The suggestions from members of the public, MPs and political parties for the current redistribution of federal electoral boundaries in New South Wales were released yesterday. Unfortunately I was a bit preoccupied on my way back from Malaysia so it’s taken some time to respond.
Antony Green has written a good summary of the major submissions from parties and MPs, so instead I’m going to go through the submissions by region, looking at how they differ in particular areas.
For this post I will sometimes refer to the enrolment projections – you can check out this post from late September which covered the official enrolment numbers used for the NSW redistribution. That post now has over 350 comments, but you can now move the conversation here.
This is quite a long post but if you’re only interested in one region you can scroll to that region.
I did find some general trends.
Understandably, parties generally left seats they hold alone and were more willing to chop and change in their opponents’ areas. There isn’t much common ground between the Liberals and the Nationals – they have their own agendas and don’t concern themselves too much with giving the other an advantage.
One of the most interesting elements was how independent seats were treated.
There was no choice on the north shore except for at least one teal seat to be pushed out of the teal heartland, and the general consensus is that Kylea Tink in North Sydney is that victim. But the differences come in what they do with what is left of her seat. Most of the major submissions generally support holding the remainder of North Sydney together and then adding some areas from Bradfield or Bennelong, but the Liberal submission instead dismembers her seat.
Labor likewise dramatically change Dai Le’s seat of Fowler. Their version of “Fowler” only contains a little of the old seat and shifts a long way south, while Le’s strongest areas are added to Chris Bowen’s McMahon.
And then the Liberal Party also dismembers Andrew Gee’s seat of Calare – the western end is added to the Blue Mountains in a likely Labor seat, while the town of Orange is bizarrely added to Riverina.
Northern Sydney
One of the key areas requiring change is the northern suburbs of Sydney, where seats are both significantly under quota, but also options for change are limited by the presence of major bodies of water to the east and south.
The three teal seats of Warringah, Mackellar and North Sydney are collectively about 40% short of the projected quota, and get no relief from neighbouring seats. The shortage adds up to 76% of a seat if you extend out to include Bradfield, Bennelong and Berowra.
For those three teal seats, the crucial decision is which direction you move to bring them up to quota – do you extend North Sydney north into Bradfield, west into Bennelong or do you extend Mackellar or Warringah west into Bradfield.
Labor and Liberal both suggest the same direction – they push Mackellar and Warringah south, with North Sydney most severely affected.
Indeed Labor and Liberal each draw a very similar seat overlapping the current seats of Warringah and North Sydney. The only difference seems to be on the border with Mackellar – Labor has moved areas on the eastern edge of the Mackellar-Warringah border, while the Liberal Party has moved areas on the western edge.
Labor calls this seat “Warringah”, while the Liberal Party calls it “North Sydney”. The Liberals suggest abolishing the name “Warringah”, since North Sydney is a federation seat name, but this seat looks more like Warringah than it does North Sydney.
The Liberal submission effectively dismembers the old North Sydney, with the seat split three ways between Bradfield, Bennelong and Warringah. While the news has focused on Warringah being abolished, I think it makes more sense to say that North Sydney was abolished and its name transferred to Warringah.
Labor does not abolish any seats on the north shore, so instead they have to continue pushing the seats further west. North Sydney pushes into Bradfield and Bennelong, pushing Bennelong further into Parramatta and Bradfield into Berowra, which pushes Bradfield right up to the Hawkesbury River. They then move Berowra into the Hawkesbury region.
The three teal independents all make submissions. They don’t generally provide full maps of suggestions, but their arguments imply a certain direction of travel.
Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps argues that Mackellar should remain contained in the Northern Beaches council, which implies an expansion south into Warringah, not west into Bradfield, and also makes it less likely that Warringah could expand to the north-west into Bradfield, and thus suggests that North Sydney should bear the brunt of the changes.
Warringah MP Zali Steggall provides two specific recommendations, both of which expand Warringah slightly into both Mackellar and North Sydney. She doesn’t suggest further changes, but this would force both of her teal colleagues to expand into Bradfield.
North Sydney MP Kylea Tink instead suggests minimal change to North Sydney, expanding it slightly north and east into Bradfield and North Sydney. This would imply more dramatic changes to Mackellar, but it’s not said explicitly.
It’s worth noting that clearly identified “teals” ran in Warringah, North Sydney, Mackellar and Bradfield in 2022.
Steggall held her seat by a much larger margin in 2022, while both Scamps and Tink were elected with margins between 2.5% and 3%, although to be fair they were new candidates defeating sitting MPs, so you’d expect that difference to shrink in 2025. Fellow independent Nicolette Boele managed to cut Paul Fletcher’s margin to 4.2%. So you’d assume that expanding Mackellar or North Sydney into Bradfield would add less friendly areas for the independent MPs, but not completely hostile areas. It’s hard to see where Boele could run again, despite her continuing to campaign as the “shadow member for Bradfield”.
The Greens recommended abolishing Bradfield, with Warringah expanding both east into North Sydney and north into Mackellar, with North Sydney, Mackellar, Bradfield and Bennelong expanding to take in parts of the abolished Bradfield. They also suggest renaming North Sydney to “Cammeraygal”.
The Nationals also suggest abolishing North Sydney, with Bennelong, Warringah and Bradfield expanding to fill the space. Their proposal is relatively similar to the Liberals, but they maintain the name of Warringah.
