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.
@John unfortunately I just missed out on the date for suggestions. If needed I’ll submit these as objections.
of course they are but they are labelled as such. they’re not “objective” commentary
Just a thought: the last couple of redistributions in NSW and VIC have been quite helpful to the ALP. Given the law of averages this is due to swing around.
@barney he clearly stated hes a liberal supporter.
@nther portal did you miss the comments on suggestions too?
Gentlemen
This redistribution WILL be extremely favourable to the coalition, as a legacy of the extremely favourable result to Labor in the last one.
To illustrate this, Labor effectively gained EM, Patterson, Macarthur, and arguably Macquarie . Without going into detail let’s agree with some alterations it could have been very different. The imbalances that were “not perceived ” at that time are pretty stark 7 years down the track.
Or to put it differently if these seats had been configured as they now will be 7years ago what would that have looked like ? . I’d add that the treatment of Parramatta, Greenway, and arguably Whitlam, and Bennelong was also very beneficial to Labor.
An expectation of the contortions required to make this favourable outcome persist is insanely unrealistic.
apologies. missed that. i withdraw my comment
@paladin exactly. i would argue paterson will become notionally liberal and EM and macquarie will become marginal labor if not liberal depending on redistribution. also Parramatta and Bennelong might also. labor will be hard pressed to form majority govt next election. while the seats are available to the coalition to form a majority i dont think they will get them all.
Please delete the same opening lines that we have to read every tim.
John
I agree. Labor has failed to get a positive impact from debasing S3. So i’d expect a slow drift in the polls, for some time punctuated by debacles, and screw ups like the detainee issue, and Saint Penny giving money to Hamas.
IF we were galvanised by an election right now my gut says the polls would lurch against Labor to 50-50, pretty much immediately.
On that basis Labor would lose 10 -13 seats to the coalition the greens would lose one each to the coalition and Labor and the TEALS would lose 4 to the coalition with one abolished Id expect the libs to gain the new WA seat, and Labor loses a VIC seat too.
That means the country becomes ungovernable.
@paladin il agre n that though if the coalition gain 13 from labor and 4 from the teals that puts them on 73. this would effectively pt them in the winning position as they would get katter and sharkie and along with the one from the greens thats the 76 needed
John
Steady on !!. I did say 10-13 seats. And one of the 4 Teals may survive like a cockroach !. Perhaps its timely to reflect on just how tenuous Labor’s hold on government really is ?.
Also Labor and the Greens will still control the Senate. So a double dissolution must be on the cards if there is a close result.
@paladin i dont think so on those teals but yes i agree on the senate. i cant see labor or greens losing a seat this time around either. i think it will stay status quo in the senate as far as Left v Right. the libs could lose that 3 rd senate spot to UAP again but they can be relied to support the coaltion. the on seat that could swap is pococks depending on how the numbers play out. that would mean it would be deadlocked at 38-38. so a double dissolution would definately be happening but i think the most likely outcome is a labor minority govt anyway.
@John yeah I did miss the comments too sadly.
@np yea due to whatever error on their end they only got 2 of my maps…. same with wa they recieved blank one (dont ask how) and they got some of my victoria maps late. fortunately the victoria ones and wa ones were wrong anyway so il just send my new ones
Given we are weeks away from the first proposal what divisions are people reckoning will be abolished? I’m gonna stick with my 3 Barton north Sydney and Cunningham. I think grayndler is an outside chance but I highly doubt they will
@John
I’m thinking that the committee will abolish North Sydney (or more realisticallly, merge it with Bradfield), but will retire the name of Berowra instead as a way to minmise objections.
In the south of the city, I think Banks will be the one to go.
I think North Sydney will be the one to disappear (but its voters will constitute the majority of the new Bradfield). Every other electorate can be saved by redrawing Hughes westward and pulling Cunningham into Sutherland shire.
I think ns will be split 3 ways between bradfieldbennelong and warringah.i reckon grayndler would be the ideal one but I don’t think k the appetite is there while it’s the PM’s seat. Berowra will still be relevant ns will not given its namesak suburb won’t be in the division I spoke to sharma on Wednesday and I reckon even though I went into kstheyll yo into Sydney to preserve the cooks river boundary of KS
@david I agree though Hughes becomes werriwa and Cunningham becomes Hughes.
@David @John
Overall I think I’ll be pretty happy as long as they they fix Hume and Whitlam by transferring the Southern Highlands, and as long as they give Hughes some kind of identity by properly moving into into either Liverpool or the Illawarra.
I agree that Grayndler is an easily deletable name and that it will likely stick around for now. Even though it’ll have approximately 50% new electors, it’s still going to retain its general footprint on the Inner West council area.
@angas il agree to the first 2 points. And I’ve done exactly that. Moving sh to hume and Illawarra to Hughes.on the third point the fact that it will receive 50% new voters is why I should be abolished. However the thing that will prevent this is the fact its the pms electorate.if the aec has any degree about their impartiality this will be there decision too. If not that is why I abolished barton. And transferred the name to grayndler which I think the atvery least the name should go.
