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.
Sometimes it’s impossible to draw commutes of interest properly especially when dealing with corner seats
@David
I like your revised North Shore boundaries a lot better.
I think there’s a good chance that many of your ideas (statewide) will ultimately be adopted by the committee. In fact, if I had to guess, I think the committee’s determination will resemble your suggestion more than anyone else’s.
Three Cheers for David!
At some point we need to draw a line. There will be people that argue that that line is not in the right place, and people on one side of the line should be with the poeple on the other side of the line.
Arguing endlessly about how to arrange microcommunities within the North Shore while:
– Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie are shoved togetter in Cowper, yet split between themselves in Page and Cowper and Copwer and Lyne;
– Southern Highlands are added to Whitlam and the southern Illawara leaving Hume to swing around through forested areas joining Goulburn to Camden;
– St George is added to Cook to make sure that Hughes, Cook and Cunningham all exist in the same place, with Hughes joining Sutherland and Chipping Norton across Holsworthy;
– Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury are joined together without a single road between them;
proves where everyone’s priorities lie. Realistically, the differences between North Sydney CBD, St Leondards, Chatswood and Gordon is far less than any of the scenarios I just mentioned above.
Having said that, I’ve submitted my comments for NSW. I’ve spent a lot more talking about the names and few general themes.
Agree Darren, there are many other examples where boundaries are not drawn well including in my home state Queensland. These include Wright, which attempts to combine two disparate areas (Beaudesert and Scenic Rim with the Lockyer Valley) without many links between the two – similar to Macquarie federal district which lacks connectivity between its two major component areas and also Forde/Rankin which splits the Logan Council area arbitrarily, almost right in the middle of the main centre of Loganlea/Meadowbrook.
Agreed Darren, I pointed this out with a bit of humour in one of my earlier comments. My guess is we have a lot of people here from the North Shore? I’m from the Hills District and I know I can get hyperfixated on boundaries in North West Sydney.
Darren
There is a road from Springwood to the Hawkesbury through Winmalee and Yarramundi. There is also Bells Line of Road as well though only a link between Mount Victoria, Mount Wilson and the Hawkesbury. I do agree however that the community of interest between Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury is tenuous. However, it does not get me riled up like the Whitlam/ Hume boundary, Cook crossing the river or Eden Monaro being west of the Snowy Mountains.
In my submission, I had Greenway going up into the Hawkesbury and Macquarie taking in Penrith north of the M4. Chopping up Lindsay was driven by trying to get the new seat to work. Leaving Penrith in Lindsay and the Hawkesbury in Macquarie meant trying to draw a vey messy boundary somewhere in Mount Druitt.
Hey Darren – I like to read all the comments, I am just not as well informed on other areas as the North Shore. However, I did grow up in the Shire and have lived in many areas of this great state of NSW, so to answer your questions:
– there is a simple solution to the current Coffs harbour and Port Macquarie dilemma – extend Page over the range into New England – but no one ever wants to do it
– Have a read of David’s No 43 submission and come back and tell us what you think about the Illawarra – I actually think that is probably the best part of David’s submission – abolition of Cunningham. Messes around with Hughes but life’s a bitch sometimes.
– moving Cook into St. George was quite frankly – idiotic – and should be reversed ASAP
– Hughes stretching from Sutherland to Chipping Norton has always been awful, but now we have people saying Banks can’t go across one bridge into the western Shire, which is a order of magnitude worse than what Hughes has been doing. The Liberal submission has Grays Point and Gymea Bay in the same electorate as Chipping Norton but adifferent electorate to Gymea – where they all go shopping, schools, to catch the train, in fact to go anywhere….
– Macquaire is difficult and as Ben points out in this Blog, a threshold question for NSW. But as pointed out by Redistributed, Snowy Valleys in E-M is far worse – BTW – David has fixed that t0o in Submission #43.
The reason to spend some time on the North Shore is that is sets the options for the rest of northern Sydney and into western Sydney – possibly into Macquarie. You have to draw from east to west within Sydney, though I do think Mackellet, K-S and Cook can be the first seats drawn, not Wentworth.
