VIC and WA federal redistribution drafts released – live

By
Ben Raue
-
587

6:12pm – I have one last update and then my margins will be finalised.

There are four seats in Victoria where independents made it to the two-candidate-preferred count (2CP), but have added new areas where there was no independent in the 2CP: Goldstein, Kooyong, Nicholls and Wannon.

This issue isn’t relevant in Curtin, since that seat only lost territory. It’s also not an issue in Labor vs Coalition seats with non-classic areas added, since the AEC has calculated a 2PP figure in every part of the country. It’s also not such a big issue in the seat of Melbourne. Since the Greens had a primary vote in the new areas added to Melbourne, you can calculate a margin based on preference flows.

But in the case of Goldstein, Kooyong, Nicholls and Wannon, none of that works. You could theoretically not count any votes in the newly-added areas, or give the independent candidates zero votes in those areas. Neither of those seem fair.

Accounting for these new areas is important in all four seats, but particularly in Kooyong. Almost one quarter of all electors in Kooyong are new to the electorate, all from Higgins. The figure in the other seats ranges from 3.7% in Wannon to 9.1% in Goldstein. This reflects the relatively minor changes in rural Victoria and the major changes in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

My first approach earlier this afternoon was to credit all Labor 2PP votes to the independent, and all Coalition votes to the Coalition candidate. But I think that underestimates their support.

In the areas which were not new additions to these seats, we have both a 2CP between the independent and a Liberal or Nationals opponent, plus a 2PP which is Labor vs Coalition. We also have 2PP counts for all the new areas. In all four cases, the newly-added areas are less favourable to Coalition on the 2PP than the areas already contained in these seats. Indeed every seat that gave some territory to a seat where an independent made the final count is held by Labor: Hotham, Isaacs, Higgins, Bendigo and Corangamite.

We know that generally independents did better against the Coalition than Labor did in these seats.

So this table shows my revised approach. I have compared the 2CP and 2PP in the non-moving areas, to calculate how much the independent over-performed Labor. I then add that extra vote to the Labor 2PP in the newly-added areas.

This approach significantly improves the independent position in all four seats. What do you think?

I also want to briefly touch on the peculiar seat of Macnamara. My approach to redistribution (which I believe is similar to Antony and William) is to break up the vote by each SA1, and then reassign the SA1s to the new seats and merge them. Unfortunately this means that, when there is a vote category that has been amalgamated into a single seat-wide total (such as postal votes) effectively I assign the same share of postal votes to every SA1. This is less true for pre-poll votes (where there are multiple pre-poll centres with different geographic patterns) and much less true for election day votes.

I have an alternative approach for state and local redistributions, where we don’t have SA1 results data. For those, I distribute the election day votes then skew the special votes to match the skew of the election day vote. So if Labor does better in one part of the seat on election day, I give it a better share of the special vote in that part of the seat.

I tried to apply that approach to my federal method but it didn’t work, so I’ve left it as is.

Most of the time this doesn’t cause problems. Usually we’re most interested in seats where the changes were significant, not the seats where changes were slight. These estimates are not precise, so when changes are small they should be taken with a grain of salt. 0.1% one way or the other isn’t really meaningful.

Now in Macnamara and Higgins there is a peculiarly large gap between voting patterns in different parts of the seats, and we’ve often seen very left-wing areas around Windsor moved around while they are part of larger seats that have voted Liberal (or at least not been so left-voting). This can produce peculiar outcomes where a small movement of a very left-wing part of a more conservative seat produces a counterintuitive change in the margin.

I recommend that people don’t obsess over very slight changes in the margin or primary vote estimates in Macnamara. The seat was close to a three-way tie in 2022 and any redistribution changes will be much less significant than how voters change in 2025.

4:10pm – I’ve now finished replacing the data after fixing the SA1 issue. The margin in Melbourne has dropped a bit further to 6.9% (I’d previously estimated 7.9%). The Labor margin in Wills is slightly better than I’d previously estimated, now at 4.6%.

3:51pm – Looking at the Victorian 2PP and primary votes, the main changes were Bruce, where the Labor margin is now 5.3%, which is much closer to the pre-redistribution margin and closer to Antony’s margin.

3:06pm – Okay I’ve solved the SA1 problem and will start uploading the corrected figures. Starting with 2PP and primary for WA, the Labor margin for Cowan has dropped to 9.9%, whereas my first estimate had it up to 11.0% (from 10.8%). The Labor margin in Bullwinkel is just 3.3% (not 3.7%) and Labor in Pearce is on 8.8% (not 8.4%). The Liberal margin in Canning is now 1.1%, not 0.8%.

