishing Jagajaga. due the fact something in that area needs to go. and that area is basically PM names or Cooper and Jagajaga given jagajaga isnt named aafter a specific person it gets the chop
ive only got Aston, Deakin, Menzies and McEwen to finalise
In my scenario of abolishing Higgins, I’ve done most of metro Melbourne now (all finalised seats are within quota), and the only big numbers I have left are:
– Around 20,000 over quota in Casey to move;
– Around 5,000 over quota in La Trobe to move;
– McEwan is now 24,000 below quota after moving significant portions into Hawke, Ballarat & Nicholls
That’s pretty much perfect – 25,000 surplus with McEwan able to take between 24,000 to 30,000 more people – and outside of that I only have 5 other seats either over or under quota but the biggest variation is only by around 1300 people (the others all under 600 out) so only small changes should easily fix them.
For example Nicholls only needs to move about 600 people into Indi, and Holt is only over by 28.
Overall, very few changes were needed in metropolitan Melbourne in the north & west. The biggest changes were:
– Rearranging the southeast where a seat (Higgins) was abolished, but I think the new boundaries are much better;
– Rearranging Hawke, McEwan, Casey and La Trobe, with all of them moving clockwise. This is still in progress but will look roughly like this:
* Hawke: Stretches from Bacchus Marsh to Riddells Creek (this is finished and within quota)
* La Trobe: Moves down & in closer to the Pakenham / Cranbourne area
* Casey: Contracts in towards the Dandenongs & Eastern Suburbs
* McEwan: Moves significantly east, covering Whittlesea to parts of the Yarra Valley
Having Hawke within quota, a combined 25,000 surplus in Casey & La Trobe and a 24,000 shortfall in McEwan means I have the numbers to make it work, just finding the right boundaries.
Ive done Aston and Deakin. Working on McEwen and Menzies. Abolished: jagajaga. McEwen loses Mitchell and Macedon ranges and moves down into jagajaga
@Trent I’ve having 504 trouble loading https://ibb.co/KmYdV6x
Hi Josh, I was getting the same before around the time you posted that too, said the site was down for maintenance, but it seems to be working again now.
Ive got 3 divisions left jagajaga McEwen and Menzies 2 make two divsions out of. Given that the area I want is effectively pm names and Aboriginal names jagajaga is the one that gets the chop. My new McEwen and Hawke now resemble decent shapes.
@John
It seems resonable to abolish Jagajaga given that it is caught between McEwen and Menzies. An interesting consequence of this is that Menzies will probably be shifted permanently north of the Yarra at the next redistribution after this one. Some will find that amusing. Others won’t be happy.
I’ve almost finished mine, but I’m still getting some issues with Deakin and Menzies. These numbers then throw my Chisholm, Kooyong, Higgins (with Hotham abolished) Aston, Casey and McEwen off.
I’m going to concentrate on getting my NSW comments done then I’ll come back to Vic next week. I might go back to the drawing board and try a few other things – try a few suggestions that some of you have mentioned in here.
Il be finishing offy NSW maps early next week and then submitting them as comments on my suggestion and Il upload here too. Then Il finish off the Vic redistribution and do my way maps and then the Vic ones.
@angas my Menzies sheds Whitehorse lga to Deakin and moves into the lower half of jagajaga I would have preferred to go with the upper half but that would have prevented McEwen from expanding. The only divisions Ive left unaltered are Melbourne Lalor Mallee and Flinders. While it’s still under quota Flinders is still within tolerance
I’ve worked mine out by abolishing Casey.
Lilydale and the Yarra Valley go into McEwen, with most of the remainder going into Deakin. All of Isaacs, Hotham, Chisholm and Deakin move generally north/east to accommodate this.
Hawke gains the western part of McEwen, which also loses some areas around Mernda and Wollert to Scullin. Melbourne crosses the Yarra to take in Southbank and Fishermans Bend, with all of Macnamara, Goldstein and to a lesser extent Higgins moving south-east.
Only drawback is it leaves McEwen as a ‘bits and pieces’ seat, but at least it’s not quite as elongated. The rest doesn’t look too bad.
I finished my scenario of abolishing Higgins, everything is within quota and I think the vast majority of boundaries are much improved, especially the southeastern suburbs which had the biggest shake up.