Sorry – meant order of magnitude better than what Hughes has been doing
@darren Ive solves or attempted to solve most of those problems
Ive had page move further into Coffs Harbour and then had new england take port Macquarie surrounds and Wauchope from Lyne (this is a temporary measure which I hope to solve next time.)
Hume takes the remainder of sputhern Highlands from Whitlam and retreats to the Camden sa2.
Cook retreats across the George’s river and Hughes sheds chipping Norton and Liverpool/Holsworthy. Then Hughes combines with Cunningham which sheds northern Wollongong to Whitlam thereby ending the need for Cunningham.
I think Macquarie is the McEwen of NSW it gets stuck with the leftovers.
Looks like Cunningham’s a goner – but no media outlets have said that…..
Alison Byrnes (yes, that’s right) could be have a short career.
“Looks like Cunningham’s a goner”
How so?
@high street she would likely contest Hughes
High Street, if Cunningham and Hughes are amalgamated to form a Sutherland Shire-Northern Wollongong district similar to the state seat of Heathcote then Alison Byrnes could easily run against Hughes MP Jenny Ware. Depending on how the boundaries are drawn, this new district will be highly marginal and could even turn into a notional Labor seat (like Heathcote was configured).
As a result, Ms Byrnes would probably have a strong chance to hold onto this district (although it depends on the overall political mood and Jenny Ware could be favoured if the environment is not looking good for Labor).
Two of the wonderful posters here, who have formed independent and non-biased views of how best to split NSW into 46 electorates, have concluded it’s abolition is a key to solving both the the Hume and Whitlam problems, and also allowing Cook to return to the Shire only. It probably also is a key to moving E-M back to the south east corner only and not needing Snowy Valleys to make quota.
You read it here first Ben – on your own blog……
@John – did you submit a Suggestion? if so, what number is it? (or do we have to guess – there is only one John listed and it does not cover the whole state)
12 or something. I don’t post under my real name 😀
i’ll just look for all the ones that abolish Cunningham – other than #43..
@high street it is around 12 I’m pretty sure. Technically Hughes is abolished but to preserve the name of a pm Cunningham goes.
@yoh an Jenny ware would have multiple options available to her.
1. Contest the amalgamated Hughes.
2. Contest Cook as Scomo will most likely retire.
3. Contest what I imagine would be “werriwa”.
It will depend on how the new Hughes margin and how she likes her chances and which voters she intends to follow.
The best and safest option would be contest Cook.
@David – you should have a look at Submission #53 – I think there are a lot of similarities with yours, though some differences. Would be good to identify what’s the same (norther Sydney) and what’s different (Cunningham/Hughes)
@John – I can’t see it yet.
have you looked at submission #53 – I think it does something similar for Cunningham and Hughes (and Cook) and the next seat north, just keeps the Cunningham name and shifts all names north. It has good maps but not for all of southern and western Sydney
It’s a full submission and is in the first few I’m pretty sure anyway. It starts in Mackellar
I will out myself – I am #53. Unfortunately couldn’t get it all finished in time.
If I had time to do a map – Hughes had some of Sutherland then all of Menai, Illawong, Moorebank and Chipping Norton. It crossed the river to take in Revesby and Panania possibly Milperra. Banks then went from Lugarno to Sans Souci and included Hurstville. The boundaries in South West Sydney were going to come down to SA1 boundaries – once you get round Bankstown it is surprising how few obvious boundaries there are.
Sry it’s 25
Right after old silvertails
@redistributed do your maps and submit them as comments on your suggestion that’s what I’m doimg
Looking forward to see your maps, John.
Then I reckon you, Redistributed and David should just get together over a few beers and sort it all out. Will save the AEC a lot of $$$.