2:33pm – It appears the AEC has switched from using 2016 SA1s for the 2022 election results spreadsheet to 2021 SA1s for the redistribution data, so it will be necessary to add some extra code that adjusts for these changes and this may change some margins. I’ll get that done later today and update the tables.

2:07pm – Okay I’m logging off now. I’m sure there’ll be more analysis later. I will be writing a piece for the Guardian tomorrow and I’ll be carefully kicking some tyres to see if there are any errors in the estimates over the coming days.

If you appreciated this very quick analysis of the breaking news, please consider signing up to support The Tally Room on Patreon!

2:05pm – So the creation of Bullwinkel in the outer east of Perth has then pushed all of the neighbouring seats out of the way.

Hasluck has become a much smaller seat and now sits entirely on the northern side of Perth.

Moore has shifted south, with Pearce adding a small area from Moore. Cowan and Perth have lost their eastern edges to Hasluck.

Swan has also shifted west, while Canning has lost its north-eastern corner to Bullwinkel and compensated by picking up Karnup from Brand. This explains the big drop in the Liberal margin there.

Tangney, Fremantle and Curtin have experienced very minor changes.

1:59pm – And here is the interactive map for WA.

1:55pm – Okay now here we have the 2CP margins for WA. Curtin thankfully didn’t add any extra territory so no complicated calculations needed there. Bullwinkel is a notional Labor seat with a 3.7% margin. Labor has also significantly improved their position in Hasluck, and the Liberal position is weaker in Canning. Labor’s margin has also been dented in Burt.

This means that Labor has gained a seat and the Liberal Party has lost a seat so far in this redistribution, with NSW yet to come.

Seat Old margin New margin
Brand ALP 16.7% ALP 17.1%
Bullwinkel (new) ALP 3.3%
Burt ALP 15.2% ALP 13.3%
Canning LIB 3.6% LIB 1.1%
Cowan ALP 10.8% ALP 9.9%
Curtin IND vs LIB 1.3% IND vs LIB 1.3%
Durack LIB 4.3% LIB 4.7%
Forrest LIB 4.3% LIB 4.2%
Fremantle ALP 16.9% ALP 16.7%
Hasluck ALP 6% ALP 10.1%
Moore LIB 0.7% LIB 0.9%
O’Connor LIB 7% LIB 6.7%
Pearce ALP 9% ALP 8.8%
Perth ALP 14.8% ALP 14.4%
Swan ALP 8.8% ALP 9.4%
Tangney ALP 2.4% ALP 3%

1:49pm – And here we go with WA. This table shows the 2PP and primary vote estimates for each seat.

Seat ALP 2PP LIB 2PP ALP prim LNP prim GRN prim IND prim
Brand 67.1 32.9 50.7 21.8 11.3 0.0
Bullwinkel 53.3 46.7 36.4 35.74 11.3 1.8
Burt 63.3 36.7 49.8 24.78 9.5 0.2
Canning 48.9 51.1 35.1 41.44 8.4 1.6
Cowan 59.9 40.1 45.8 30.97 10.0 0.0
Curtin 44.4 55.6 13.8 41.36 10.4 29.7
Durack 45.3 54.7 28.8 44.84 9.5 0.0
Forrest 45.8 54.2 27.7 43.13 13.3 0.1
Fremantle 66.7 33.3 44.0 24.38 17.9 0.0
Hasluck 60.1 39.9 43.7 30.12 11.4 2.1
Moore 49.1 50.9 31.9 41.81 14.1 1.3
O’Connor 43.3 56.7 26.7 44.5 10.9 0.0
Pearce 58.8 41.2 42.4 30.12 11.2 0.0
Perth 64.4 35.6 39.1 27.21 22.0 0.0
Swan 59.4 40.6 40.0 31.64 15.1 0.0
Tangney 53.0 47.0 38.2 39.41 12.4 0.0

1:36pm – So just a quick description of what the map shows before moving on to WA.

The seat of Melbourne has jumped the river into South Yarra, which has then pulled Wills and Cooper south, making Wills much stronger for the Greens. This doesn’t appear to have done much to the Greens’ position in Macnamara, although we’ll need to wait for a 3CP estimate to know for sure.

The abolition of Higgins has had dramatic impacts in the eastern suburbs, with Kooyong and Chisholm absorbing most of the seat.

Menzies has lost areas further east and expanded into Box Hill, which explains the seat becoming notional Labor.

Deakin has retracted to areas further east, further reducing the Liberal margin from a slim 0.2% to 0.02%.

Aston was barely touched, as was Goldstein, but Hotham, Isaacs and Dunkley have all been pulled north. Casey also expanded west to take in areas from McEwen and Menzies.