There are two main political implications here:
- Those who suggest Mackellar expands south and thus forces North Sydney to push north are likely drawing a safer seat for Sophie Scamps than Kylea Tink, and potentially result in Tink having to run in a notional Liberal seat.
- The Liberal and Nationals proposals pull Bennelong east and make it easier for the Liberal Party, while Labor, the Greens expand Bennelong in other directions.
Central and Eastern Sydney
All of the submissions start from Wentworth, with a choice of changing it either on its western boundary with Sydney or its southern boundary with Kingsford Smith.
The Liberal and Greens submissions expand Wentworth in both directions, while the Labor and Nationals submissions shift Wentworth into Kingsford Smith and actually loses a small area to Sydney.
Allegra Spender considers both an expansion west into Sydney (as far as Hyde Park) or south into Kingsford Smith but doesn’t endorse either option. She does specifically argue against Kingsford Smith expanding north into Wentworth, but no-one else suggests such a change.
Pretty much everyone has recommended Kingsford Smith take in part of the City of Sydney from the seat of Sydney, but Labor and the Nationals go further, moving Erskineville in to Kingsford Smith, while Liberal and Greens are more modest, moving Rosebery, Beaconsfield and Zetland.
This becomes relevant when we look at the seat of Sydney. Pretty much everyone agrees that Sydney has to expand west to take in suburbs from Grayndler.
At the moment the Greens’ best areas in Sydney are split between the seats of Sydney and Grayndler, and I think most versions of Sydney become stronger for the Greens. Cutting out Erskineville takes a very strong Greens area and neutralises it by combining it with a very weak Greens area, as in the state seat of Heffron.
Labor and the Greens both move Balmain, Annandale and Newtown into Sydney. The Nationals focus on adding Balmain and Leichhardt, while the Liberal Party doesn’t add Balmain, but instead adds in Newtown and Marrickville.
Every party then pushes seats further west. The Greens recommend abolishing Watson, while the Liberal Party does a similar move as they did in North Sydney, by applying the name Watson to a seat that more resembles Blaxland. The Nationals recommend abolishing Grayndler. Labor manages to avoid abolishing a seat until much further out.
Southern Sydney
The Labor and Liberal submissions take quite different approaches to the seats in the St George and Sutherland area. The Liberal seats experience little change – Banks expands a little towards Kogarah, while Cook becomes a Botany Bay-based seat, taking in the Botany Bay shoreline all the way to edge of their airport along with the Cronulla area.
Labor meanwhile still has to abolish a seat, and they’ve chosen Hughes. Cook retreats to the south side of the Georges River and takes in more of the Shire. Barton is based entirely in the eastern parts of the St George area, losing the southern parts of Marrickville. Banks takes in western parts of the Sutherland Shire.
Those parts of Hughes in the Liverpool council area are moved into Fowler. Labor’s proposal dismembers Fowler into four parts, moving Fowler quite a long way south to take in parts of Campbelltown and Liverpool council areas from Werriwa, Macarthur and Hughes. Such a change would be very inconvenient for Dai Le.
Western Sydney
Labor’s proposed changes to Fowler then trigger flow-on effects across the western suburbs. Parramatta shifts west, pushed that way by the population deficit on the north shore. Changes to Greenway and Chifley are relatively minor, but Lindsay shifts quite a long way east due to changes to Macquarie, which I’ll address next.
The Liberal proposal seems to make some choices about which marginal seats they make more competitive and which ones are lost. They move Parramatta south, with Mitchell gaining parts of Parramatta which would undoubtedly make Mitchell less safe, but still safe enough. Greenway, on the other hand, is pushed into the fast-growing northern suburbs of the City of Blacktown which would likely make it more competitive for the Liberals.
Fowler is still substantially changed in the Liberal proposal, but Dai Le’s best areas stay in the seat.
The Liberals had already abolished two seats – Blaxland and Warringah – so they now have a spare seat to create, which they do by creating Bird Walton as a new south-western seat covering the new airport and high-growth suburbs previously contained in Hume, Macarthur, Werriwa, Lindsay and McMahon.
Macquarie
The seat of Macquarie is a critical linchpin which is worth mentioning on its own.
The seat currently is about 9% under the projected quota, and is made up of two distinct parts: the entire Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury council areas. To bring it up to quota, you’ve gotta branch out to another area.
Labor has chosen to split the Penrith area, giving about a third of the council to Macquarie and thus pushes Lindsay further into the Blacktown council area. Labor also takes the Richmond and Windsor urban fringe suburbs and puts them in Berowra. Bizarrely the Labor proposal still leaves the vast rural parts of the Hawkesbury council area paired with the Blue Mountains and western Penrith.
The Liberal proposal is very different. They split the Mountains away from the Hawkesbury, instead pairing the Blue Mountains with the central west of NSW. This arrangement has been true multiple times in history. Ben Chifley represented Macquarie when it covered Bathurst, and was also the case at the 2007 election, when Bob Debus won the seat. Macquarie then reverted to covering the Hawkesbury in 2010.
The Liberal Party drew a new Macquarie covering the Blue Mountains as well as Blayney, Bathurst, Lithgow and Mudgee. This seat is a replacement for Calare, which they’ve abolished, while they created a new seat called Reibey out of the Hawkesbury and northern parts of the Hills Shire.
