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.

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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

  2. There’s been talk about how the redistribution in Victoria is small because they are assuming there will be a new seat created next term. ABS released population figures this week and that doesn’t look likely

    Current seat entitlement
    NSW: 46.29
    VIC: 37.9
    QLD: 30.34
    SA: 10.24
    WA: 16.07
    TAS: 3.15

    Growth in the year since seat quotas calculated
    NSW: -0.14
    VIC: 0.12
    QLD: 0.03
    SA: -0.1
    WA: 0.15
    TAS: -0.07

    The next seat quotas will be calculated in two years. Assuming same rate of growth
    NSW: 46.01
    VIC: 38.14
    QLD: 30.4
    SA: 10.04
    WA: 16.37
    TAS: 3.01

    Victoria would need about 0.08 growth a quarter and the highest it’s had in the last year was 0.06. Seems like we’ll be stuck with these borders for awhile.

  4. @Drake
    Thank you for the figures!

    So it doesn’t look like any changes will be triggered at the next determination.

    On that annual trend, looks like Western Australia is 2.9 years away from gaining a 17th division, while the Northern Territory is 3.3 years away from reverting to a single division. Victoria and Queensland are both on track to gain a division approximately 5 years from now.

    I can envision both Victoria and Western Australia running into headwinds, so unless Queensland picks up the pace, we might not see another redistribution in the next 2 election cycles. So possibly in 8 years we might see all of NSW/VIC/QLD/WA/SA redistributed at once if the house hasn’t yet been expanded by then.

  6. @angas also also given they will all be requiring a redistribution by then that would be the perfect time to expand the house which should be done by that time at the latest or seats are just gonna keep getting bigger with more and more constituents for mps

  7. NT isn’t guaranteed a 2nd seat, it needs above 1.33 quotas to keep two seats.

    What would be a better proposal

    – Casey gains Wonga Park, Warrandyte and Warrandyte South
    – Casey and Deakin use Dorset Rd at the boundary and than Deakin gains the eastern part of Manningham council

  8. my casey has it taking in the territory gained by Aston. My Aston gains vermont and vermont south whihc have been in the division before

  10. @John, I know the Vermont/Vermont South area very well (I had lived there once) and the reason why they probably won’t move back to Aston is due to a Huge Green Wedge in the middle unlike in Deakin which has a much Narrower Gap

  11. @Raue will a new page becoming available for Bullwinkle? until then its been reported Mia Davies will be the nationals candidate

  12. John it’s reported that Mia Davies has been asked to be the National candidate, it’s not a certainty.
    She would be a strong candidate but Bullwinkel is a predominantly outer suburban seat.

  14. I’m submitting my objections for these in the next few days. I’m going to try, suprisingly, a long winded approach assesing every proposed divsiion on the 4 criteria, and a “general appearance” criterion to give a score out of 25. I’ll then provide some commentary on each.

    The actual suggested changes I’m doing in WA:
    – Malaga into Cowan to clean up the boundary using Reid Hwy instead of the suburb boundary.
    – Bullsbrook and Melelucia – Lexia into Hasluck. not sure why they keep Melelucia – Lexia in Pearce instead of using the Swan LGA boundary. Bullsbrook shouldn’t be in Durack.
    – As a response Toodyay goes into Durack instead of Bullwinke. I know Northam and Toodyay go toghether and I’d prefer to keep them together. But I think if its a case of Bullsbrook or Toodyay in Durack, Bullsbrook should be in an urban division.

