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.
Maps should be ready tomorrow
@alex please explain
The funny thing from this is that the Liberal Party redistribution for Northern Sydney is arguably the most realistic, up to the Hills District. That is where the fun starts.
To me, the Liberal Party Submission seems to have Alex Hawke targeted as part of the redistribution. The shifting of Mitchell south of the M2 would have massive ramifications on his ability to retain pre-selection. The shift south will hurt the margin but not enough to cause significant problems. But with Hawke reliant on the support of Ray Williams/David Elliott supporters to retain his position in the seat (the former, under the Liberal Party Submission would get redistributed into whatever seat Windsor/Richmond ends up in), it means that Hawke would be up against the Martin Zaiter Seats around Parramatta, a fight he doesn’t want to pick.
@hawkeye i think the obvious solution t the aec will be to have it retract noorth with the m2 as the boundary
I think what the Liberal submission demonstrates is the folly of trying to create a new seat in the Hawkesbury. Ripping Macquarie apart results in a lot of poor outcomes; just look at the knock on effects in the Hills and Parramatta regions, as well as the Central West.
@David – what do you think of the Labor proposal to effectively create a new seat out of left over Berrowa bits plus other bits and pieces across the north-west, all the way out to Richmond? They call to Berrowa in the submission but recommend it be given a new name (that seems to be a policy they have take – using the current names even where it is effectively a new seat and saying – happy for it to be given a new name but we haven’t proposed any ideas – one could argue the AEC is quite capable of coming up with new appropriate names themselves).
It’s a new seat but not entirely centred on the Hawkesbury.
> @David – what do you think of the Labor proposal to effectively create a new seat out of left over Berrowa bits plus other bits and pieces across the north-west, all the way out to Richmond?
I don’t see it happening.
@david the aec will see through the obvious gerrymandering by both lib and labor. they effectively keep seats they control intact and abolish cut up seats that of their opponents or would make them marginal
Sorry for the long hiatus, but I’m back!
things i think are guaranteed. parkes gains parkes and forbes. riverina gains hilltops yass and snowy valleys. hughes and cunnigham are amalgamated somehow.
some things i wanted to do but couldnt find the numbers.
1. split macquarie
2. cede the parts of hawkesbury south of the river from the hawkesbury lga/macquarie. i achieved almost everything else i had drafted and planned for prior to the redistribution.
i think my guestimation of divisions was more or less accurate.
also in regards to whihc labor member/minister will be left without a chair i think they have already decided it to be Burney hence why they are floating her as the next GG. this would be compensation for giving up her seat, she might try and run for what is “banks” and if that fails she will be made GG.
The moderator at Tallyroom has been banning my comment but NO-ONE can deny that Labor has benefited strongly by gerrymandering electorates seats 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
@alex more info please you’ve already posted that
I did not ban anything Alex. The policy of this blog for the last 15 years is that first comments from new commenters such as yourself are not published until I approve them. You posted it at 2:30 in the morning, I approved it some time this morning.
It was a stupid comment though. The ALP doesn’t decide boundaries.
I’m interested in his explanation
@Alex
No party decides boundaries, but all parties are entitled to put forward suggestions that they think might benefit themselves.
As it is an independent body that decides what the final boundaries are there can be no gerrymandering.
That body can get the final boundaries wrong based on incorrect assumptions (subject to your own view) but on the whole they do a reasonable job
If a bunch of politicians determined the boundaries they it could very well be gerrymandering, just look at the USA.
So as the ALP cannot determine boundaries I deny your assertion
I actually apologise as I didn’t notice my 1st comment because every comment awaits approval.
The fact that NO-ONE can justify how those seats make logical sense tells me that they are gerrymandered. Independent is just a word that anyone with heavy political leanings into 1 side can call themselves
@alex reasoning please
There are explanations for all of them due to the fact that seats need to meet the numerical criteria and that doesn’t always match with coherent communities.
There are plenty of times where the best you can do is put two communities which are each individually coherent together into one seat rather than bits and pieces.