The Nationals opt for a much more modest change than Labor or Liberal, transferring those parts of Penrith west of the Nepean River to Macquarie and otherwise leaving the current borders intact. I’m a fan of this simple approach. The Greens don’t make a specific suggestion, beyond saying that they propose leaving Macquarie alone and expanding it slightly into either Lindsay or Berowra.
Hunter and the North Coast
Labor makes no changes to Page, Richmond or Cowper. The Liberal Party also don’t change Page or Richmond but make a very slight change to the Cowper-Lyne border.
Labor also leaves Lyne alone, while the Liberals extend Lyne to take in parts of the Upper Hunter previously contained in the seat of Hunter. This then frees up part of Lyne to take in the rural areas on the north side of Port Stephens, which begins a cascade of changes through the Hunter.
Labor’s map of the Hunter shows minimal changes. Dobell, Robertson and Shortland appear to be unchanged. Hunter loses its most rural fringe to New England, but is otherwise left alone. Newcastle needs to expand so stretches north and takes a chunk out of Paterson, which is otherwise untouched. This leaves Paterson as quite elongated and strange, connecting Kurri Kurri and Maitland to the Port Stephens peninsula through Raymond Terrace.
The Liberal proposal doesn’t have anywhere near as much respect for the existing boundaries in this area. Robertson is mostly left alone, while Dobell shrinks to the urban parts of the seat along the coast. Newcastle expands south into Shortland, pushing Shortland to take in rural fringe areas of the Lake Macquarie and Central Coast regions from Dobell and Hunter. The seat of Hunter is then pushed to take in more urban areas from Paterson and Newcastle. Paterson would be much stronger for the Liberals, having lost Kurri Kurri and big parts of Maitland.
The Nationals proposal for the area actually looks more like Labor’s proposal than the Liberal proposal. The Greens don’t give specific proposals, except to recommend no changes to Richmond and Page.
Illawarra and the south-east
The Liberal proposal is much less dramatic in this area. Cunningham, Gilmore, Eden-Monaro and Whitlam are left mostly intact – there are small changes on the Cunningham-Whitlam and Gilmore-Eden-Monaro boundaries.
Hume does shift further out of Sydney, losing the newer parts of Camden Council (although it still definitely contains parts of the Sydney urban fringe). To compensate, Hume gains Yass from Eden-Monaro and Cowra and Young from Riverina.
Labor makes more dramatic changes. We already discussed Labor’s abolition of Hughes, which pulls Cunningham up to take in a few developed suburbs in the Sutherland Shire. This triggers a cascade where Whitlam and Gilmore also shift north, and eventually Eden-Monaro takes in the remainder of the Eurobodalla council area from Gilmore. Eden-Monaro thus needs to lose the areas west of the great dividing range to Riverina – specifically the Yass Valley and Snowy Valleys council areas.
Labor also takes some of the Camden council area out of Hume around Narellan, but also then swaps that for some newly-developing areas further north which switch from Werriwa to Hume, which still leaves Hume with quite a substantial part of the urban fringe.
The Nationals are the only party to actually deal with the split nature of Hume, pushing it towards Sydney and taking away Goulburn and the areas further west.
The Nationals (like the Liberals) largely leave the Illawarra untouched, but like Labor they take out the western parts of Eden-Monaro and give them to Riverina. Instead of compensating Eden-Monaro with coastal areas, they stretch Eden-Monaro north to take in Goulburn. Hume becomes a seat composed of south-western Sydney suburbs and the northern end of the Southern Highlands, but that’s it. The other rural parts of Hume go into Riverina.
Western NSW
New England is mostly left alone by Labor and Liberal. Both parties add the Muswellbrook council area from the seat of Hunter, and the Liberal proposal also adds in the remainder of the Gwydir council area from Parkes (Labor just adds a small part of it).
The Nationals make more dramatic changes. New England loses the remainder of the Gwydir council area and northern parts of the Inverell council area (but not Inverell itself) to Parkes. At the southern end, New England gains Muswellbrook council area as well as part of the Singleton council area from Hunter. It appears the boundary ends at the Hunter River, with Singleton just narrowly left inside Hunter.
Labor is much less dramatic in western NSW. They leave Farrer entirely alone, and simply add Parkes and Forbes council areas to Parkes which makes Riverina much more compact. Calare appears to be entirely untouched. Riverina, having lost parkes and Forbes, gains the remainder of the Hilltops council area from Hume and Yass Valley and Snowy Valleys council areas from Eden-Monaro.
The Liberal Party effectively abolishes Calare, leaving the central west completely changed. Macquarie stretches as far as Mudgee and Blayney. The seat of Parkes gains the Parkes council area from Riverina, the remainder of Dubbo council area and part of the Cabonne council area from Calare, and part of Carrathool from Farrer.
Farrer loses part of Carrathool and gains Lockhart from Riverina.
The Liberal Party really messes around with Riverina. Having lost Parkes to Parkes and lost Young and Cowra to Hume, it stretches up and just manages to take in Orange.
The Nationals add Lockhart to Farrer. Parkes (in addition to the gains from New England) loses part of the Lachlan council area to Riverina and gains the former Wellington council area from Calare.
While the Liberals carve up Calare, the Nationals mostly leave it alone – it just loses the former Wellington council area to Parkes and gains Cowra from Riverina.