    In Victoria Im proposing a few rotational changes:
    – Calwell, McEwen and Scullin rotate, restoring Merri Creek as the Calwell boundary. Then, Mickleham and Kalkallo north of Donnybrook Rd into McEwen, then Wollert into Sculin. I then move Scullin to the Ring Rd and Bundoora West and the industrial area of Thomastown go into Cooper.
    – Rotate Menzies, Kooyong, Chisholm and Deakin. Menzies moves back to Koonung Creek and Mangingham LGA. Park Orchards goes back to Menzies. Deaking moves into Whitehorse Rd corridor and Maroondah. Canterbury Road and Warrigal Rd become the Chisholm boundary. Kooyong goes back to where it was, crossing the creek to take all the parts of Higgins, and giving up bits of Kew, Balwyn and Balwyn North to Menzies.
    – I then put all of Prahran-Windsor into Macnamara, and swap South Yarra and St Kilda Road Melbourne 3004 for Port Melbourne Industrial, Docklands, Southank, South Melbourne using Williamstown Rd, West Gate Fwy, Kingsway, Toorak Rd and Punt Rd.
    – Then put Spotswood back into Gellibrand, using the West Gate Fwy.
    – Then I put Corio and Hawke back where they belong, and give those back to Lalor. To make the numbers, I add a bit of Werribee South to Gellibrand using Duncans Road and the Uni in Werribee South.
    – Finally, I put all of Bellbrae back into Corangamite. Not sure why they split it.

    Once I finish formatting it, I’ll move on to NSW and see what we can do there without applying wholesale changes.

  15. Got my report done. Should be able to send it in tomorrow.

    Maps: https://imgbox.com/7L7qX53r

    Happy with it. Got the movement of electors about ~1000 less than the AEC which was something I wanted to do. Shows that you can fix a lot of the issues without that much change to the boundaries.

    Big issues I had with AEC proposal I was able to fix
    – Bellbrae/Freshwater Creek being split
    – Oak Park going to Maribyrnong
    – The Melbourne/Macnamara boundary
    – Prahran, Malvern East, Dandenong, Camberwell no longer being split
    – Casey not having to go into Nillumbik shire
    – The Bendigo/Ballarat border
    – Geelong not going into Melbourne
    – Bruce not going into Cranbourne

    Main issue is still Chisholm, but that’s going to look weird with Malvern having to go somewhere.

  18. The AEC transferred 369,249 voters out of 4,441,980 voters (8.31%). I was able to get 371050 (I forgot to count Point Cook bit). I could get it lower but it’d involve doing things I don’t want too.

  19. They transferred quite a few more people in the past two redistributions. So hopefully they allow leeway for some much needed tidying.

    It is supposed to be a secondary consideration to community cohesion anyway.

  20. Less than 24 hours to get those objections in folks.

    I’ve gotten basically everything written, but I’m working hard to edit things down to get my key points across more concisely. It’s quite difficult when every proposed change is linked to multiple other changes.

    Looking forward to reading everyone’s submissions on Monday, and fingers crossed we can get some of the more ridiculous decisions overturned.

    @Darren @Drake @John
    Interested to know how many pages each of your submissions are?

  21. @angas my main submission is my revised proposals. I also submitted a couple of single page objections (one or two sentences) as theyve come up

  22. @John
    Nice, I think I’m going with a similar format. Division by division with a map and comments for each.

  25. @James
    2 pages is decent!

    I encourage everyone who has an opinion on the boundaries to submit an objection, even if only a paragraph or two. The more comments they receive for an issue, the more likely they are to change things.

  26. Done! Sent in. Big thanks to everyone here who helped. Mine was 25 pages but a lot of it was maps which took up a lot of space. I used Kevin’s toolkit and used the proposed boundaries along with mine. About 3000 words all up.

    Big thanks to everyone on here who helped out!

  28. @Angas – Thank you for your encouragement! It was my first time I have submitted an objection, so I’m happy with what I’ve done. In mine I listed that Higgins should not be abolished, and rather, abolish Hotham. I have room for improvement (e.g. I could have provided a proposed map), but I’m happy with mine.

    Good luck to everyone involved!

  30. Yeh I got my email now. Actually having a quick look at the NSW redis, might just do a map version of a few seats. Looking at the boundaries more, I think they are worse than VIC? The VIC redis is actually pretty easy to fix up, with only really McEwen remaining at the ‘mess’ seat. NSW has got Cook, Hughes, McMahon, Kingsford Smith all doing some weird stuff.

  31. Yes. I honestly have no idea why KS has that random dogtail onto Monterey. And Hughes. Macquarie Fields, a low-income area, doesn’t belong in the same electorate with affluent suburbs along the Georges and Woronora Rivers. McMahon looks just weird, though Cook is relatively good except that random part it holds around Sans Souci.

