100th post!
The Australian Electoral Commission has finalised the new electoral boundaries for the next federal election. You can download the Google Earth map here. The map includes the 2007 boundaries as well as the new boundaries. We have also seen a redistribution in the Northern Territory, which saw literally no changes in boundaries, and Tasmania’s final boundaries will be released in eight days time. We will also see new boundaries in New South Wales and Queensland later in the year to accomodate the transfer of one seat from NSW to Queensland. Once those are concluded I will produce a new national electoral map for 2010.
I’ll leave the explanation of the WA changes to Antony Green at his blog:
The draft boundaries saw only minor adjustments to 13 of the state’s 15 electorates. However, the Redistribution Commissioners made a major re-alignment to the boundaries of the existing electorates of Kalgoorlie and O’Connor. The old O’Connor covered the state’s agricultural regions, surrounded Perth and the state’s south-west, and stretched from Geraldton in the north to Albany in the south. The old Kalgoorlie was Australia’s largest electorate and covered the state’s mining and pastoral districts, extending from the Kimberley and Pilbara in the north to Kalgoorlie and Esperance in the south.
The draft boundaries re-arranged these two seats, creating two electorates that split the state north and south. One electorate covered the agricultural regions north of Perth and the state’s northern mining districts. The second covered the southern agricultural districts as well as Kalgoorlie and the southern mining district. On the draft boundaries, the northern electorate was named O’Connor and the southern electorate Kalgoorlie.
The final boundaries have changed these names. Given that more O’Connor voters ended up in the proposed Kalgoorlie, the southern electorate has been re-named O’Connor. This is also appropriate historically, as C.Y.O’Connor was the engineer responsible for the pipeline that supplies water to the city of Kalgoorlie.
A new name was required for the northern electorate. Durack has been adopted, commemorating one of Western Australia’s pioneering families whose descendants are still involved in the public life of the state.
The new boundaries mean that the number of Labor seats increases from four to a notional five, while the Liberal numbers fall from ten to a notional nine. This has come about due to inner city Swan switching from being a very marginal Liberal seat with a margin of 0.1% to being a very marginal Labor seat with a notioanl margin of 0.6%.