Even the Nationals have to make some significant changes to Riverina but the core is left alone. It expands to the ACT border, taking in the western edge of Eden-Monaro (including Yass and Tumut) along with the rural western end of Hume. It loses Lockhart and Cowra and gains the southern part of the Lachlan council area.
my maps should be done by the end of the week
Is there a tool like Daves Redistricting atlas for the USA for Australia? Would make it much easier to draw maps as I have no idea how to not go over or under quota without the data.
Thanks for the summary Ben.
You use the term “Notional Liberal seat” in regard to a new version of Bradfield. I presume you mean notional vs IND (though it is true also on 2PP). This is an interesting point to clarify as I think some of the new versions of Warringah (North Sydney to the Liberals) could actually be notional Labor (or are very much closer than people suspect)
It is good to know what the Major Party submissions propose. I think each has some good points and very poor points, some of which could be easily changed by tinkering. However, the most interesting submissions are from individuals, where by happenstance, the best bits (or very similar to) of the Major Party submissions are often combined, without the worst bits. I recommend submission #43 to everyone for a read – it is not very long and has some ok maps.
The most helpful part of your summary Ben is that it identifies each part of the State where each Major party made major changes and where it didn’t.
What does it tell us that the Liberal’s radically redrew the Hunter area but didn’t bother to try and improve southern NSW, where the existing boundaries surely were in more need of improvement? As someone said on the other thread, they have managed to draw southern NSW worse than it already is. And the new Riverina seat is so poor due to the abolition of Calare you do have to wonder about the motivation
well done. on New England i think you’ve made a typo substituting Hunter for New England: “At the southern end, Hunter gains Muswellbrook council area as well as part of the Singleton council area.”
I only picked up on this cause i live in shortland and am particularly interested in the hunter area changes
Ah thanks.
I think tink will be the one left without a chair
@High Street I live on the Central Coast – in Dobell, specifically – and think I can answer this question. From this submission, the Liberals seem to have a hitlist of three target seats in the Hunter and Central Coast for the next election: Robertson, Shortland, and Paterson. Despite how contested Dobell has been since 1996, their results in Robertson and Dobell were so poor last time that they’ve just written Dobell and also Hunter off entirely to give themselves the best shot at Robertson and Shortland. The Shortland they’ve drawn takes in the west side of Lake Macquarie – which is currently independent-held at state level and is an area where Labor has historically underperformed at the 2019 and 2022 elections. It’s an older, property-owning area and the Liberals think Pat Conroy is vulnerable in those areas furthest away from Newcastle and Charlestown.
The Liberals had a small swing toward them in Paterson last time, and this is right at the top of their target list. They’ve redrawn it as a notional Liberal seat. The Labor submission was just determinedly trying to avoid Paterson losing Kurri Kurri – the strongest Labor part of the electorate. For what it’s worth, at least by my estimates, if you remove Kurri Kurri from Paterson, draw the boundary with Hunter at the Hunter Expressway, and make no other changes to Paterson, the Labor margin falls from 3.3% to roughly 1-1.5%.
The carve-up of Calare is partly about a belief, or hope, that the Macquarie they’ve drawn might now be worse for Labor than an entirely Greater Sydney seat, and partly to spite Andrew Gee for having left the Coalition caucus. In the southeast, they’ve again written off Eden-Monaro and tried to help themselves in Gilmore by shifting Moruya – a relatively good town for Labor – to Eden-Monaro.
What would the margin by for a redrawn Hunter if Kurri Kurri is shifted into it? Also if Hunter is stronger and Paterson does not have Coal country in it the Libs may not have a pro-coal strategy next time. Other thing about Shortland is that that it is Coastal so may attract sea-changers/commuter demographic really an extention of the Central coast rather than Coal country.
@Josh – you could have just said “self-interest without any redeeming features of improving boundaries on geographical measures” and left it at that. Would have saved time.
I did end up submitting suggestions but had to leave it quite late to prepare, so I ran out of time to put the maps together. I finished it over the weekend – there’s a submission with my submission that sets this out in granular detail but the map is available here – https://josh-lucock.github.io/2023_NSW_Fed-Redistribution_Suggestion/
Shoutout to Darren McSweeney, who I saw a lot in the comments to the last blog on this topic. His submission, while different from mine, was excellent.
My headline changes ended up being: abolishing North Sydney and replacing it with a northwestern Hawkesbury and Hills seat; abolishing Blaxland; and splitting Hughes in three between Cook, Cunningham, and Werriwa. A new seat also gets created in southwestern Sydney.
I had been pretty hell-bent on shifting Macquarie, or whatever name the Blue Mountains-based seat takes, to a Blue Mountains-Penrith alignment, which hasn’t been used since 1982. At some point, I think the AEC will need to revert to that alignment, if not now. Macquarie ends up being a lynchpin that determines how you solve every other problem in Greater Western Sydney and Southern and Western NSW.
For me, the hard part ended up being drawing compact boundaries in southwestern Sydney. It essentially required splitting the fastest-growing areas in the Camden and western Liverpool LGAs with more established suburbs. If readers recall what the state seat of Leppington looked like after the last state redistribution, I won’t be surprised if we end up with a seat like that.