In the western suburbs, Lalor has contracted sharply, and Hawke has taken in the area around Melbourne Airport. But generally changes in the west were mild.

Outside of Melbourne, Corangamite has again shrunk in size, now almost entirely fitting within the Bellarine Peninsula.

Indi, Gippsland, Mallee and Monash appear to be unchanged, or close to it. McEwen has moved closer to Melbourne, but it has made no difference to the margin.

1:26pm – Okay I have now had a chance to revise my Melbourne 2CP estimate which was very quick. I now have the Greens on 7.9% by applying the same preference flows to the new areas as the rest. That is a drop in the Greens margin of 2.3%, but nothing like my first estimate.

1:18pm – Okay here is my interactive map where you can toggle between the old and new boundaries for Victoria. Will take a quick bathroom break then be back.

1:05pm – And here is my first stab at the new margins for Victorian seats compared to the old margins.

Seat Old margin New margin
Aston LIB 2.8% LIB 2.6%
Ballarat ALP 13% ALP 13%
Bendigo ALP 12.1% ALP 12%
Bruce ALP 6.6% ALP 5.3%
Calwell ALP 12.4% ALP 12.4%
Casey LIB 1.5% LIB 1.4%
Chisholm ALP 6.4% ALP 3.3%
Cooper ALP vs GRN 8.7% ALP vs GRN 7.8%
Corangamite ALP 7.6% ALP 7.8%
Corio ALP 12.8% ALP 12.5%
Deakin LIB 0.2% LIB 0%
Dunkley ALP 6.3% ALP 6.8%
Flinders LIB 6.7% LIB 6.2%
Fraser ALP 16.5% ALP 16.6%
Gellibrand ALP 11.5% ALP 11.2%
Gippsland NAT 20.6% NAT 20.6%
Goldstein IND vs LIB 2.9% IND vs LIB 3.9%
Gorton ALP 10% ALP 10%
Hawke ALP 7.6% ALP 7.6%
Higgins (abolished) ALP 2.1%
Holt ALP 7.1% ALP 7.1%
Hotham ALP 14.3% ALP 11.6%
Indi IND vs LIB 8.9% IND vs LIB 8.9%
Isaacs ALP 6.9% ALP 9.5%
Jagajaga ALP 12.3% ALP 12.2%
Kooyong IND vs LIB 2.9% IND vs LIB 3.5%
La Trobe LIB 8.7% LIB 8.4%
Lalor ALP 12.8% ALP 12.8%
Macnamara ALP 12.2% ALP 12.2%
Mallee NAT 19% NAT 19%
Maribyrnong ALP 12.4% ALP 13%
McEwen ALP 3.3% ALP 3.4%
Melbourne GRN vs ALP 10.2% GRN vs ALP 6.9%
Menzies LIB 0.7% ALP 0.4%
Monash LIB 2.9% LIB 2.9%
Nicholls NAT vs IND 3.8% NAT vs IND 2.5%
Scullin ALP 15.6% ALP 15.3%
Wannon LIB vs IND 3.9% LIB vs IND 3.4%
Wills ALP vs GRN 8.6% ALP vs GRN 4.6%

The Greens margin in Melbourne has been weakened quite significantly, while the Greens are much closer in Wills. Labor is also slightly weaker in Cooper.

Labor is much weaker in Bruce, Chisholm and Hotham, but stronger in Isaacs.

The seat of Menzies has flipped from 0.7% for the Liberal Party to 0.3% for Labor.

With Labor losing Higgins but picking up Menzies, that’s a net loss of one seat for the Liberal Party.

12:47pm – Okay I have calculated the 2PP and primary vote for the main parties for each seat, below.

