NSW federal redistribution drafts released – live

1. @John labor will be going into minority regardless they cannot lose more then 2 net seats and I can guarantee they will lose at least 2 in wa plus Higgins through abolition. Labors majority is gone libs should preference labor above greens due to greens stance on Israel and antisemitism

2. Kylea Tink is rallying her supporters to submit objections, even going so far as to run workshops on how to do so. I’m curious to see how many objections to the abolition of North Sydney there will be. Could it be sufficient for the committee to reverse their decision, or at least revise the proposed three-way split of the Lower North Shore?

3. @Nicholas
   Makes sense. Abolishing a wealthy and politically engaged division is always going to result in objections.

   Unlike Higgins which is probably saveable, the enrolment numbers really work against keeping North Sydney unless the committee is willing to do a full redraft of all of Greater Northern Sydney (which I hope they do because they’ve made an absolute mess around Blacktown and Epping).

   At this stage, probabbly the best outcome for Team Tink would be to get Lane Cove shifted into Bradfield. That’d keep the majority of current North Sydney electors in the one division. And it’d be far neater that way. No need to carve up Chatswood/St Leonards/Eastwood/Epping/Wahroonga if they just keep the Lane Cove River boundary.

4. One thing that the committee could do for Team Tink is adopt the Libs’ original submission and change Warringah’s name to North Sydney and argue that the North Sydney CBD , then Tink can contest that seat and Zali moves to the senate. The NSW redistribution is arguably worse than the VIC one since it’s a lot harder to fix. Though the VIC has more ridiculous components and weird boundaries, they are mostly pretty easy to fix while keeping the same general ideas which themselves are pretty good. On the other hand in NSW there have been some decisions like keeping Fowler and Reid intact that result in a mess everywhere else that can’t be fixed without a radical redraw.

5. @nicholas north Sydney is gone unlike Higgins there’s really not much they can do different considering the north shore is border by the harbour whoch acrs as a solid boundary and with mackellar and warringah needing to take in 25% of a quota and NS being 14% under quota there’s not much options.

   @dan m stragll would never accept that she’d win in a 3 way contest vs tonk and libs and would likely lose if she tried for the Senate. Tink is just upset her seat is being cut and she’s got no real option to run anywhere else. She can’t beat stragll and boele has already some stnading in bradfield and will probably win even though I think Paul Fletcher is a decent person and shouldn’t be booted. And she won’t win bennelong as it’s not friendly enough to a teal and the libs and gotten favourable boundaries and a decrnt candidate in Scott yung

6. Yeah, if they at unite Willoughby and Lane Cove LGAs, that’d make things a lot better for Tink. The proposed three-way split of the Lower North Shore is the worst-case scenario for her.

   North Sydney can be saved if Mackellar moves west or Ryde LGA is split, but I doubt there’s much appetite for either of those solutions.

7. @Angas
   I checked the comment records here and I remember now that you planned for a Banks abolition. Can you give me a rough diagram on how you did that?

8. Sorry – cry me a river.

   https://www.kyleatink.com.au/savenorthsydney?utm_campaign=teamtink_cta_zoom&utm_medium=email&utm_source=northsydneysindy

9. @High Street what’s arguably worse is that her website claims to be translated into Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean and Spanish yet looking at the Spanish translation it uses the English word Sydney instead of the Spanish exonym, Sídney. Though I learnt French at school not Spanish so my grasp of French is better than it is of Spanish but still.

10. I agree with the committee’s decision to abolish North Sydney, but Tink and the electors of North Sydney are entitled to be doing what they are doing. No doubt Zimmerman would have reacted similarly had the Teal movement never arisen.

11. I think abolishing North Sydney is the best outcome as far as divisions and community goes. It’s unfortunate that it means an independent member loses out, but the politics, and the party (or lack thereof) of the local member, are irrelevant.

    But Kyliea Tink has every right to object, and to encourage others to do the same. It would, however be helpful if they could at least propose an alternative solution.

12. I don’t think the arguments she is presenting on that page are particularly compelling. Of course she’s entitled to it but I don’t think she’s particularly effective.