Yeah, look, fair enough lol
Josh, I like most of your boundaries, but I disagree with some of the names you have proposed. Names like ‘Awaba’, ‘Cabramatta’ and ‘Woronora’ all duplicate the names of localities which goes against the AEC criteria ‘Avoid geographical names where possible’. Especially Cabramatta which also duplicates the name of a state seat – another criterion the AEC wants to avoid.
The names you proposed as replacements for Newcastle and McMahon are good.
@Yoh An thanks. I went on a bit of a crusade with my submission – which I don’t expect the Committee to implement – about the naming of divisions for people. I argued that creating a better sense of connection and place with single-member electorates required naming divisions for geographic features and not for people who often had no connection to the area taken in by the division that has their name, or whose prime ministerial or colonial records were increasingly controversial. I particularly wanted to see indigenous names for geographic features used, since the NSWEC uses more anglicised names.
Some of my suggestions I liked a lot; some of them – like Cabramatta and Woronora – definitely aren’t as good. I just went crazy with it at the end.
I just can’t see a way to have Macquarie remain a Hawkesbury—Blue Mountains seat without making a mess elsewhere. None of the suggestions that attempt to do this are satisfactory. Maybe my standards are too high and I’m not seeing the bigger picture of the consequences in regional NSW.
The Nationals proposal of just extending Macquarie to take in the bits of Penrith west of the river seems pretty reasonable?
@Nicholas
Your boundaries for the Northern Sydney area are almost perfect, but sending Macquarie westward to take in Bathurst does cause a lot of havoc as Orange is cut loose from an abolished Calare and needs to find a home.
I think the Liberal Party submission is the only one that does this movement and it leads to a pretty questionable Riverina.
The only semi-reasonable solution I found was to put Orange in Riverina, put Wagga Wagga in Farrer, and then Albury in Eden-Monaro.
Leon tried a more radical version with a large Far Western seat and a pairing of Albury and Wagga Wagga, but that would draw a lot of objection.
That said, a Bathurst and Blue Mountains version of Macquarie, a Richmond/Windsor based division, and a Parramatta north of the M4 are all super desirable. I wish it could work out that way.
Yes, that was my original idea too.
In this scenario is it very hard to move the boundary between Greenway and Mitchell due to the dual quotas, and indeed, the Nationals’ suggestion retains that boundary. But then look at what happens further east.
Of course, we could clean up a lot of what the Nationals have suggested. But in everything I’ve tried, the best I can do is having one division with “pretty bad” boundaries and at least a couple with “less-than-ideal” boundaries. Bradfield becomes a Ku-ring-gai—Willoughby seat (that’s okay), which means Bennelong has to straddle the Lane Cove River (not best, in my view). We end up with some combination of Mitchell becoming a narrow stick (losing more of Castle Hill but still extending south of the M2), Berowra awkwardly seeping into Parramatta and/or Ku-ring-gai, and Parramatta becoming a bits-and-pieces division stretching from Epping to Toongabbie yet failing to consolidate up to the M2.
Again, maybe I’m being too fussy and some compromises here will be necessary to achieve acceptable boundaries elsewhere.
@Josh – I like your Bradfield better than most.
@Nicholas, I think the biggest mistake people make is what’s a suitable and unsuitable boundary. Straddling the Lane Cove river is ok in my view, as long as it is to a decent degree – same with Middle Harbour. I think having a little bit of seat stuck on the other side of a water body is the biggest no-no. It’s why I would protest against the Nationals version of Warringah where a few people in Willoughby LGA would probably have to go to Manly to visit the local MP.
Conversely, Willoughby LGA is seen as lower north shore (at least everything other than the suburb of Chatswood which is debatable), whereas Ku-ring-gai LGA is very large and very upper north shore. So there is a pretty strong distinction there, even though it’s not obvious on a map. A boundary dividing upper and lower north shore seats is desirable, as long as it’s in a decent place.
I would understand Bennelong taking Lane Cove/crossing Lane Cove River (that is what it did till 1992 and in hindsight I should have considered this a bit more when submitting my proposal) but I am against Bradfield crossing Lane Cove River.
I was ok with North Sydney taking Hunters Hill because North Sydney was a Lower North Shore electorate, which by some definitions include Hunters Hill LGA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_North_Shore_(Sydney) ). However, a Bradfield that results from abolishing North Sydney would not be a Lower North Shore seat by character anymore and thus I just don’t think it would “fit”.
So there isn’t a tool? I want to know how people are drawing redistributions. If it isn’t too complex, I’ll give it a try myself.
As a comment-on-suggestion, I might include an alternative that involves Macquarie being a Hawkesbury—Blue Mountains—Emu Plains seat.
How’s this?:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FgX0MOe6wQJTuUUnwfz5pKIxVZ5-1HmX/view?usp=sharing
I’m still pulling my hair out on how best to get this to work.
I’m happy with Lindsay, Chifley, Greenway, and Mitchell. I’m also happy that Bradfield is perfectly aligned to LGA boundaries.
I’m not happy that Berowra has to go south of the M2, and I’m not happy that North Epping is separated from Epping. To solve this, I see two options, both of which make me less happy:
– Mitchell goes south of the M2, with Glenhaven and Knightsbridge going to Berowra.
– Berowra has to contain a small part of Ku-ring-gai LGA (perhaps just Wahroonga and North Wahroonga), disrupting the alignment of Bradfield to LGA boundaries.