Seat ALP 2PP LNP 2PP ALP prim LNP prim GRN prim IND prim
Aston 47.4 52.6 32.5 42.8 12.2 0.1
Ballarat 63.0 37.0 44.8 27.1 14.5 2.1
Bendigo 62.0 38.1 42.8 26.7 14.0 4.4
Bruce 55.3 44.7 40.3 31.7 9.7 0.2
Calwell 62.4 37.6 44.9 23.7 9.8 0.0
Casey 48.6 51.4 25.1 36.6 13.1 11.4
Chisholm 53.3 46.7 35.0 39.2 13.8 4.0
Cooper 75.7 24.3 40.7 16.2 28.4 0.0
Corangamite 57.8 42.2 38.4 34.0 15.3 0.0
Corio 62.5 37.5 41.9 25.0 14.7 0.1
Deakin 50.0 50.0 32.9 41.5 14.2 1.1
Dunkley 56.8 43.2 40.5 31.7 10.6 3.4
Flinders 43.8 56.2 22.8 43.3 9.5 11.7
Fraser 66.6 33.4 42.1 24.5 18.9 0.0
Gellibrand 61.2 38.8 42.8 27.2 15.6 0.3
Gippsland 29.4 70.6 19.2 54.1 8.5 0.0
Goldstein 46.3 53.7 13.6 39.6 8.4 31.3
Gorton 60.0 40.0 41.3 27.4 9.0 2.5
Hawke 57.6 42.4 36.7 26.4 8.9 7.9
Holt 57.1 42.9 40.8 29.5 8.6 3.0
Hotham 61.6 38.4 42.9 28.6 15.0 0.2
Indi 44.7 55.3 8.6 34.3 3.6 40.7
Isaacs 59.5 40.5 42.8 29.5 12.1 0.0
Jagajaga 62.2 37.8 40.8 29.2 16.7 3.0
Kooyong 46.3 53.7 11.3 43.4 9.9 31.0
La Trobe 41.6 58.4 26.2 45.2 10.9 0.0
Lalor 62.8 37.2 44.1 25.0 10.4 2.8
Macnamara 62.2 37.8 31.7 29.1 29.7 1.9
Mallee 31.0 69.0 16.8 49.1 5.3 12.2
Maribyrnong 63.0 37.0 42.2 26.8 16.7 0.0
McEwen 53.4 46.6 36.9 33.1 14.2 0.0
Melbourne 73.1 26.9 25.7 19.5 44.7 1.0
Menzies 50.4 49.6 31.8 41.0 12.9 4.9
Monash 47.1 52.9 25.6 37.8 9.9 10.7
Nicholls 34.1 65.9 13.2 43.5 3.7 24.0
Scullin 65.3 34.7 46.1 21.9 10.9 0.0
Wannon 41.4 58.6 19.7 44.2 6.7 20.8
Wills 77.1 22.9 36.4 16.2 32.8 0.2

12:40pm – The AEC has now published the Victorian redistribution. I’m going to focus on getting the new margins up first then analyse the trends.

12:17pm – While the AEC has not published anything, the Gazettes are now up.

In Victoria, the seat of Higgins has been proposed to be abolished. No other seat has changed names, and apparently 34 other divisions have been changed. 8.31% of all electors have been moved to a new seat.

In Western Australia, the new seat is named Bullwinkel, after Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkel. The seat seems to be located in the outer eastern suburbs of Perth. 14.57% of electors have been moved to new seats.

12:00pm – The Australian Electoral Commission will be announcing the draft federal electorate boundaries for the states of Western Australia and Victoria this afternoon. They have indicated that the boundaries will be published at some point between 12:30pm and 2:30pm AEST.

My plan is to publish my estimated margins for each electorate, and estimated primary votes for the main party groupings, some descriptions of what changes have happened, and maps showing the old and new boundaries.

In 2021 I was held up by a problem where they didn’t publish the SA1s for Victoria until a couple of hours after they published their report, and then there was a problem with the data. Hopefully that won’t happen again, but I’ll be relying on that data to calculate the new margins.

On the other hand, I have previously drawn my own KML versions of the electorate boundaries. I am not planning to do that this time, so it should be quicker to take the AEC shapefile and make interactive maps this afternoon.

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587 COMMENTS

  1. @nimalan I don’t believe any name should be given precedence over another except where it involves federation or primeinisters colonial Era names have as much importance as aboriginal names or those of women inour history. Aboriginal names should have no more importance then colonial names.

  2. I’m pretty sure last time the AEC tried to rename Corangamite to Tucker but they didn’t end up doing it because they thought people would vandalise the electorate office to say “Fucker”.

  3. @ John
    I do support Federation names and PM names although if it is neither of them then i would prefer women, aboriginal names and especially Australians over foreigners. Both of us agree that Higgins should be retained and another seat should be abolished i think the vast majority would say Chisholm, Issacs is more worthy than Hotham in terms of naming.

  4. @nimalan colonial names have just as much importance in our history because without them you wouldnt be here to complain about them and want the name to be removed

  5. @Nimalan, yes I agree that Hotham should be retired and I’ll add it in support in my comments. Personally, I don’t like geographic names and don’t care if they’re federation names or not. Preserving federation names is a romantic notion, but is impractical and it’s diametrically opposed to the current guidelines as most federation divisions are geographic. Agree that in terms of divisions, Chisholm was probably the best to remove in the area, but I think the name was what kept it.

    @Nether Portal, yeah I think that was one of the reasons, the other was a lot of objections to retiring Corangamite as a name. There may have been less resistance had they selected Gellibrand or Wills, or what became Hawke to be Tucker. I mean, Tucker Road in Moorabbin (sorry, Bentleigh) has been around for a long time.