The idea that an electorate should not be abolished because it is held by the Prime Minister (or anyone else for that matter) is absurd and essentially a form of gerrymandering.
Yes I agree that’s why I hope the aec have the will to do it as grayndlers boundaries are the worst looking and it would be the best to abolish but I don’t know if the aec will do it. Either way it will be Linda Burney who loses out as albo would just transfer to Barton which is why Linda Burney is being touted as the next gg
John – Had you gone with the approach of ignoring that Grayndler was held by the PM what would your submission have looked like?
Similar to others that just removed a seat from that north-southish strip and then just shuffled everything a bit north until the numbers worked?
I agree that the committee should be completely impartial to who holds the seat, but I think it also helps for them to maintain the perception that they are impartial as a non-explicit goal. If there’s not a clear numerical case to abolish a division, then they generally have a bit of discretion to choose which name to abolish, similar to how Charlton was abolished instead of Hunter at the last redistribution.
In this instance, it’s close, but I don’t think the numbers absolutely lead to Grayndler having to be abolished. Yes, Kingsford Smith + Wentworth + Sydney + Grayndler is only 3.52 quotas, so assuming that Kingsford Smith doesn’t cross the Cooks River, Grayndler will have to take in approximately half a division worth of new electors. But Barton currently “occupies” 10% of a division that is natural (and former) Grayndler territory. And it would also be logical for it to gain the remainder of Inner West Council from Reid and Watson.
So the new “Inner West” division will quite possibly be something like 50% Grayndler, 20% Barton, 20% Watson, and 10% Reid, and would be fairly similar to the previous incarnation of Grayndler.
That would push a potential abolition further out, with Banks probably being the next potential target, but if Hughes gets shifted into Liverpool or the Illawarra, then none of these Southern Sydney seats would need to be abolished.
@g i would have gone counter clockwise from KS instead I moved Wentworth south Sydney east then carved up Barton between KS banks warston and reid
@angas grayndlers shape I’d also a case for it being abolished I moved Hughes into the Illawarra and abolished one in souther Sydney as southern Sydney is separated by the Georges River. I abolished 1 on the north shore(NS), 1 in central syndey(barton) and amalgated Hughes and Cunningham abolishing the Cunningham name to preserve Hughes. This allowed me to create 2 new divisions in Western Sydney’s growth area
@g the factor that dr9ve me was I don’t think the aec will have the will to abolish the PM’s division. I know they should be impartial but I don’t think they can avoid self preservation against possible backlash. Albo would never lose his seat in parliament as I believe Burney is gonna be gone but albo would want his seat preserved as ,uch as possible either way I think grayndler name should go it is the least relevant of all those in that area I abolished the division of Barton and transferred the name
John – It would make a catchy headline but I’d think any “backlash” would be pretty shortlived; people know the AEC does decent, independent work and this would actually show such a thing. The PM will just stand in the seat where he is based. Perhaps he’d be amused by it all.
If there was some particular legitimate concern, people will have the chance to have their say when the draft comes out.
@g the only real seat that would be available would be Barton as I think Linda Burney is about to reite if not forced to hence she’s been given the golden parachute of gg. Albo will stand in Barton therefore as the other seats are already occupied by Labor members all but Reid are all cabinet ministers
@ g yea but imagine the PM’s personal voters and hardcore Labor rusted ons would kick up a stink
I think if Grayndler wasn’t Albo’s seat it would be abolished. I would’ve abolished it and another seat and probably North Sydney to accomodate for my new seat in the Hawkesbury.
What’d be really interesting is if Parliament were to expand and then redistribution for the expanded Parliament. I wouldn’t mind a 200-seat Parliament since our population is 26 million; 70,000 voters per seat seems pretty reasonable (maybe even more so than 100,000).
Just realised that my new seat of Kurrajong is just like the Liberal’s proposal for a seat called Reibey.
@np if it wasn’t almost seat I’d guarantee grayndler would be gone. I still hope the awc has the will to go ahead and do it though. It won’t be expanded to 200 seats. That would require the senate be expanded to at least 104 seats (100 for the states and 4 for the territorries) as the constitution says the house can be twice the size of the senate or thereabouts. So a 12 seat per state senate would need to be at least17 per state and they have not been increase that big at one time ever. I think the best we can hope for is a 14 seat per state which would increase to 84 senate spots meaning the next house would be 168 seats or thereabouts. Though the territories would be want an extra 2 as well. I was thinking of making one called kurrajong but based around the lake consisting of blue mountains wollondilly Lithgow and Oberon but couldn’t get it to work this time around. I managed to put over blue mountains and parts of wollondilliy together
Once there is an expansion I’d like a seat to be called botany Bay
Not really directly about the redistribution, but following on from a UComms/AI poll of 3 Teal IND held seats a few weeks back, UComms was polling Bradfield last night, pushing the Teal IND who ran in 2022 to the top of the question.