I’m also not happy that Bennelong contains Ermington despite straddling the Lane Cove River. Once again, I don’t see a good option:
– Bennelong could move into Willoughby LGA, forcing Bradfield into Hornsby. Berowra is consequently forced further south of the M2, but not enough to take in all of Epping; or into Mitchell, in which case we once again have Mitchell crossing the M2.
– Bennelong could instead take more of Epping instead of Ermington. The result is a savage split of the Epping area. Residents of North Epping would have to travel through two other divisions just to get to the rest of their division!
– Bennelong could take the east of Epping and North Epping, but then once again we have Mitchell going south of the M2, or we end up with some nonsensical boundary between Berowra and Parramatta.
Also, Parramatta looks kinda weird.
Daniel, the AEC supplies a list of data that shows growth rates for each locality area as defined by the ABS (something called SA1). I believe this is what many commentators use to assess which localities should go where.
@nicholas my mackellar, warringah, bennelong, bradfield, berowra, parramatta and mitchell are identical
@Nicholas I’d rather Bennelong take in Epping with Ermington going to Paramatta in your scenario. I’d think adding Olympic Park to Paramatta would also work in that case, being like the state Paramatta seat.
i think Walton is a done deal to the new name of the SW sydney division seeming as though it has heaps of people suggesting it
@Angas
In the end I scrapped that redistribution and redid it without dismembering Macquarie – partly because I found a way to keep Macquaries BM Hawkesbury configuration without screwing up Hume. However most of my Western Sydney had to be scrapped and I couldn’t make a replacement in time.
Hmm, I just tried Dan M’s suggestion regarding Bennelong and it’s not too bad.
I hate what I’ve done to North Rocks though! I feel better seeing that the catchment for Muirfield High School takes in much of West Pennant Hills. Alternatively, I could have Berowra take in the northeastern corner of Carlingford, but I’m not sure if that’s any better. If only the projected enrolment for Berowra was ever so slightly higher, it could be perfect…
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TR_yGtbOjjslOVjnWJk68LBenlJ2WcPm/view?usp=sharing
@ Nicholas
I actually liked your original proposal for Bennelong. In the past Bennelong included Hunters Hill and Lane Cove but they are elite areas and i dont feel its fits well with majority of Ryde LGA. I would prefer Bennelong move westwards to take more of Parramtta LGA the Eastern Fringe of Ryde LGA can go into North Sydney as per Labor party’s suggestion as these areas are wealthier and less ethnically diverse with a more private school culture. I feel pushing Bennelong which now a middle Australia multicultural seat into Hunters Hill is a blatant Gerrymander like Issacs including Dandenong.
I have often wondered who the ALP get to do their redistribution submissions. This time they have surpassed themselves with the references to ‘North of the Shore’ and ‘South of the Shore’ – from what planet do they get these people – and does anybody review it before it leaves the building?
I think I’ve found my preferred solution. If Berowra takes the small semirural northern part of Glenhaven, including the retirement village, Berowra just barely has the numbers to be within tolerance without taking in any of North Rocks.
@Nimalan
I agree, I prefer Bennelong to remain a Ryde—Epping division. But it seems to be almost mutually exclusive with Macquarie being a Hawkesbury—Blue Mountains—Emu Plains division. Without a new division soaking up the excess enrolment in the outer northwest, all of the divisions are pulled northwards. For Bennelong to remain a Ryde—Epping division in this scenario, Parramatta would need to absorb Baulkham Hills and West Pennant Hills, and I think that would be indefensible.
Nicholas, Bennelong can extend northwards to absorb the remainder of Beecroft and Cheltenham (in a similar manner to the state seat of Epping). I feel these two suburbs are closest to Epping/Eastwood, and in fact share some school catchment zones.
@Yoh An
That’s what I proposed in my suggestion.
With all the discussion about Macquarie remaining a Hawkesbury—Blue Mountains division, I’m trying to find an alternative that does that. And it seems that having Bennelong simply absorb Beecroft and Cheltenham is very difficult in this scenario.
@ Nicholas
Fair Points, I do agree that i would like Macquarie to includes Blue Mountains and Much of Penrith LGA. I am not as keen for Hawkesbury to be included in Macquarie thorough do actually feel that it has more in common with a lot of Hornsby LGA, Hills LGA especially the semi-rural parts than the Blue Mountains so if Berowra can include parts of Hawkesbury and maybe Gables etc. I agree with you that i would oppose Parramatta going into Hills LGA. I do think Bennelong can also extend northwards if need be along the rail line into Beecroft, Cheltenham.
People pay too much attention to LGA boundaries when drawing federal electorates. There are few direct benefits from having a Bradfield that perfectly aligns to Ku-ring-gai and Willoughby LGA boundaries.
I prefer using geographical features as boundaries as well as freeways, railway lines and major arterial roads. I’m not a fan of using LGA boundaries.
Regarding the North Shore:
I agree with @Nicholas, it should remain an Epping/Ryde seat. Bennelong should absorb Hunters Hill and/or expand northwards. The LNP will actually benefit as Bennelong will become notionally Liberal but they’re hellbent on abolishing North Sydney. I’m nearly certain that either Bradfield or North Sydney will get the chop. I do agree with general sentiments that Chatswood should be united in one electorate.