    @John I know you and I disagree on the colonial names. The thing that I think supports me is that colonial men have heaps of other things named after them. They don’t need electorates named as well. Hotham, for instance has a Mountain, a historical suburb (North Melbourne used to be Hotham), numerous streets and roads including a pretty major road in the inner south.

    Even more so when it’s someone like Joseph Banks who was British and never even lived here. Hell, he barely even walked on the continent that was Australia. While his contributuions to modern Australia were significant, he was not ever an Australian.

  6. Looking back at past draft vs final submissions the main thing the AEC does is just move less electors. It seems to happen nearly always, there is less movement of voters in the final report compared to the draft. That’s why I think what they’ll change

    – Spotswood back in Gellibrand
    – Bellbrae back in Corangamite,
    – Hawke not changed
    – Prahran all in Macnamara
    – Camberwell all in Kooyong
    – Malvern all in Chisholm
    – No more of Bentleigh put in Goldstein

    I doubt they’ll change that much, the AEC is probably worried about getting the report done in time before the election.

  7. The last, and only time, I’m aware the AEC proposed abolishing a seat and then reversed it was Murray in 2010. But that was very different because that was abolishing a seat in a redistribution that didn’t need to have one abolished. People made the argument that a rural seat didn’t need to be abolished so they didn’t need to find a replacement. Seems the AEC is even more concerned about this stuff after that which is why they only abolished one seat in their recent NSW redis despite the numbers suggesting two should be.

  8. If Victoria (re)gains a seat by the 2031 Election, I wonder if it might be a new Inner West Seat (something like seat from Maribyrnong to Williamstown) as the current issue is Gellibrand (and the redistributed) has different community of interest and increasingly Fraser as well?

  9. I know names are important, but I’m starting to feel like they’re given a bit too much precedence over drawing the community boundaries themselves. They should always be considered after boundaries are drawn, not influencing the result of that process. Especially in NSW, it seems like they’ve gone out of their way to retain certain prime minister named divisions even though those divisions haven’t made any sense for a while now (Hughes/McMahon).

    @Drake
    Yeah I suppose if they do a major rework then they have to open a third round of submissions and they just don’t have time for that. Unlikely, but I wonder if they would be allowed to push the determination date back if they wanted to. I agree that all of those smaller adjustments are probably all we can expect.

    @Marh
    That sounds like it could be a possibility. Western Melbourne has landed on some relatively stable and neat boundaries for now, but the high rate of growth in Wyndham and Melton (which I think is probably underestimated at this stage) is going to require some big moves at the next redistribution. What I envision is a clockwise rotation of most of Western Melbourne:
    – Ballarat will regain Bacchus Marsh from Hawke
    – Hawke will take in Macedon Ranges from McEwen
    – McEwen will take in Mickleham from Calwell
    – Calwell will take in the areas around the airport from Maribyrnong
    – Maribyrnong will have to return back across the Maribyrnong river, maybe as far south as Williamstown
    – Fraser might become a Sunshine and Tarneit division a bit like the state district of Laverton

  10. @angas i imagine the next redistribution to coincide with the expansion of parliament so that would be mute although i had imagined a similar ideas

  11. Lalor and Gellibrands excess can continue to be taken by Fraser. Gorton can then take the more working class parts of Fraser. I think a new Sunbury/Macedon Ranges based seat could work quite well, with Hawke than taking more of the Rockbank area. Pretty similar to the proposed Burke. Hopefully the numbers allow McEwen to gain Mickleham (would worry about the massive growth) and become a NE seat.

    It’ll be interesting if Macnamara has to retake the section sent to Melbourne then I’d guess it would lose Caulfield to Goldstein?

    Another option they might have to do is two Geelong based seats, and then a Lara/Werribee seat. Corangamite is running out of good areas left it is able to transfer out to Wannon. Wannon could than take from Ballarat which could than regain Bacchus Marsh.

  12. @John
    Yeah it agree it makes sense to wait until NSW/VIC both need updates in roughly 5 or 8 years time. It’ll be interesting to see how the politics of it plays out, as while an expansion of parliament is long overdue, adding more politicians is often something that voters aren’t a fan of. Will Labor be bold enough to make the change before they get voted out, and would the Coalition consider it if Labor doesn’t?

    It’ll be a big project when it happens. Hopefully there’s finally some mapping software available by then.

    @Drake
    It would be good to align Hawke as a Western Freeway and a new division as a Calder Freeway seat. Makes a lot of sense.

    Good point about Macnamara and Caulfield. I imagine that would have to be the case. Perhaps the only way to get Macnamara fixed up without drawing objections!