Will probably be other Teal centred seats (maybe second tier ones) being polled as well. Hopefully we see a new poll release shortly.
The recent polled showed Teal IND down slightly or static on PV, Liberal down and Labor up. Teal IND up on 2CP, due to the lift in Labor PV against Liberal, but they didn’t ask so couldn’t show, the 2PP result. Interestingly, the one last night didn’t ask about preferences at all.
@high street yea that would push the 2cp and given it will probably shed the rest of hornsby to berowra and take in parts of willoughby i think Paul Fletcher might be in trouble. which is a shame because i though he was an ok guy when i met him. though he may be able to move to bennelong whih is very close by especially after its restributed
scrath that last part i just remembered Scott Yung has laready been endorsed there
I know not quite the right place but submissions are up for NSW Parliaments’ Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters “Administration of the 2023 NSW state election and other matters” inquiry.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/committees/inquiries/Pages/inquiry-details.aspx?pk=3024
Try nsw election guide maybe
the word im hearing is the electorates being considered for abolition are Grayndler, Watson, Blaxland, North Sydney, Bradfield and Hughes.
given how close nsw was to just losing its 47th seat i think it may regain it after the 2025 election given the migration has restarted post covid
@John perhaps the Parliament may expand after 2025?
@John
The ABS released another set of population figures last week and it looks like New South Wales will continue to slowly decline relative to the other states. It appears to be the only state with significant outward interstate migration. I suppose this is due to people getting priced out of Sydney plus the relative decline of the state’s larger proportion of regional areas.
Currently the only states growing above the average are Victoria and Western Australia, and they would both gain another seat after the 2028 election if the trend holds.
Surprisingly, Queensland’s quota hasn’t moved much in the last 18 months, so it doesn’t look like it’ll get its 31st seat unless something changes.
Interestingly, if the current trend holds, the Northern Territory will possibly fall below the 1.3333 quota threshold at the next determination and will lose its entitlement to 2 seats, unless the government finds yet another way to prop it up.
All of this assuming that parliament isn’t expanded in the next term of course.
NSW – 46.32 quotas / -0.11 annual change
VIC – 37.89 quotas / +0.16 annual change
QLD – 30.33 quotas / -0.02 annual change
WA – 16.04 quotas / +0.14 annual change
SA – 10.26 quotas / -0.10 annual change
TAS – 3.16 quotas / -0.08 annual change
ACT – 2.59 quotas / -0.01 annual change
NT – 1.39 quotas / -0.03 annual change
@np given we are likely heading towards a hung parliament so anything possible but I believe yes that it’s time
An expanded House and an expanded Senate is something I would support on the condition that no state or territory has more federal seats than state seats unless it’s truly necessary (in the case of Tasmania and the ACT). So, for example, NSW and Queensland both have 93 seats each in their lower houses (Queensland doesn’t have an upper house), so NSW and Queensland cannot have 93 or more seats in the House of Representatives.
@np yea that’s not gonna happen. Given that hor seats can only be expanded by the number of senators increased so they would likely increase the number of senators per state by 2 meaning 12 total that would add about 24 seats to the hor.
@John that doesn’t mean NSW gets 93 House seats. That’s what I mean: a state should have less federal seats in the House than state seats in the state lower house. State electorates are smaller than federal electorates and it should stay that way. If a federal seat in NSW has 100,000 electors that could be cut down to 70,000 and a NSW state seat would have 50,000 electors per seat.
Thanks Angas for that update, that’s very helpful.
An expansion of the house would be great, as would having an odd number of senate seats up for election in each state. It might also be a reasonably achievable reform in a political sense because it benefits all sides, and could be successfully passed if the democratic benefits of this change are presented as being worth the cost.
@ Nether Portal, I like your ideal for electorate sizes being reasonably proportional relative to their level of government, but do we need to make it a hard threshold?
In principle, the democratic basis for an optimal electoral size applies at all levels, so all parliaments need to respond to their changing populations.
In practice, for NSW to reach that 93 seat threshold, the federal house would have to be doubled in size, and I don’t know if any advocates for expanding parliament are proposing anything of that scale?
I like your electorate size proportions more as a rule-of-thumb.
@John
The ratio is 1 senator to 2 Reps, excluding Tasmania, which is guaranteed 5 RFeps but still get’s the same change in Senator# as the other States.
So, the minimum would be an extra 14 Seats on the Mainland, an extra Senator in each of the 6 States to maintain the 1:2 nexus at 82/164..
Gympie
The senate has to have an even number so the next step would be 88 seats – (6 x 14 ) + (2×2) so that would mean probably 175 in the Reps – 168 + 2 x Tas + 3 x ACT + 2 x NT.
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