Regarding southern Sydney:
I’m thinking Grayndler gets saved but expands southward and westward to the Cooks River. The Cooks River acts as a social and cultural divide between the Inner West and the rest of Sydney. I’m seeing either Banks or Watson get the axe. Banks makes more sense as Salt Pan Creek is a natural barrier and the only road crossing is a major road. It can be chopped up and given to surrounding electorates, all of which need more electors. Watson is a former PM’s surname so at least the name should survive.
Someone suggested Lord Howe Island be redistributed to Cowper. That’s a good idea since LHI belongs to the state electorate of Port Macquarie and LHI is way closer to Cowper than to Sydney.
I agree Votante, though some care is needed – some freeways and railway lines are good borders – some are not. Warringah freeway is a good border, but as soon as it turns into Gore Hill freeway, it is not.
Some LGA boundarires are useful to adhere to if the boundary would otherwise be very close, but some are historical relics that are hard to see even when you are literally standing on them (i.e. much of the border between North Sydney and Willoughby LGA). There is little point going out on a limb to defend their use in such circumstances.
And some LGA boundaries are contemporary but were drawn with absolute disrespect to residents. (I’m looking at Parramatta and Bayside.)
I believe north Sydney is gone as it can be split easily between Bradfield Warringah and Bennelong. Rip Kylea think. Barton for the se reason however the name can transfer to Grayndler as this is the least important of the ones it would distribute to.
In regards to LHI this can be moved around depending on where the numbers are needed Ive kept it in Sydney due to Cowper being over quota as it is.
kylea tink cannot win Bennelong because it has a significant Labor vote but can in theory win Bradfield. Even in the 2022 version of Bradfield, the Teal made the 2CP and the Lib primary fell to 45% even a small dip to around 43% will put Paul Fletcher in trouble. Bradfield is one of the few elite seats that the Libs have left.
Wow, a lot to unpack here, I take two days off to read the suggestions and get some summaries together.
Generally, I usuauly only take a cursory glance at the major party submissions. You can tell where they’re attempting to gerrymander and ususally they don’t even try to hide it under “communities of interest” anymore. I was actually suprised to see the Nats decided to do a full on submission instead of just the rural divisions, which they normally do. I’m probably not going to mention much about them. The suggestions from the independent members (as well as Malcolm Turnbull’s) , are pretty typical, they want to keep their division intact and want to expand it to meet the numbers. None of their suggestions are bad, but they don’t really take into account the whole picture.
Again, there’s a whole lot of hyper-local north shore commentary here. I don’t think it’s necessarily that important as a whole. I think Ben summed up the political ramifications. Tink and Scamps were newly elected facing incumbents. Steggall has a sophomore effect already. Adding Bradfield to either North Sydney or Mackellar will not necessarily dampen either of their chances so dramatically.
Does anyone have any thoughts on Walton vs Bird Walton? Nancy Bird was her maiden name. She married Charles Walton and became Nancy Walton. But he called her Nancy-Bird, the Bird part attached to her first name, almost being a nickname. The Libs proposed Bird Walton, but I don’t think she ever went by both names as a surname.
I originally looked to splitting Macquaire, but I just couldn’t make it work with the other things I wanted to do. So I added Box Hill and called it a day.
@John, sorry I think you know it already, but I have a 3 page speil about why Bradman doesn’t qualify for a name. I’ve researched more about the man than I thought I ever needed to.
@Josh , thanks for the shoutout. I suppose it may be a little sad, but I started writing my report back in January in preparation for a possible February redistribution. All the methodology, most of the introduction and the whole speil about names was written months ago. I’ve saved the formatting in a template, which I’m using for each state. To be honest a lot of the details are the same each time so that saves me a whole heap of time.
I don’t see them going on a renaming jaunt however. They’ll possibly rename one or two divisions but I don’t think many of the approx 35 suggested names will actually get up. (Bird) Walton probably, maybe one more.
@Daniel T, personally I download the AEC spacial maps, and then download the SA1, SA2, (sometimes SA3 and SA4) LGA and Suburb boundaries spacial maps from the ABS. I add them to QGIS and Google Earth and use them (and sometime maps.abs.gov.au) to manually update the divisions on the Excel spreadsheet (with a fair bit of conditional formatting and pivot tables) the AEC provides. I then use the QGIS vector processing tools to merge, split, combine etc and create new divisions. Then I upload them to Mapbox as kml files so I can display them online, and create my maps. It’s kinda tedious, and it would be a whole lot easier if they had a tool, like some of the state electoral commissions have. However it’s tons faster than previous ones where I manually drew borders in Google Earth, or copied and pasted coordinates from the kml text files into excel and back again to change the border.
@Redistribution, I agree about the quality of the ALP submissions. They’ve been remarkably poor in all states of late. I think the last one that was actually decent in any of theirs was back in 2002 when it was prepared by Daniel Andrews!
@High Street, @Nicholas, @Votante, I agree about not following LGA boundaries. Especially in the city. Especially when they were artificially (and in some places terribly) drawn up less than 10 years ago. Or 20 years ago like Brisbane, or 30 years ago like Melbourne.
I use them, and suburb boundaries, when I need a line to follow and theres no road or river or railway where I want it.