  33. It’s really easy to understand why they did that with Kingsford Smith. It was to minimise the amount of change through other seats in the inner city. If KS expanded into Wentworth it would’ve pushed Wentworth into the CBD. Even if you pushed KS into the southern City of Sydney (my proposed solution) it increases the amount of change in Sydney, Grayndler and Barton, probably others too. Which I’m fine with, but it seems like the AEC was trying to minimise that metric.

  34. Ben and John, I can understand the reasoning behind the decision but it’s still not a good proposal having just a slither of land being put into a district when you can do a wholesale reorganisation of the electorates to create a better community of interest.

  37. I’ve also written in that they should nix Hotham instead of Higgins. Curious to see how many community objections it gets and if there’s much appetite to reverse it.

    Came up with a firm boundary of Warrigal Road running from the top in Kooyong/Menzies all the way down to Goldstein/Isaacs, with Chisholm squeezing Hotham to be almost all of Monash LGA.

    Their drafted Hotham is still incoherent. So hopefully it’s an agreeable alternative if they decide it’s easier to retreat from abolishing Higgins than try to fix all the consequent boundaries it’s unfurled.

  38. Definitely my fault for leaving things to the last minute, but I think I might have missed the submission window by just a few seconds. My report wouldn’t upload because it was too large so I had to quickly find an alternative solution. Hopefully it did upload in time.

    53 pages and some pretty maps too!

    @BenM @Drake @James
    Will be good to read your submissions on Monday. Hopefully you can read mine as well!

  39. @Angas worst comes to worst you could always upload it in the comments period like the Libs last time

  40. @Angas that’s horrible to hear. You should get an email in the next 24 h if it got sent in time. Otherwise just leave it in the comment on objections phase.

    And don’t leave to last minute again 🙂

  41. @Dan M @Drake
    Seeing as WA is 2 hours behind, I decided to attach my Victorian submission to my Western Australian submission ‘for extra context’. So at least it’ll be somewhere.

    But I also just got an email acknowledging receipt of my objection, so I’m assuming that the Victorian team is satisified with it.

    I’ll be trying my best not to leave things to the last minute next time, but the way the NSW proposal is, I think I’ll have my work cut out for me over the next 2 weeks!

  42. There’s an article behind a paywall that says the Liberal submissions proposes abolishing Hotham instead of Higgins. Curious how they will go about doing that.

    I’d have to think Labor would be fine with it. There’s worse seats they could abolish for them and abolishing Deakin, Casey or Menzies could turn a seat like Chisholm or McEwen into a Labor seat.

    Greens would also probably be fine with the proposal. Higgins was a target seat but it’s made Wills as winnable as the old Higgins was.

  43. @Angas I submitted my objection a few minutes after the deadline, and I got an email from the VIC Redistribution Secretariat, saying while the Augumented Electoral Commission acknowledged the receipt of my objection, my objection wouldn’t be considered because it was received 10 minutes after the deadline and advised me to re-submit my objection as a comment on objections. You might have also received the same email. As for file size, if you want to submit a word file and the file size is too large, you can convert it to a PDF file, which will greatly reduce the file size.

  44. Ok read the article

    Libs
    – Want Hotham abolished
    – None of Burwood sent to Deakin
    – Prahran should stay in Macnamara
    – Want Menzies border to be different “better align its Chinese, Italian and Greek communities”. I don’t know how they would do that differently

    Lab
    – Don’t want Wills taking in all of Melbourne’s excess (I’m guessing they’ll suggest Cooper instead?)
    – Assuming they want Box Hill in Deakin, keeping Deakin/Menzies east/west seats
    – Want Michelle Ananda-Rajah to run in Deakin

  46. Yep the Herald Sun one. But you found the full report! Funny they spent 28 pages on their marginal seats, then quickly spent a few words on the whole of Melbourne’s west and north.

    I think what they’ve done, is what the #saveHiggins campaign is going to struggle with, a lot of people proposing to keep Higgins but not really suggesting how they’d go about abolishing a seat like Hotham. They did a big argument for why Menzies needs to stay a Manningham council based seat, but if you abolish Hotham than what do you do for your river crossing? Probably going to have to be Manningham council that goes into Jagajaga.

    A lot of their recommendation are fine and good though. Even if it is because it’s in their best interest.

