NSW ward redistributions completed

New South Wales councils will be up for election in September 2024, and the process of redrawing ward boundaries for these elections has now concluded. I have now finished making my new boundary map. In this post I’ve run through what changes happened in the 16 redrawn councils, and posted a map showing how the wards have changed in those councils.

For those councils with wards, redistributions were required where the gap between the most populous and least populous wards exceeded 10% at particular points in time. Other councils were free to redraw their wards, but weren’t required to do so. I explained this process in more detail in this post.

Councils can only redraw wards within the existing electoral structure. A referendum is needed if a council wants to change the number of councillors, the number of wards or introduce or eliminate wards.

49 out of 128 NSW councils used wards at the 2021 elections. Two of those councils voted to abolish their wards at referendums in 2021 – Dubbo and Walcha – so they have no need to redraw their ward maps.

For the other 47, I went through the council minutes looking for a discussion of the issue and a proposal to redraw the wards (or not). Unfortunately NSW has no centralised process run by the Electoral Commission, and instead it’s run locally by each council, so it’s a painful process.

I identified changes to wards in 16 councils. Five other councils definitively considered the issue and made no change. In the case of North Sydney they considered the issue and deferred the matter, and I can’t find any further discussion.

There’s a further 25 councils where I couldn’t find any consultation or decision on the matter, so I’ve had to assume that there is no change for any of these councils. In most cases this makes sense – these are councils where there wasn’t a big population imbalance. But in the case of Georges River, they don’t appear to have made any changes despite the wards being too far out of the 10% range.

I have now finished compiling new ward boundaries for the 16 redrawn councils, which I run through below one by one. You can download the ward boundaries, along with those used for the 2008, 2011-12, 2016-17 and 2021 elections, on the maps page.

This map shows the old and new boundaries for those 16 councils with new wards. You can toggle each set of boundaries on and off, and can also turn on and off the names of the wards. The map is zoomed in on the urban parts of NSW, but it covers as far away as the Murray River, Tenterfield and Ballina councils.

You’ll notice a trend where many of these councils are in outer suburban areas where population growth is most rapid (and more importantly is concentrated in certain parts of a council). The list includes five large councils in Western Sydney, while there are very few in the eastern half of Sydney. The four neighbouring councils surrounding Newcastle have all redrawn their wards, but not Newcastle itself.

• Ballina – The northern NSW council ended up abandoning its first planned redistribution and replaced it with a more radical redrawing which passed through a highly contentious and divided council meeting. The C ward expanded slightly into the B ward. The bigger changes were between the A and B wards. The East Ballina area has been unified in the B ward, while the A ward expanded north into Cumbalum.
• Bayside – The former Botany Bay council has been growing faster than the former Rockdale council, which has forced Ward 3 to take parts of Banksia and Arncliffe from Ward 2, along with a minor change between Wards 1 and 2. Ward 5 then expanded north to take in part of Ward 3. Ward 4 was left untouched.
• Blacktown – The northern wards have had substantially more population growth than the southern wards. Ward 1 has contracted, losing voters to wards 2 and 4. Ward 3 also lost some voters to Ward 4, and Ward 2 also gained some voters from Ward 4. Ward 5 lost some voters to Ward 4.
• Camden – Most of the enrolment growth in Camden has taken place in the North Ward. The North Ward has lost Harrington Park to the South Ward and gained Gledswood Hills from the Central Ward. Central ward also gained Spring Farm from the South Ward.
• Cessnock – The A Ward gained territory from all three other wards. The B Ward, which covers central Cessnock and is the most compact ward, has expanded east into areas previously in the C Ward. The C Ward has lost its southern end. It previously covered the rural areas between the Cessnock and Kurri Kurri townships, but this area has been split between the B and D wards. The D Ward, which covers Kurri Kurri, lost its southern end to the A Ward but gained areas closer to Kurri Kurri from the C Ward.
• Fairfield – The suburb of Mount Pritchard was shifted from the Parks Ward to the Fairfield/Cabravale Ward.
• Lake Macquarie – The East Ward expanded and the West Ward contracted, which forced the North Ward to shift west. The North Ward gained Boolaroo, Lakelands, Macquarie Point and Speers Point from the West Ward, while losing parts of Warners Bay and Mount Hutton to the East Ward. There were smaller population exchanges the other way.
• Lane Cove – The Central Ward has expanded slightly into the West Ward, but the East Ward was untouched.
• Maitland – The four wards were renamed and substantially redrawn. The wards were previously named with cardinal directions, but those cardinal directions did a poor job of describing the positions of the wards. The Central Ward has been renamed Ward 1, and expanded north to take in Maitland Vale, and east to take in Tenambit and Raworth. The North Ward (which actually occupies the south-east of the council) has been renamed Ward 2 and has contracted in size. The East Ward (which actually occupies the middle of the southern end of the council) has been renamed Ward and has lost its western edge to become more compact. The West Ward has lost its north-eastern corner and expanded south and been renamed Ward 4. Really you’ve got to check out the map.
• Murray River – This small council on the Victorian border had a chance to abolish its wards in 2021 but almost two thirds voted to keep them. The urban Moama ward has expanded slightly, while the western Greater Wakool ward has expanded to take in a large but sparsely populated area from the Greater Murray ward.
• Parramatta – This council has taken a minimalist approach to addressing the enormous growth concentrated in the Olympic Park peninsula. Dundas and Epping wards have been left untouched. The Rosehill ward has lost some of its territory in the Parramatta CBD south of the railway line as well as Mays Hill to the Parramatta ward. The Parramatta ward has then lost parts of Northmead to the North Rocks ward.
• Port Stephens – Two very minor changes on the Central/East and Central/West borders.
• Ryde – A very minor change in the Macquarie Park area saw the West Ward gain from the Central Ward. No changes to the East Ward.
• Shellharbour – Minor changes to all four wards. The lakeside B Ward has expanded slightly into both the A and D wards. The inland A Ward exchanged territory in both directions with the southern D Ward, and D Ward also had changes in both directions with the coastal C Ward.
• Tenterfield – Three wards were left untouched. The urban E Ward expanded slightly, taking in some areas from the B Ward.
• The Hills – The West Ward expanded to the east, taking in parts of Baulkham Hills from the East Ward. The East Ward expanded north to take in everything south of Gilbert Road around Castle Hill from the Central Ward. The Central and North wards exchanged territory in both directions. North Ward gained the area north of Gilbert Road, while the Central Ward gained Beaumont Hills from the North Ward.

I actually made submissions to three of these councils objecting to their proposed redistributions. The details varied, but generally my objections were to boundaries that were too modest in making changes and thus left the fastest-growing areas with above-average enrolments. In all three cases the council ignored my submission and implemented their draft map. But that’s a bigger conversation for another day about how this process needs to be improved. For your interest, they were for Blacktown, Camden and Parramatta.

I also have calculated the share of each council’s electors who have been moved to a different ward. 25% of electors in Camden have been moved. Over 10% were moved in Maitland (11.7%), the Hills (11.6%) and Lake Macquarie (10.2%), and the number was 9% in Ballina and Cessnock, 7% in Blacktown and Murray River and 6.6% in Shellharbour. The least-affected council was Ryde, where just 0.7% of voters were moved.

I should also note that I am planning to calculate the changing vote margins for each party in redistributed councils, but only for those councils with over 100,000 people. There are 25 councils that meet that criteria, and eight of those councils have redrawn their wards. For those eight, that information will be in the council election guide which I am hoping to finish this year.

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