Chisholm is mostly Monash council along the Glen Waverley line, Deakin is almost entirely Whitehorse plus Ringwood, Hotham is the Skyrail corridor (Carnegie to Clayton) plus the Bentleighs & Glen Huntly, Bruce moves west to focus more on Greater Dandenong like it used to, Macnamara finally gets Prahran & South Yarra and also sends Fishermans Bend & South Wharf to Melbourne, while the Toorak/Armadale/Malvern area of Higgins get split between Kooyong (north of Malvern Rd) and Goldstein (south of Malvern Rd) which also gains Caulfield from Macnamara.
In the north & west only small changes were needed but good ones I think, eg. Wills gained East Brunswick from Melbourne, Cooper gained a pocket of Bundoora from Scullin, Scullin gained the rest of Mernda, Maribyrnong gains Keilor which has a good natural boundary, Gorton gains Hillside from Hawke, Fraser gains the rest of Yarraville from Gellibrand, etc.
The big changes are Hawke, McEwan, Casey and La Trobe moving clockwise. Hawke in particular is much better I think.
There are only 2 things I’m not too happy with:
– The shape of Goldtsein as its a bit thin and long, but from a community of interest perspective I couldn’t put Armadale and Malvern in Macnamara, which also HAD to lose Caulfield.
– Like your scenario Mark, McEwan ends up a bits & pieces seat, but I feel like it already was an now at least it becomes more rural and loses the growth suburbs, but still stretches roughly from Whittlesea to deep into the Yarra Valley bevoning more of a northeastern seat.
The idea was for La Trobe to be more Cranbourne to Pakenham area, Casey to lose the Yarra Valley and be more Dandenong Ranges including Gembrook, McEwan to be more Yarra Valley + Nillimbuk, but for the numbers to work, McEwan still stretches too far west for my liking.
I am going to do an alternate scenario, using this scenario instead of the current boundaries to save time, abolishing Hotham instead of Higgins to see if that improves the boundaries around Goldstein and Kooyong and possibly creating an opportunity to inprove Isaacs too.
I can’t for the life of me see what coomunity of interest there is between the Nillumbik parts of McEwen and the Upper Yarra Valley. It all comes down to one road between Yarra Glen and Christmas Hills. There are no local government or transport links. The current boundary between McEwen and Casey is eminently sensible.
Honestly I don’t know that area at all and it was the last piece to try to make work after fixing the mess in the southeastern suburbs that exists now. Hard to make the numbers work out there!
I’m hoping when I model abolishing Hotham instead of Higgins, it works better.
Mark – Your McEwan sounds a lot like mine turned out. I had gain areas like Gisborne, Riddels Creek and Romney while Bendigo took Woodend, then McEwan moved down into Lilydale and Yarra Valley.
It was hard to make the numbers surrounding Melbourne’s outskirts work.
Typo, had Hawke gain areas like Gisborne, etc..
I’ve spent some time this weekend building a tool to help everyone build their redistribution maps.
It might take a moment to load.
https://kevinchen870.shinyapps.io/VIC_2023_redistribution_tool_SA2/
You should be able to click on SA2s to build up your new electorates. Then copy out the tables for your submissions. Unfortunately it’s only 1 electorate at a time right now.
If people like it then I can put some work into an SA1 version. I want to build in a click and drag tool to make it easier to pick multiple SAs- at the moment it’s mouse clicks only.
I’ve built it using RShiny so if it’s really useful I could explore hosting it somewhere (potentially even on here Ben). Not sure how much free up time shiny apps has.
The other app I want to work on is bringing in everyone’s suggestions and creating full maps for you to use in your submission. You’d provide the excel of the new electorates based on SA1 or SA2; then the app will create the boundaries accordingly. It’ll hopefully automate the map drawing so you can screenshot your electorates and leave more time to write or analyse submissions.
@kevin Chan thanks that’s very helpful
Nice work and thanks Kevin! A SA1 version would definitely be nice.
Many thanks Kevin, very helpful in trying to quickly see if some of my ideas were in the ballpark for realism!
Done my first full draft:
– Macnamara chopped, Melbourne gains everything down to Middle Park. St Kilda/Elwood into Higgins, Caulfield to Goldstein
– Cooper takes Yarra LGA from Melbourne, knock-on effect north brings McEwen to look much nicer on just Whittlesea LGA + Wallan. Nillumbik to Jagajaga, and Macedon Ranges to Hawke
-Hawke/Gorton (names virtually interchangeable) I’ve completely realigned so one seat follows one of the rail lines. Could have technically avoided this, but didn’t want a Hawke that was centered on Lerderderg state forest.