    Yeah Corio and Corangamite can’t really afford to lose any more territory except for maybe Bannockburn. Maybe the shortfall in Corio will continue to offset the surplus in Corangamite for the forseeable future.

  13. @angas all the redistributions will be up around that time. whihc makes it an ideal time to do it. i think it may be done in the next parliament. yea but ouve got to understand this helps the voters because it means less constituents per politician. and greater representation

  14. @John
    Yeah definitely agree, but I just worry that disengaged voters will see it as a way for politicians to give jobs to their mates.

  15. I have to admit, I actually really dislike the naming conventions in Federal electorates. I much prefer the geographic names used in state electorates, that way the average punter knows the area.

    The UK uses geographic names, which has been really useful for me when trying to follow their elections.

  16. @angas yea well most people who see it that way probably dont vote or donkey vote. the avg constituent wants greater representation and if there are less electors per mp that makes it easier for them to get the assistance they are there to prvide for\

    @adam the difference is britain is a lot bigger population wise and doestn have a state parliament as well. i prefer geographi names for state level but prefer the people names at a federal level

  17. if they wanted to take part of forrest into o’connor they should of aded augusta/margaret river lga instead onf donnybrook

  18. What is the convention with comments on objections? Is it customary to provide comments endorsing/agreeing with objections that have been made, to give them weight? There were many good objections, including from people on this site that I wouldn’t mind endorsing.

  19. Adam, that is one way of viewing it. Alternatively, you can also make rebuttals against any objections you feel are not warranted and/or you disagree with.

  20. Adam,
    personally I try to analyse the suggestions/objections and provide my comments on their good points and bad points. If I think something is particuarly bad, I argue why I think that point shouldn’t be considered. I’ll also summarise whether I support their position or not.

    When there’s 500-odd, I discuss “general themes” and argue my points against or for the general point they’re making.

    I also like to comment on what type of objection was made. I want to point out when seventy three objections are lodged all using the exact same template. I feel like a single issue can look like it gets more attention than it should.

    Other comments I’ve seen basically treat it as another round of submissions or objections. If you miss the deadline for getting the objection in, just add it as a comment. From what I can tell, they’re given exactly the same weight in deliberation.

  21. Objections to comments are due today at 6pm for anyone who will be sending theres in. Just sent mine in. I hope the AEC can at least do the very easy and logical thing of

    Macnamara: gains Prahran
    Kooyong: gains Camberwell
    Chisholm: gains Malvern East
    Hotham: keeps Bentleigh East

    I was actually looking at it a bit, and if the AEC decided to not abolish Higgins, it could likely end up just going into Oakleigh, Ashwood and Chadstone. Which would just turn it into a safe Labor seat which would just defeat the Liberals purpose of saving the seat.

  22. Add to that Chisholm would swoop down into Clayton which makes it unwinnable except for landslides and that will push Menzies and Deakin down making them both nationally Labor and harder for the Libs to win. Abolishing Higgins might actually be what saves the Libs in eastern Melbourne.

  23. Only way around would be for them to try and justify slicing up Caulfield and putting it to use – which is a non-starter given previous attempts. The draft is about as good as it gets for them – all of their best areas from Stonnington were moved into their two most winnable seats. Apart from sentimentalities, I don’t see why they’d want it back.

    There just aren’t as many good areas for them these days – and they’re all slow-growing. Even though losing Higgins as a target seems bad at first, all of their other targets are so finely balanced that it probably isn’t worth it that 2 or 3 of those could be put beyond reach.

    Their winnable seat list is going to keep shrinking until they can break ground elsewhere. And unless they do that in the growth suburbs, redistributions are going to keep hitting them.

  24. The Liberal submission even commented on how they don’t think Aston should ever push into Casey because they know in the future it might have too.

    Putting Bulleen and Templestowe in Jagajaga could also happen if Higgins doesn’t get abolished, and then that would just be wasting some of their best booths in a safe Labor seat.

    When the Nats campaigned for Murray not to be abolished, the old boundaries would have had Corangamite go into Camperdown (unloseable for the Libs), McEwen go into Shepparton (hard to see Labor ever winning), Jagajaga lose Heidelberg West (would be winnable for Libs), and Caulfield in Higgins which would of made it very hard to ever lose. Even the proposed Burke would have been winnable for them.

  26. I unfortunately didn’t have enough time to comment on or endorse some of the excellent proposals made by the Tally Room community as I have been focusing on NSW over the last fortnight, but I submitted a short set of comments and a handful of maps showing how they could retain Higgins.

    I imagine they’ll do a public inquiry into some of the key areas, but it’ll be interesting to see what they finally settle on. I believe they have a maximum of 60 days to make any amendments.