Trying to align divisions exactly to LGAs leads to trouble like now in Victoria with Aston, Wills, Cooper, and Casey, where they basically align perfectly, but Aston is under so needs to no longer align, Casey probably needs to be split to make up other numbers elsewhere, and all of Maribyrnong, Wills and Cooper are under and need to cross the boundaries.
Just on one last note, anyone have any idea who the anonymous submission was from?
Tink should still have a seat she can contest and win.
I’d go so far as to say that even Berowra might soon be winnable for a centrist independent if the Liberal Party continues down its current path. If Berowra moves into the Upper North Shore, it’ll be a seat combining areas with an increasingly soft Liberal vote (the Pennant Hills to Berowra corridor) and areas that are increasingly Teal-friendly. Boele could contest there.
I was particularly amused by the Nationals proposal to abolish Grayndler. I don’t genuinely think the commission will abolish the PMs seat. It would cause too much outrage. Much easier targets to get rid of.
I was also amused that at least two submissions relating to the border of Wentworth and Kingsford Smith suggested moving of boundaries to ensure that Wentworth included the entirety of certain suburbs, then went on to incorrectly state where the boundary of such suburbs are located. I would suggest that Allegra Spender MP look up the boundary between Coogee and Clovelly. She will find that its not in fact Alison Road as she suggests in her submission but largely made up of Clovelly Road, the current electoral boundary…
Malcolm Turnbull would also be best placed to check historical electoral maps. His submission contains some historical inaccuracies relating to the location of the border between Wentworth and Kingsford Smith.
The suggestions made by individuals are generally more logical than those made by parties, but that seems to be a common theme with redistributions of late.
@Conor, I remember in the 2000 Victorian state redistribution, they essentially abolished the Opposition Leader’s seat and merged it with a neighbouring seat.
So being a seat represented by an ‘important person’ does not (and arguably should not) preclude their seat being abolished or radically changed.
Thanks for the summary Ben.
@conor i agree while it does seem the most logical given how under quota it is it wont happen. hence why i have abolished Barton. and then moved the name to Grayndler
I found the ALP, Libs and Nats proposed redraw of the Hunter region fascinating. Either way you look at Paterson, it’s going to lose Kurri Kurri to Hunter making Hunter safe and Paterson ultra-marginal.
Hunter should and most likely will lose electors in the north to New England and my guess is the AEC will follow the LGA boundary around the South/West corner of Lake Macquarie and incorporate the Morisset Peninsula and Cooranbong into Shortland (Dora Creek being the natural boundary) and transfer Glendale/Cardiff into Hunter – big win for Dan Rapacholi and massive, massive hit to Pat Conroy but is passes the LGA and community of interest tests.
It’s well known Conroy isn’t a popular member and Swanson is, Repacholi also doesn’t have any runs on the board and isn’t ‘cabinet timber’.
It will be a fascinating redraw to watch and therefore an interesting preselection for the ALP to go through in Hunter/Shortland… assuming Conroy will want his old patch back. Will be good for the region to have marginal seats for a change.
@Darren no worries. That’s not sad at all. I thought yours was probably the best submission of the lot, tbh. Agree they won’t go on the renaming spree I want – it’s just a preoccupying hobby horse of mine.
I’ll share my map that results from the spreadsheet again to address two issues that have come up in this thread — https://josh-lucock.github.io/2023_NSW_Fed-Redistribution_Suggestion/
So the Bradfield I drew still contains the majority of North Sydney’s electors and the area Tink lives in (Northbridge). It would expand west a little bit so that Gladesville would no longer be split by the boundary. That area is a marginal area with significant Labor support that will be familiar with Tink and who should be decently good for her. My northwestern boundary follows the M2 for part, and Ryde Road for the rest, going no further north into the current Bradfield than that. I haven’t modelled notional results for the divisions I drew, but the polling places from the current Bradfield that I drew into my new Bradfield were all between 53.5% Independent and 53% Liberal Two Candidate Preferred. This Bradfield should be a pretty even and interesting seat and still winnable for Kylea Tink. Paul Fletcher’s best areas were all around St Ives, North Turramurra and the northern side of Wahroonga.
Regarding @Conor’s comment about the unlikelihood of abolishing Grayndler – the problem the Committee will have is that the four eastern seats (Wentworth, Kingsford Smith, Sydney, Grayndler) are at only 3.52 quotas by the projection date. They either have to abolish Grayndler and then drag Reid into Ashfield and Barton through Marrickville to either Parramatta Rd or the main Western Line, or they have to drag Grayndler well outside the Inner West LGA and abolish either Banks or Blaxland. My suggestion, in practical terms, arguably abolished Grayndler but preserved it in-name for the Marrickville-based seat. I essentially just shuffled the names around so Barton became Grayndler, Banks became a St George-based seat called Barton and Blaxland became a former Bankstown LGA seat called Banks, leaving Blaxland abolished in-name. So if Grayndler were to be abolished, I suspect this is how they might do it: they abolish it in practice but preserve it in name.
The notion that a seat shouldn’t be abolished because it’s held by the Prime Minister (or anyone else for that matter) is absolutely nonsensical at best, blatant political gerrymandering at worst.
@Josh Lucock
I’d swap Cherrybrook for Beaumont Hills between your Dyarubbin and Mitchell divisions. Cherrybrook only belongs with North Kellyville and Rouse Hill if they are in a division uniting the Hills District. Cherrybrook does not belong at all in a Hawkesbury-based district.
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