– Whitlam – the Illawarra/Shoalhaven region doesn’t have anywhere near 3 full quotas, so one of the seats needs to spill out. Eden-Monaro pushes up, and in the past they’ve wanted to maintain Cunningham as a northern Wollongong seat, so the only way to spill it out is into the Southern Highlands. In itself I think it makes perfect sense for a seat, the problem is what it does to Hume.
– Hume – if you examine the geographical boundaries around Sydney, you can see that there is only one corridor where it is easy to draw electoral boundaries wherever you want, which is the corridor from the Macarthur down to Goulburn. So if the balance between Sydney and regional NSW is at a certain point, there aren’t really any other options that avoid having Goulburn and Camden in the one seat. But the seat would be a lot better if not for the Whitlam incursion.
– McMahon – There is more than a full quota in the Penrith City Council so voters have to go somewhere.
– Macquarie – These are two areas that individually are quite distinct and can’t be easily subdivided. You can see the alternative approaches taken by the major parties in their submissions to see how the other options are not great. Macquarie could spread into the central west, or it could spread into Penrith and take a big chunk of Lindsay but that would make Lindsay much less coherent.
You haven’t been able to explain how these boundaries help Labor. They aren’t winning Hume even with the removal of the conservative Southern Highlands. They have lost Macquarie many times on the current boundaries.
Can’t see how any of our current boundaries are gerrymandered by a certain party.
Furthermore, Hume is a fairly safe Liberal seat. The Liberals got 43.12% of the primary vote and 57.72% of the TPP vote at the last federal election in 2022.
Now you’re just being rational Ben
I think it is fair to say that Labor got a great deal with the redistribution last time.
But the flip side is that any undoing/changing of the pattern of the current boundaries will likely help the Coalition.
Swings and roundabouts.
@mark agreed it has been widely expected from both major parites this time around it will benefit the coalition. someone always benfits last time it was labor this time it will be the coalition what goes around comes around.
ive attempted to fix the problems youve desrcbed.
hume takes in the remaniedr of the southern highlands from whitlam and retreats to the camden sa2
whitlam expands into wollongonog and cunning is amalgamated with the parts of huges that arent sheded to cook or werriwa.
macquarie is a problem of its own. igiven it oberon from calare and emu plains from lindsay.
Well this one is now out of our hands for the next few months. Looking forward to reading the comments when they are releaseed.
Let’s hope the the committee does a good job with their proposed boundaries. Would be good to see the Southern Highlands finally fixed up. And I hope we don’t end up with something like the state district of Badgerys Creek in Western Sydney.
Maps are now up 🙂
Hunter
It looks like Labor’s margin will strengthen post-redistribution. It’s over-quota and here are what I think are likely occurences.
1. Lose parts or all of Muswellbrook Shire (LNP-leaning, quite agricultural and mining focused) to New England.
Interestingly, the Nationals had this in their proposal. It seems like they’ve given up chasing Hunter.
2. Lose Wyee (LNP-leaning) to Shortland or Dobell.
3. Gain Kurri Kurri (strongly Labor) from Paterson.
4. Lose Glendale (strongly Labor) to Shortland.
Before, I suspected that Hunter would be the next Labor-heartland seat that would flip to the LNP. This follows Labor’s woeful 2PP results in 2019 and 2022 and the continuing realignment of working-class voters in mining and rural towns abandoning Labor for the LNP and One Nation.
There’s growth in northern Lake Macquarie on the outskirts of Newcastle. They’re practically outer suburbs of Newcastle. The average voter has little to do with mining or agriculture. These all work in Labor’s favour.
@votante Ive proposed the Shortland option in a sense
@ Votante
Great point about Hunter, interestingly the Libs in their submission also suggested that Muswellbrook Shire moved into New England. Furthermore, the Libs also recommended Singelton LGA moved into Lyne. Is that a sign that the Coalition does not see Hunter as on their path to power? I agree the Coastal parts of Hunter and suburban Newcastle are less interested in mining. Newcastle itself is a very progressive city. I have always skeptical that Shortland well fall to the Libs. It includes Coastal and suburban areas like Charlestown. Paterson may flip to notionally Liberal after the redistribution. However, that will not be a symbolic loss for Labor if they can offset that with Leichardt/Deakin as Paterson has often been Liberal held depending on boundaries.