– Menzies/Deakin/Chisholm boundaries drawn along Springvale and Canterbury Roads
– Hotham drawn out of Dandenong LGA and is now Carnegie-Bentleigh-Clayton
Naturally the odd bugbear here and there, but probably fewer than there are on the current map, at least to my eye.
I’ve been reading this tread and there’s seems a bias:
• Abolish a seat in the E or SE of Melbourne; and,
• Have Melbourne jump the Yarra
Given we are dealing with an average 9.5% growth projections for Victoria, I would argue the seats more likely to underperform this will be rural seats. The state government has earmarked the middle ring suburbs for most of the growth, so Higgins converges on the 9.5% growth with it’s variance reducing from 6.47% to 5.96% (we see the same trend in the inner south east and again in Melbourne’s south west). In short these electorates are expected to exceed the 9.5% projected growth rate.
However, the Rural, Regional and Northern Melbourne are a different story. What I would raise that some of these areas had a covid population jump that seems to be unwinding.
I keep thinking that some of these issues raised in the 2010 redistribution are still pertinent today.
Summary
The key take away was the AEC tried to abolish Murray (now Nicholls) and create new seat Bourke to the Northeast of Melbourne.
It tried abolishing Murray and failed due to a grass roots campaign, but is has since essentially abolished it in stealth by since removing Loddon, Moira and the south part of Strathbogie shire and adding Mitchell thereby bringing it into the Melbourne growth area. I think those that have looked at McEwen abolition or Casey abolition might end up with maps not dissimilar to what an evolved 2010 maps.
It tried adding Docklands to Melbourne Ports (now McNamara) and failed to so due to community interest (I’d argue given how the Melbourne Council has essentially shut down access from the south via St Kilda Road, the non-return of city workers and their replacement with students I would argue that “community of interest” is even less in 2023 than it was in 2010. The Williams Rd, Dandenong Road and Orrong road boundary with Higgins made a lot of sense.
Jaga Jaga was stretched along the Yarra into Research and West Heidelberg was transferred into Batman (now Cooper)
The ALP opposed the last two, they may be more open to them 13 years later.
Finally, its’ worth considering the Melbourne Eruv as a community of interest due to the higher pre-polling found with it.
Here are the links for the 2010 your consideration below.
https://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2010/vic/proposed-report/files/2010-vic-redist-proposed-map-composite-metro.pdf
http://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2010/vic/proposed-report/files/2010-vic-redist-proposed-map-rural.pdf
Obviously not viable this time around but would people support a division names after Ned Kelly
Interesting take Sandbelter.
After having tried to model the abolition of both Higgins and Hotham, both of which result in much better boundaries in the southeastern suburbs and require very little change in the north & west, I run into the same issue both times, which is a real mess in the outer/fringe areas from the northeast to southeast. Namely McEwan, Casey and La Trobe.
So I’m also inclined to think that abolishing an outer seat would probably work better and am going to try that next.
I have to say though that abolishing Hotham did give me some really nice boundaries around Macnamara, Goldstein, Higgins, Isaacs and Bruce, in particular with Isaacs becoming very much focused on Kingston (but also taking in suburbs like East Bentleigh, Clarinda, Oakleigh South & Clayton South) and Bruce becoming more of a ‘Greater Dandenong’ seat. That then split the outer southeastern suburbs between La Trobe (which shrunk in area losing its more rural parts to be more suburban) and Holt.
In my submission I plan to lay out the full map of a complete scenario, but then also include a section specifically arguing the case for the Prahran/South Yarra for Caulfield swap between Macnamara & Higgins that should occur regardless of which seat gets abolished, in which I’ll try to debunk most of the objections that were received on the last 2 attempts.
For example that the Jewish community is almost entirely contained within the area that would be swapped, and in fact will be joining a larger Jewish community in Higgins than currently exists in the remainder of Macnamara.
And how the transport links are much stronger in the proposal than the current boundaries, not only because Higgins will follow the Dandenong train lines and Macnamara will follow the Sandringham line & 78 tram, but also that the arguments about the 16 & 3 trams being a strong link between Caulfield & St Kilda are cancelled out by the fact that in the other direction they provide a strong link between Caulfield and Malvern/Glenferrie Road (16) and Malvern East (3)!