  47. Liberal proposal objects to Higgins/Hotham, but doesn’t provide an alternative map for doing so.

    Politically it’s an odd choice I think. If the AEC does put it back, they’re then at the mercy of whatever they draw, which could still be worse than a draft that them in Chisholm and probably Kooyong.

    Unsure what others found, but my end result would leave them with a not-great Higgins, and I suspect weaken Menzies, Goldstein and Chisholm in the process (though a better Deakin and Macnamara.) The population totals make it difficult to see how cutting Hotham doesn’t undermine a lot of other areas for them.

    Rest of their submissions talks about only minor changes from the draft:
    – Advocates Balwyn North into Menzies and makes a number of demographic cases for doing so.
    – Kooyong/Chisholm boundary to Burke Road souht of the Freeway
    – Melbourne/Macnamara swap Southbank/South Yarra
    – Mt Eliza back into Dunkley
    – Inverleigh goes into Ballarat instead. Stawell into Wannon, Mallee then pushes into Nicholls (not explained how)

    Nothing on the northern/western suburbs

  49. The main points of my objections:
    – Main: Keep Higgins, Abolish Hotham
    – The Name: Hotham is a colonial governor, Higgins was a Justice of the High Court, Attorney-General, and
    politician.
    – The LGAs: Hotham currently takes in 4 different LGAs (with proposal redistribution, 4 still), Higgins is
    mainly centered on Stonnington LGA.
    – Keep the Merri Creek as the boundary between Scullin & Calwell
    – Give the Wyndham LGA bits proposed for Corio back to Lalor, Corio instead takes Grovedale, Marshall, and a part of Charlemont up to Boundary Road. Proposed the name Connewarre as I couldn’t find a name I considered appropriate for the electorate.
    – Cooper gains parts of Thomastown and Bundoora bounded by the Metropolitan Ring Road and Plenty Valley Highway. Clifton Hill stays in Melbourne.
    – Wills and Maribyrnong use the Moonee Ponds Creek as a boundary, and Wills keeps Fitzroy North and Brunswick East from the redistribution. Carlton and Princes Hill stay in Melbourne. As such, no crossing of the Yarra needed.
    – Gorton keeps Maribyrnong River as a boundary.

    Overall, the AEC has over-relied on roads as boundaries instead of natural, traditional geopolitical boundaries. These are just my thoughts.

  50. Gave the report a quick read.

    I don’t usually hold the party submissions in high regard, as they’re often quite shameless in what they propose, but this seems like a fairly reasonable and measured set of suggestions. In a lot of areas, it’s very similar to some of the amendments I have proposed in my report, or what @Drake has suggested.

    The suggestions for Western Melbourne and Western Victoria are all reasonable from a community of interest viewpoint, but they haven’t demonstrated how the numbers would work.

    It makes sense that they mainly focus on Southern/Eastern Melbourne, as McEwen is really the only one in Northern/Western Melbourne that they’re in reach of, and that division is pretty hard to steer against whatever changes are forced on it by neighbouring divisions.

    Mount Eliza remaining in Dunkley makes sense for the Liberal Party as it keeps it competitive for them.

    I noticed acomment about Aston not extending into Yarra Ranges, so it seems like they were worried that it would become more solidly Labor.

    They’ve done a good job with Melbourne and Macnamara and with shifting Kooyong to Burke Road.

    A Menzies with more of Balwyn and less of Box Hill is good for them. They should have tried to get Warrandyte removed, but that would maybe undermine some of their arguments about its East-West orientation.

    Good point @BenM about an abolition of Hotham not necessarily helping them in Eastern Melbourne. I can see a Higgins that takes in all of Caulfield being pretty good for them, but if Hotham goes, then either Menzies or Deakin is going to get Burwood and that makes things harder from them than the current proposal.

    I feel like it’s quite difficult to put forward arguments for major changes at this stage in the process. If you direct your whole submission towards saving Higgins/abolishing Hotham then you lose the ability to influence the more likely smaller changes. And if you argue for both small and large changes, then it kind of undermines the arguments for larger change.

    I was going to run through an alternative redistribution with Hotham abolished, but ran out of time and just ended up attaching a map I shared here 4 weeks ago and some general comments.

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