The whole of Blue Mountains doesn’t have the population to be an electorate so the proper way to split the Blue Mountains is The Upper Mountains west of Linden goes to the seat of Calare then the Lower Mountains east of Linden goes to the seat of Lindsey. The Northern part of Macquarie takes parts of Lindsey that it gained by taking parts of Macquarie. Parkes then takes a part of Calare
where can i access the redistribution submissions? is it on the aec website?
https://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2023/nsw/suggestions.htm
@alex still waiting on that gerrymandering explanation plz
@Nimalan, I also think Paterson’s Labor margin will drop and may even become notionally Liberal. Paterson will lose its western parts (strongly Labor) and/or gain southern parts of Lyne (strongly National). The 2023 NSW election result in Port Stephens shows a whopping 19% margin. Labor got a big swing on primaries and the Liberals crashed. When you look at the demographics, it doesn’t look like a safe Labor seat – higher than median age, low population density, lower than median income.
Deakin and Menzies are at risk of falling to Labor, if the Libs’ Victorian problem continues, though Leichhardt may be a bit of a stretch.
@votante Leichhardt is a wildcard. We have had an election without Warren entsch since 93 exc the ruddslide of 07 where he temp retired. Hard to pick.
@ Votante
Agree Paterson will be more Coalition-friendly in essence it may become more like Gilmore demographically, with a retiree/Coastal profile. It therefore may depend on personalities like occurred in Port Stephens at a state level. A redrawn Paterson, will be less focused on Coal mining so that may in fact determine the climate change policy for the Coalition if they are not interested in Hunter.
I feel Deakin and/or Menzies will fall to Labor however, the redistribution may make one stronger for Labor and the other one weaker so may not win both seats. The reason i feel Leichardt is winnable for Labor as John says Enstch is leaving and the seat is different to many other Regional QLD seats as it is not focused on the resources industry or agriculture. It is based on Tourism and Services. In 2019 it did not swing hard against Labor like Dawson, Capricornia, Flynn, Herbert etc.
@nimalan in regards to Menzies/Deakin I doubt theyl get both it will be one or the other
Comments have been released.
Dai Le and Frank Carbone made submissions presenting boundaries for Fowler. They propose transferring Liverpool and Warwick Farm to Werriwa – but have Chipping Norton remain in Fowler – and then have Fowler gain Cecil Hills and Elizabeth Hills. They clearly recognise that Le’s best chance of reelection comes from a sufficiently strong anti-Labor vote.
Travelling home on the XPT from Qld. Visiting all the wonderful towns down the north coast. Currently in Maitland, Paterson.
2025’s election may be the third in a row where the government starts off with slight minority or slight majority government.
Labor will most likely lose a safe seat in southern Sydney and see Gilmore and possibly Paterson turn notionally Liberal. Add to that, I’m near-certain Richmond will go Green and Labor’s WA 2PP gains will most likely retreat. Labor will have to make up lost ground.
@Nimalan, good points about Leichhardt. Warren Entsch retired in 2007, I’m guessing to avoid the Rudd-Slide, but came back in 2010 to help the LNP win back Leichhardt. I expect the LNP to remain laxed on climate policy. They hold seats like Capricornia, Flynn and Dawson which are heavily mining-focused. They don’t seem too keen on regaining teal seats.
Banks in NSW as well as Deakin, Menzies in VIC and Leichhardt in QLD are Labor’s best bets.
Dai Le and Frank Carbone’s submission to retain Chipping Norton while shedding Warwick Farm and Liverpool is nonsensical. There would be no road connecting Chipping Norton to the remainder of Fowler.
Furthermore, I’m unsure that the proposed areas gained in their suggestion would be enough to compensate for the loss of Warwick Farm and the Liverpool CBD.