13. I’m thinking of submitting an objection regarding the southern boundary of Mitchell. I always hated that boundary through North Rocks and they haven’t adjusted it. I’ll argue they should transfer the rest of North Rocks to Parramatta and then transfer Glenhaven to Mitchell to make up the numbers.

    I know there’s plenty of other things to object to, but my time and energy is limited.

14. Do we expect more or less than 508 objections to the NSW draft? Feels like the proposed abolition of Higgins was very unpopular and I feel the abolition will be less unpopular.

    There’s room for improvement in NSW but overall I think it looks better than Vic. But I’m not quite as familiar with Sydney as I am with Melbourne.

15. @Leon
    There was this one (https://ibb.co/TtgHbxF) I shared here:
    https://www.tallyroom.com.au/55829/comment-page-3#comment-809117

    I’ve also got another rough sketch that could work but I’m not sure how well it would work for Watson:
    https://ibb.co/4V9Ggx0

    @Nicholas
    Please do. It seems like the first thing they should have done instead of extending Parramatta over to Epping. Funny how they slavishly followed LGA boundaries in other areas but were happy to ignore this one.

    @Adam
    Hard to predict, but it’s quite possible I think. Higgins was a bit unexpected and is a Liberal jewel seat so you can see why that stirred people up. But Teal votes in North Sydney are a highly engaged group and are probably motivated to protect their turf. Plus there’s been a lot of necessary but large scale changes to Southern NSW and other parts of Sydney that might shock people a bit. Hopefully there’s a bit of noise around Kingsford Smith, Cook, Hughes and McMahon, but I think the further west you go, the less likely people are to care.

16. Unlike Higgins it’s pretty hard to argue against the ns abolition for any reason other then personal survival of tink. If it was still a liberal division it’s abolition would be a forgone conclusion

17. Honestly I’m stuck trying to find anything to improve that fits within the numbers that doesn’t require a major redrawing of dozens of divisions.

    I gave up trying to put the Botany Bay shore back where it belongs, it was too much work. Ditto for trying to find something that works with Cook/Hughes/Cunningham/Werriwa/Fowler/Macarthur etc.

    At the moment, the only place I can find anything to actually move is that weird teapot spout of Seven Hills added to Parramatta instead of left in Greenway. It’s only 8/11 electors, and looks like they want to use Abbots Road and the Prospect Hwy as a boundary, which I’m fine with good, except they don’t continue the boundary across Old Windsor Road, so it makes no sense.

    I’d like to move Mitchell back to use the M2 as the southern boundary, but that means I need to push back into Greenway or Berowra. I’m thinking maybe Berowra going toward Berowra, moving Bennelong back into the space taken by Parramatta. @Nicholas if you have any luck with what you were proposing, I’d be interested in supporting that.

    On the other hand using Greenway, I can push McMahon back down, or at least back into Cumberland.

    But nothing works. I don’t want to submit an objection with no alternative proposals but I can’t find anything tangible to suggest without an extensive redesign.

18. @Darren the botany bay shore is good enough for now the numbers simply dont allow for it to cropped atm.
    Parramatta can be just the entire City of Parramatta as ive demostrated and agree on the M2 for mitchell

19. @john, I am reluctantly agreeing with the Botany shore. It’s terrible community of interests but it’s unworkable without redoing everything from Wentworth to Werriwa again.

    The problem with changes to make Parramatta align with the LGA is that it affects Bennelong, Berowra, Mitchell and the part thats from Cumberland then needs to go somewhere (Blaxland or McMahon probably). I was hoping for a tweak rather than a whole redraw. But I’ll look at what I can do maybe just tinkering around the edges.

20. Darren it will have no effect on Bennelong as it has already lost the remaining parts of Parramatta. as for the other the solution is simple Mitchell makes no gains from Berowra and and Berowra makes no gains from Bennelong. Parramata simply takes in the Parramatta parts of bennelong that go to Berowra and mitchell retreats to the m2 and takes back the parts of the hills from greenway. greeny takes the bit of blacktown from parramatta and mcmahon and mchmahon takes the aparts of cumberland. blacktown currently makes up two and bit quotas so there is no need to split it across 4 divisions.

    im hoping the next redistribution will be an expansion to parliament and hope a seat called botany bay may be created

21. @john, that would work as a suggestion. I’m trytng to find solutions based on the proposed boundaries. I don’t want to start over with a whole new suggestion – the Committee is likely to accept a tweak to their proposal. They’ll not consider a whole new rewritten suggestion posing as an objection – it’s not part of the process and it’s not worth the effort on my part.