@trent the reason for the odd macnamara boundary is an attempt at gerrymandering by labor to kkeep green voting areas out to prevent the seat from fallling t the grens
McEwen – Current Enrollment 114082 – Projected enrollment 122185
After redistribution – Enrollment 116648 – Projected enrollment 125046.
ive found that after splitting jagajaga between Mcewen and menzies there is still some leftover so i gave heidelberg west and bundoora east to cooper and then gave the remainder of clifton hill to melbourne
@john, it definitely is because they were the primary objection last time. Both the Greens and Liberals supported the change.
This time, Labor will probably oppose it even more because now that they hold Higgins it could notionally lose them not one but two seats – Macnamara to the Greens, and Higgins to the Liberals.
Although, it is possible that it makes Macnamara safer for Labor. Sounds weird that increasing the Greens vote by thousands in a seat they only lost by a few hundred votes could make it harder for them to beat Labor, but hear me out!
In 2022, the primary vote order was: 1 Labor (31.8%), 2 Greens (29.7%), 3 Liberal (29%), all very close with only 2.8% between them, but after minor party preferences the 3PP order was 1 Liberal, 2 Labor, 3 Greens.
The only path the Greens had for victory was a Greens vs Liberal 2CP where Labor finished third, because if the Liberals remained in 3rd place, Labor would have comfortably won a Labor vs Greens count off Liberal preferences. I think it was Kevin Bonham’s site that had the breakdown of all 3 possible scenarios based on scrutineer reports, which were roughly 62-38 Labor v Liberal, 61-39 Greens v Liberal, or 55-45 Labor v Greens, depending on how the 3PP count finished up.
If you remove what is by far the Liberals’ best performing area – Caulfield – then it almost certainly becomes a Labor vs Greens seat, which Labor would almost be guaranteed to win off the back of Liberal preferences.
If Labor were smart they would probably acknowledge that winning Higgins was a one-off and with only a 2% margin it’s likely to return to the Liberals after 1 term anyway, and that on its current boundaries Macnamara is already on the knife-edge of becoming a Greens v Liberal seat (both 2016 & 2022 were only a few hundred votes from that).
This means that, especially without the motivation of kicking out ScoMo’s government, Labor could very well lose both seats on current boundaries anyway.
So they’d actually be better off supporting the change, which would sacrifice Higgins but more likely turn Macnamara into an ALP vs Greens seat which they are far more likely to retain, as seats like Wills & Cooper (with even higher Greens & lower Liberal votes) have demonstrated.
@trent when macnamara is fixed up (hopefully this time around) labor will probably lose both seats as the jewish population in caulfield will abandon labor due to their stance on israel v palestine and weak showing of support. and the strong green vote in yarra council
Yeah I think they’d be a good chance to lose both seats even on current boundaries.
When you look at Macnamara, if as you predict some Jewish voters abandon Labor over their stance on Israel, then Caulfield remaining in Macnamara would only increase the Liberal vote while reducing the Labor vote, and given how close the 3PP was last time, that would almost certainly drop Labor to third place in the 3PP and make it a Greens seat (vs Liberal).
Higgins I just think will return to the Liberals because Labor’s win was probably a one-off.
If the Macnamara/Higgins boundaries are fixed, then Higgins will certainly go back to the Liberals with Caulfield replacing by far the Libs’ weakest area there (Chapel St).
But Labor might actually have a better chance in Macnamara if the boundaries are fixed, despite the increased Greens vote, because with Caulfield removed the Jewish vote will be massively diminished anyway, and by removing by far the strongest Liberal area the Libs will almost certainly finish third in the 3PP.
Labor have far more chance of missing out on the 2CP on current boundaries (where they only pipped the Greens by 0.6%) next time around, than they would losing an ALP v GRN 2CP if a redistribution knocked the Liberals into 3rd place.
I’ve had a look at the numbers and if we just drew a boundary down Williams Road (north of Dandenong Rd) and Orrong Road (south of Dandenong Road), you get the following from 2028 projections:
* Macnamara +4180 electors (keeps them within quota at just under 129,000)
* Higgins -4180 electors (reduces them from around 119,000 to 115,000)
Higgins was already about 3000 electors below quota so this does exacerbate their shortfall, but that’s very easily fixed by transferring the remainder of Caulfield South & Glen Huntly from Goldstein to Higgins. Which, once again, actually improves the Jewish community of interest compared to the current boundaries.