I also think labor can target bonner in brisbanes south and particularly gain ground in the areas closest to brisbane city council and logan council. i don’t expect it to fall in 2025 due to an expected anti government swing, but the demographics are changing quickly around mount gravatt and wishart with an increasingly multicultural aspect. plus it doesn’t help that the areas surrounding carindale and garden city shopping centres are set to be massively upzoned with high density housing akin to chermside shopping centre in brisbanes north, thereby bringing in a younger population countering the retiree dominated areas near the coast. i think labor should focus on winning more middle ring suburban seats while the libs should focus on labor’s marginal rural and outer suburban seats
i found myself likely aspects of booth liberal and labors submissions. there were other parts i disagree with and others that are just blatant gerrymandering
Word on the ground around Northern Sydney is that the Redistribution submissions are causing a lot of rancor amongst the Teals. At this stage, it looks like the big loser could well be Kylea Tink as there are major issues between her and Zali Steggal around who will be running in the redistributed North Sydney/Warringah. Tink doesn’t want to shift to what will likely be the re-done Bennelong or Bradfield as she thinks she will be no hope.
The Boele camp are not happy with the likely redistribution as well as the redistribution is likely to drag Bradfield South into areas not friendly for her and also puts her at odds with Tink. There have been rumours about Boele shifting to run in Berowra but, given the local popularity of Julian Leeser, she will be no chance.
SHaC is going to have a hard time working this out…
I wonder if the best option may be one of either Tink or Steggall forfeiting their run for a House seat and forming a pseudo ‘party’ ticket to run for Senate instead. They would have a decent chance of polling well and helping either Labor or Greens towards getting an extra seat for the Left overall. Nicolette Boele could even join this Senate independent ticket as number two.
@yoh an tink is gone.if they do that they are no longer independent and the kids would seize on them backing Labor and sink them both
@hawkeye the libs will be happy with their fighting.
I think this is being overblown.
Of course Tink would prefer that North Sydney remain intact, as would the other independents for their respective seats. But a seat that combines Lane Cove, Willoughby, and the eastern half of Ku-ring-gai is absolutely winnable for her. As for Boele, first of all, she’s not an incumbent. She can run in Berowra, which, if it becomes a hybrid of the Upper North Shore and Hornsby, should be a target for the Teals.
Tink could be a challenger in Bradfield if it moves southwards to Willoughby LGA or even Lane Cove LGA. She is the local member for voters south of Chatswood station and has the incumbency advantage. She may be lucky and a large chunk of North Sydney gets shifted into Bradfield.
Perhaps North Sydney remains but Bradfield gets axed. The worst case scenario for Tink is that North Sydney is almost equally chopped up and divided between Bennelong and Warringah, and Bradfield remains intact. Either way, it’s almost certain a northern Sydney electorate will get the chop.
Who says Boele will run again? She might withdraw if the boundaries are unfavourable and/or put her at odds with Tink. A sound possiblity would be to run for the Senate. There are teal voters and voters in seats without lower house teal candidates who would want to vote for a teal Senate candidate. Boele or Tink could become the next David Pocock. NSW hasn’t had a serious independent senate campaign built around a person (like Nick Xenophon or David Pocock), at least not in recent decades, so the redistribution could trigger this.
I don’t think Bradfield getting abolished will happen and the reason being is that the geographic channel that exists in the area basically funnels Bradfield into where it is, similar with Mackellar. It would have to be Warringah and North Sydney becoming one seat, the likely move being that the new seat would basically take from the old Manly Council all the way to the end of North Sydney Council. This would chop the old North Sydney in half and it leaves Tink in the cold. This would mean Bennelong would essentially take Hunters Hill and Lane Cove Council, with Willougby Council shifting into Bradfield.
If what Votante is saying is right, this basically puts up Tink against Fletcher for Bradfield, meaning that the only option would be for Boele to run against Leeser.
As for the Senate, the last Independent elected to the NSW Senate was Irina Dunn back in 1988 but she was a dis-endorsed member of the Nuclear Disarmament Party after she refused to stand aside for the original Senator, Robert Wood, who was forced to resign after it was discovered that he didn’t have Australian Citizenship.
If you ignore that, its back to the 70’s, with the appointment of Cleaver Bunton, in the lead-up to the Dismissal.
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