Ben could interview your all for a podcast……
@high street I’m in for that
You can find them here so far only banks Bennelong Berowra are updated expect to see more tomorrow https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qngxl0O-0WCfmu_wN2wGjW7GafIDO1An
@Ben, I’m serious about the Podcast thing. It would be funny but also appropriate if the Commissioners present a proposal that aligns more with non biased individuals who have at their own expenses, prepared separate submissions, rather than the political parties. Indeed, it is almost a given that they do, as they will not want to be seen to directly take too much of each parties submission, this herding them towards the views of others.
We have on this blog 3 of not too many more than that, individuals who have put together a full submission. Most of the other non major party submissions are just one or two pages about their specific area, and some others are just rants. Then there are the 4 teal submissions (plus Malcolm T’s) which aren’t really worth looking at.
My wife always says that Antony Green stole my dream job!!! I would always be up for an online chat!
My modus operandi until quite late was that Cunningham would be the seat to go. I couldn’t get Hume to work without cutting up Camden. So Goulburn went EM, Gilmore didn’t need to change, etc. At one stage, I toyed with the idea of Goulburn, Southern Highlands and Queanbayen all in one seat but EM would have been touching the edge of Nowra so I thought that was silly.
I think I mentioned in the earlier thread that I thought Cunningham going was the best way to get rid of the issues in the South-East corner. Hughes would look like a mess having Holsworthy, Menai, Heathcote, Helensburgh and Thirroul in the same seat but I think no matter how you draw the Shire none of the options will look too optimal and Hughes has been drawn that way in the past. It’d at least mean Whitlam can leave the Southern Highlands, Hume becomes properly rural again and Eden-Monaro doesn’t cross the Snowys. Alternatively you could make Hughes Liverpool-based and give Cunningham some of the Shire – though Menai would be a problem here.
And yeah, when thinking about it further making Macquarie Blue Mountains + Penrith and making Lindsay a Penrith suburbia kind of seat might be workable. Certainly Penrith and the Blue Mountains have a much better COI than the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury, whereas the North West corridor is growing quickly enough that the distinction between the Hawkesbury River towns and areas like Schofields/Box Hill/etc. will significantly decrease. It also means that McMahon doesn’t have to jump over the Prospect Reservoir to gain St Clair either. Lindsay might start to look too ugly though.
As for Port Macquarie returning to Lyne the only way I think this can happen is by giving Glen Innes + Tenterfield to Page, and that might drag New England too far south for my liking. It might have been easier with slightly different projected growth patterns – I think Jeff Waddell pointed out in his suggestion that the projections for the North Coast are likely too low.
It just makes me wish that we had a few more seats to play with, then we might be able to have boundaries that make sense.
My initial idea was Cunningham NS Shortland get chopped and Macquarie split and a new nw and sw division creates I managed the 2 new division and the chopping of NSand Cunningham but the other didn’t eventuate although I did part of what I wanted with Macquarie adding Oberon and the Blue mountains south sa2
@High Street, submission #53 is indeed interesting. For southern New South Wales it seems to have a similar idea to submission #16, which has nice maps and avoids putting Goulburn into Eden-Monaro. This idea shifts everything slightly further south. It makes Hughes simply a Shire-Wollongong seat as opposed to my three way split between the Shire-Wollongong-Liverpool idea, which is simpler but puts central Wollongong in the same seat as part of the Shire. It also means Shellharbour can be in Whitlam. Ultimately, as @Chaisa stated there have to be unfortunate boundaries somewhere in this part of the state, so it just depends where they are.
David
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uUHpjyNYLAn28WQvn8-v0fHqW4kUDYzy?usp=sharing
@david no matter where U draw a line someone misses out and is unhappy
Submission 16 and Submission 53, both I believe by posters here, we’re definitely the best two that I read.
The comment I plan on submitting is something you could characterise as a three page rant about my local area.
My submission was a very general three page summary of what I think should happen in certain parts of Sydney. It certainly wasn’t a localised rant, and generally agrees with most of the other submissions.
Everyone is entitled to submit to the commissioners, even if they submit garbage. It’s fantastic that everyone can have a say. The way we run redistributions in Australia is pretty good, far better than in the USA…
Labor has been strategically using the advantage of gerrymandering by changing boundaries unrealistically to gain a significant advantage in NSW
By putting parts of the Southern Highlands into the seat of Whitlam that’s based in Wollongong.