I think the ideal Higgins would:
– Send Windsor, Prahran & South Yarra to Macnamara
– Send Ashburton & Glen Iris East (City of Booroondara part) to Kooyong
– Gain Hughesdale from Hotham
– Gain Caulfield, Caulfield North, South & East, Glen Huntly and a pocket of Elsternwick from Macnamara
– Gain the remainder of Caulfield South & Glen Huntly from Goldstein
That gives it really clean boundaries of North Rd to the south, Warrigal Rd to the east, Monash Fwy to the north, and Williams Rd / Orrong Road to the west, and it unites Carnegie & Murrumbeena with Glen Huntly, Caulfield and Hughesdale which is a strong community of interest.
The resulting shortfall in Goldstein then creates an opportunity to clean up the boundaries around Goldstein, Isaacs and Hotham to create stronger communities of interest in the sandbelt.
I think on the current electoral map, it’s definitely the south-eastern suburbs which have the worst boundaries and most mismatched communities of interest. So perhaps the best approach is to start by fixing them, and then work outwards until it becomes apparent which seat needs to be abolished, rather than starting with an abolished seat.
Trent I tried working out what the 3CP would be in Macnamara after the election had the original redistribution stayed the same. Whilst Caulfield is the Libs best area, it’s also pretty good for Labor (primary vote wise) and better for ALP than the Sth Yarra/Prahran area. So whilst it does lower the Lib 3CP, the swap also lowers Labor’s 3CP too, and leads to a much higher Green 3CP.
I think I had Libs .1% higher than Labor, but if you tried to factor in postal votes, not being as pro Lib if the swap occurred and and Josh Burns doing better in Prahran/Windsor with his personal vote (and loss of Katie Allens), Labor would probably end up higher. But overall the Lib-Lab difference would only be something like 1%.
I think Labor will try and keep Macnamara the same and then have Higgins lose the Boroondara council part and move into Hughesdale, Oakleigh area. I disagree that Higgins isn’t winnable for them next term. I think it’s more winnable for them than some of their marginal regional seats. This area is only going to trend further to the left.
Libs will try and do the Caulfield/Sth Yarra swap to make Higgins more winnable.
I wonder what the Greens will propose. The swap doesn’t even help them that much anymore and it would completely prevent them from being able to win Higgins. Maybe they’d try and put the rest of Elsternwick in Macnamara and just put Hughesdale in Higgins. I imagine trying to put Yarra council, as some have suggested, into Cooper would be tempting for them though
just finished my victrian redistribution. and abolished jagajaga
ive made 5 name change suggestions though i dont expect some to get up
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.
Why on earth would they revive the name Batman when they just got rid of it.
I doubt there is a single potential name less likely for the AEC to use than Batman.
Good points Drake.
I think the Greens would still try to propose the Macnamara/Higgins swap because even though it makes Higgins unwinnable for them, they seem to be struck on around 22% there and didn’t make any progress at all last year. Their best result has been 25% but any areas that could be added to Higgins in the future aren’t areas that would particularly help them increase their vote either.
So I think they’ll stick to their same strategy as the last redistribution which is to focus on their much better chances in Macnamara where 2 of the last 3 elections they only needed to flip around 400 votes to win.
Those numbers you provided are interesting and if indeed the last proposal would have increased the Greens 3CP but not made much difference to the gap between ALP & LIB, that’s still a huge boost to the Greens’ chances because it puts them in the 2CP count where they have roughly a 50% chance of facing the Libs (who they would easily beat off Labor preferences).
I agree Labor will want to keep the status quo in Macnamara, and add Labor-friendly areas to Higgins (like replacing Boorondara with Hughesdale/Oakleigh) while keeping that big Greens vote around Chapel St in Higgins where it’s a source of strong preference flows rather than in Macnamara where it would be direct competition.
@trent i think greens and libs will both propose it and i imagine from the comments here quite a few independant and non party people. labor of course will keep the current boundaries and oppose any attempt by the aec to change the boundaries in any way that disadvantages them both in higgins and macnamara. it will however only be a matter of time before it happens and given labors slim majority and the expected loss of seats elsewhere theyll need every seat they can get to hold onto what is probably gonna be a labor minortity govt. if labor tries to hold the oundary i will certainly be commenting and objecting to their proposal as obvious gerrymandering as the shape of the division is unsustainable and again an attempt by labor to gerrymander a result beneficial to them
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