  27. The Liberals’ campaign to save Higgins and advocate for the abolition of Hotham is a massive own goal. Abolishing Hotham will in fact produce much more unfavourable boundaries for the Liberal Party than abolishing Higgins.

    If Higgins is going to be kept with Hotham abolished, either Menzies will be pushed south or Deakin will be pushed west to take in most of the strong Labor voting suburbs of Box Hill, Box Hill South and Burwood and become a notional Labor seat with a decent margin. For example, if Deakin is pushed west like in my proposal with Hotham abolished, Deakin will become a notional Labor seat with a margin of 3.0%, much safer than the proposed Menzies’ Labor margin of 0.2%.

    If Hotham is abolished, Chisholm will move south to take in the strong Labor voting areas of Oakleigh, Clayton, Mulgrave and Springvale in the northern part of Chisholm and its Labor margin will blow out as a result, while with Higgins abolished, Chisholm moves west and take in part of weak Labor voting and even Liberal voting booths in Malvern East and Glen Iris in the eastern part of Higgins, and its Labor margin will be cut as a result.

    If Hotham is abolished, Bruce will move north west to take in safe Labor voting booths in Noble Park North and Noble Park and become safer for Labor, while with Higgins abolished, Bruce will move south east to take in Liberal voting booths in Berwick and have its Labor margin cut.

    I have submitted a Comment on Objection, and in my submission I have provided links to the maps with both Hotham and Higgins abolished. You can find the links here:

    Metro Melbourne map with Higgins abolished: https://ibb.co/Y77W1Zy
    Regional Victoria map with Higgins abolished: https://ibb.co/LvFcsz6

    Metro Melbourne map with Hotham abolished: https://ibb.co/sbw9mkx
    Regional Victoria map with Hotham abolished: https://ibb.co/RjyMSbj

    The over quota issue for Chisholm in my original Metro Melbourne map with Hotham abolished has been fixed and I would like to thank @Drake for pointing this out.

    If you compare the metropolitan maps with Hotham and Higgins abolished, you can see that the former is much more favourable for Labor, in particular the key seats of Deakin, Chisholm, Bruce and Aston are all significantly safer for Labor in the former map than in the latter map.

    Has the Liberal Party ever considered the political implications for them if Hotham is abolished instead of Higgins before lodging an objection to advocate for the abolition of Hotham rather than Higgins? It’s puzzling that the current Labor member for Higgins isn’t campaigning for the retention of Higgins, not only to save her seat, but also retaining Higgins and abolishing Hotham will produce much more favourable boundaries for Labor. What’s even more puzzling is that the Liberal Party is advocating for boundary changes that will benefit its main opponent, the Labor Party.

  28. @Joseph

    Good maps. I think I prefer the Higgins abolished map a bit better. It’s only really Chisholm that remains a bit of a mess, but I think that should be pretty easy to fix at the next redistribution.

    Agree with what you are saying. Often abolishing a safe seat for a party, ends up helping them out, because those voters have to be distributed somewhere. You didn’t mention it, but the Kooyong and Goldstein, in the Hotham abolished version, would also be near impossible for the Liberals to win. I don’t know if you worked it out, but that Menzies might also be notionally Labor as well.

    In return the Liberals get a very good Higgins (but it’s still no slamdunk) and a better Jagajaga, but they’d still struggle to ever win Jagajaga. Maybe McEwen is slightly better for them. If you abolish Higgins then Chisholm essential turns into Higgins anyway. The proposed Chisholm is 3.3% ALP not that much different than the current 2.1% for Higgins.

  29. @Joseph
    Interesting analysis. I hadn’t realised the political implications of this one.

    Looks like the objection to the abolition of Higgins was driven mainly by Katie Allen’s campaign, rather than the Victorian Liberal Party as a whole. The Liberal Party submission objected to it, but then just offered minor amendments to the proposal.

    As much as I think Hotham is a far more suitable candidate for abolition in a head-to-head contest with Higgins, it does seem that the numbers don’t quite work out. There’s slightly too many electors in Outer Southeastern Melbourne at the moment.

    Your maps demonstrate this well. Abolishing Higgins sacrifices the Stonnington-Glen Eira area for neater outcomes in Manningham and Whitehorse.

    I think that we could see a slight counterclockwise rotation of Chisholm-Menzies-Kooyong. The Liberal Party would be happy to have Balwyn North in Menzies instead of Box Hill South, and more of Stonnington in Kooyong would make it easier for them to remove Monique Ryan.

    The next redistribution is going to be really interesting. Either an expansion of parliament or the need to handle a Macnamara that shifts west, a Bruce that shifts east and the fact that neither Menzies nor Deakin can really go further south than Highbury Road.