By putting Goulburn and Camden into the seat of Hume.
By putting parts of Penrith and Fairfield into the seat of McMahon
By putting the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury into the same seat of Macquarie
I do feel kind of sad that my submission (S26) likely won’t get up at all because I missed that splitting Macquarie causes a mess in the regions. I didn’t have the time to consider other parts of the state. (I managed to get away with this in my suggestion on the state redistribution, and many of my ideas were implemented.)
And to be fair, with my knowledge (or lack thereof) of regional NSW, I probably would have done what Leon initially did and put Albury and Wagga Wagga in the same electorate and called it a day.
@David
My idea (S18) around Banks and Reid is similar to yours (I know you were talking about other areas just then) and I do hope it gets adopted. IMO the 2010 redistribution screwed Reid/Lowe up and Banks always had issues due to Salt Pan Creek
I’m not sure submission #16 is from anyone on here – unless I have missed it. Do the right thing and out yourself if it’s you! But we are upto 5 full (or close to full) submissions, so if I have some time I will do a bit of collation of the key points of each so we can easily compare and contrast – a matrix might come in handy…..
I think you’re right High Street, as I recall Darren has posted here fairly often (I think one of his posts is at the top of this page).
Sorry – #16 is Darren’s (who is a poster on here), which is obvious when looking at the list. So I think that make 6 full submissions (at least)
Another point of discussion is the participants view of the silliest submissions from the major parties:
– from the Libs- putting Wagga and Orange in the same seat of Riverina.
– from the ALP – moving Berowra so much but not using the ‘abolish’ word and in the process splitting the Hawkesbury area by running tge boundary down the river.
– both – keeping the current Whitlam boundaries
Yes, agree ALP could easily have said they had abolished Berrowa and would have been more accurate if they had. If you look at the tables or movement for each current electorate it states the new “Berrowa” would likely need a new name, so it would have been better if they had said they were effectively abolishing it. It sort of underminds the North Shore proposal to not come out and say a seat has been abolished.
I’d add to your list the Liberal’s keeping Snowy Valleys in E-M.
I’m going to do my best to argue that we should abolish the division currently named Hughes and split it between Werriwa, Banks, Cook and Cunningham. It’s the most obvious “bits and pieces” division in the Southern Sydney region. And with the exception of the resulting Banks and Cunningham, it delivers near-perfect borders in all of Southern NSW, and Southwestern and Southern Sydney:
– Cook becomes a Sutherland-only division, and Banks and Barton can use strong M5/Wolli Creek borders
– Cunningham moves into the Engadine area so that Whitlam can give the Southern Highlands to Hume
– Fowler and Werriwa become almost exactly Fairfield and Liverpool council divisions
– Hume extends from Wingecarribee to outer Camden/Campbelltown and gives Goulburn to Eden-Monaro
I know its a matter of taste, but any other arrangement has to have divisions that cross Prospect Creek, the M5, or draw “bits and pieces” electorates like McMahon/Badgerys Creek.
The downside is that the Sutherland Shire is split between 3 divisions but I think this is the “least worst” option and arguably doesn’t make representation any worse for the isolated western sections of the Shire. The Menai section doesn’t sit too badly with the Revesby part of Bankstown and Georges River LGA. Nor does the Engadine section sit too badly with the northern Illawarra.
It’s also quite easy for the name of Hughes to be moved to any of the neighbouring divisions given its history.
So I’m effectively in agreement with Labor’s proposals for Banks/Barton/Cook, but I can see better options for the rest of Southern NSW and Southwestern Sydney.
Anyone know of an arrangement that preserves the Sutherland-Wollongong boundary but results in a better arrangement?
@Angas – I think you are onto something with acknowledging that the Engadine area and the Menai area don’t need to be in he same division. Although they look close on a map, there are no direct routes and they both link more to the Cook sections than they do to each other.
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