    I suspect that Higgins will be resurrected at some stage, however I did suggest that it be transferred to either Kooyong or Hotham as I think it’s more reasonable to honour a worthy Australian than retain a geographical federation name or honour a colonial governor.

  30. I honestly think they’ll have to reconsider abolishing Higgins. Hotham is the obvious electorate to abolish, and the only reason to abolish Higgins is to move fewer electors, which is supposed to be a secondary consideration.

    In NSW there is really no obvious alternative to abolishing North Sydney

  32. @joseph
    Thankyou for your maps. I actually like the map with Hotham abolished. The liberal party I suspect would not be happy as the marginal seats around it would become better for the ALP (just having a glance). I have long thought that a political party is best suited in a redistribution by abolishing a safe seat of their own…especially one with marginal seats nearby. Hotham is a good case in point.

  33. @joseph i dont think that Bruce with hotham abolished would get up tbh

    when can we expect comments on objections to be up?

  34. Only 122 this time. A few more Higgins templates scattered in there, but much better this time around

    There seems to have been a pile-on to rubbish Labor’s ideas around North Melbourne/Parkville and Menzies-Deakin. Labor people have pushed back in this round against the Southbank/South Yarra objection swap.

    Higgins/Hotham reconsideration has had many supporting submissions. I’m expecting the commission will at least experiment and see if they can get something they’re happier with. Hoping.

  35. even though ive advocated for the retention of hotham i would prefer hotham be abolished over higgins

  37. @angas isay Vic won’t be until late august/early September since it’s not scheduled to complete until mid Oct about 3 weeks after wa

  40. The inquiry was low-key and not attended by WA Labor. The Liberal Party expressed general support for the redistribution (and the name Bullwinkel) subject to a concern that the proposed boundary of Tangney and Fremantle by following the LGA boundary cuts along fence lines in Leeming – major road boundaries being preferred. The CEO of the Donnybrook Shire objected to the transfer of the Shire from Forrest to O’Connor. Several people argued that Bullwinkel be named Hodgson-Beard to commemorate two local nurses killed at Banka Island, or Lyon to commemorate a distinguished wartime nurse. Most of those speaking were relatives of these nurses. None were disrespectful of Vivian Bullwinkel but some queried her WA links.
    With due respect, to name a seat because of a local connection (unwise considering future boundary changes) and using the names of those sadly unable to complete a life of outstanding service, would be a departure from naming guidelines.

  41. Exactly lyon would never get up anyway since it would be confused with lyons in Tasmania. And I agree with he fact not to name it after those people whose only acuievement were to be from the area and died early in WW2 the naming guidelines do specificy outstanding lifetime sevice to country and that hardly qualifies. Im sure there are thousands and thousands who namea could be used in that instance

  43. @john
    The link posted by Angas indicates that a transcript “will be published at a later date”.

  44. Bulleinkel.
    Is sensible. When.growth.occurs the Avon Valley area can be hived off.. actually. Labor did quite well in the Avon Valley

  46. i believe labo chose not to apear because the topics being discussed had no bearing on the division they contrl

  48. per AEC

    “At an inquiry, individuals or organisations may address the augmented Electoral Commission for Victoria on any matter raised in an objection to the proposed redistribution of Victoria or in a comment on these objections.

    Matters raised in objections and comments on objections include the:

    abolition of the Division of Higgins
    boundary of the proposed Division of Wills
    electoral division(s) in which the suburbs of Mernda and Wollert are located
    boundaries of the proposed Divisions of Bruce, Holt and Isaacs
    boundaries of the proposed Divisions of Aston, Deakin and Menzies
    boundary of the proposed Divisions of Macnamara and Melbourne
    Topics raised in objections and comments on objections that are not discussed at the inquiry will be considered by the augmented Electoral Commission for Victoria as part of its deliberations.”

  49. Similar to what @Conor has raised on the NSW thread, this is the key part of the description given for the Victorian inquiry:
    “Matters raised in objections and comments on objections include the:
    – abolition of the Division of Higgins
    – boundary of the proposed Division of Wills
    – electoral division(s) in which the suburbs of Mernda and Wollert are located
    – boundaries of the proposed Divisions of Bruce, Holt and Isaacs
    – boundaries of the proposed Divisions of Aston, Deakin and Menzies
    – boundary of the proposed Divisions of Macnamara and Melbourne”

    From the divisions not mentioned, we can possibly infer that they are likely to carry the commonly proposed suggestions to improve Lalor/Gellibrand and Calwell/Scullin or have dismissed those changes outright. Casey/La Trobe was another area that had a bit of attention but I feel like they’d be less inclined to change that.

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