    The problem with your suggestion above is that McMahon already crosses into Blacktown as far as the rail line. If the proposed Mitchell loses all the territory south of the M2, it goes under quota, so I need to reclaim the part that went to Greenway, which takes it back over, and sends Greenway well under. Going the other direction into Berowra, if I take anything from Berowra to go to Mitchell, it risks sending Berowa under quota, which means either breaking into Bradfield or strteching it further south into more of Ryde.

    I’ll keep looking for a workable suggestion that I can put forward to improve their proposed boundaries. If I come up with nothing, then I guess I’ll find a small area to propose changing so I’ve got something – kinda like I did in WA.

22. Kingsford Smith is an abomination. And it’s actually quite easy to fix! You give Rosebery, Beaconsfield and Zetland to Kingsford Smith, give Annandale and Stanmore to Sydney, and Earlwood to Grayndler.

    Honestly I can’t imagine what else is more important to fix.

23. @Darren @John
    Botany Shore is partly solved by rotating Kingsford Smith/Sydney/Grayndler/Barton counterclockwise. It’ll be an extra 0.5% of electors transferred but I think the individual transfers are all sellable:
    – Kingsford Smith gains Rosebery (easy) and Zetland (a bit harder but its very similar to Mascot and also quite distinct from from the remainder of inner-city Sydney, especially once Balmain is added)
    – Sydney gains Annandale (easy) and either the remainder of Lilyfield or Newtown/Enmore (both reasonable additions to an inner-city division)
    – Grayndler would have to gain Earlwood, but surely it’s better to cross Cooks River here with 3 crossings instead of the single crossing proposed, plus Earlwood is separated from Barton by Wolli Creek
    – Brighton-le-Sands and Monterey are clearly more connected to Rockdale and Kogarah than they are to Randwick

    So it’s really just about promoting the idea that the Cooks River has to be crossed somewhere, and if that’s the case, then Earlwood is a better fit in Grayndler than Brighton-le-Sands is in Kingsford Smith. Hoping there’s a good body of complaints about Kingsford Smith that they’ll give it good consideration.

24. Northern Sydney is a bit harder, but I think a clockwise rotation of Parramatta/Mitchell/Berowra/Bradfield/Bennelong would be vastly more sensible. The committe’s sin was to move Bennelong across the Lane Cove River. Sure, Lane Cove has some connections to Ryde, but it has stronger connections to Willoughby, and I especially disagree that Epping should be paired with either Parramatta or Hornsby when it has sensibly been included in Bennelong with Ryde for so long. The Parramatta council area is simply too big to be adhered to, and the boundary through Carlingford along Pennant Hills Road is just about the best boundary that can be achieved in this area.

    The expected objections from Team Tink can be somewhat be addressed by retaining the majority of old North Sydney community in Bradfield, and if Bradfield takes in Lane Cove that means that Berowra can take in Hornsby-aligned areas in the north of Ku-ring-gai. It’d also mean that Berowra can remove all of its Hills Shire components (perhaps like the state district of Hornsby) which greatly reduces the scope of this quite unwieldly division. Mitchell can almost completely follow the Hills Shire boundaries except for some of the northern parts.

    I think this would be much better than the current proposal where basically all of Parramatta/Bennelong/Berowra/Bradfield have been turned into these long stretched divisions, often with 2 hubs at each end. But it’ll be a hard sell I think.

25. @Ben Raue, @Angas, both your solutions sound similar, and it does sound like an elegant solution. It means crossing the Cooks River, which looks like they’ve set as a pretty strong boundary. But as you said Angas, and I would argue it’s way better than Brighton-Le-Sands in Kingsford Smith. I’ll give that solution a try to put forward as a proposal to add support.

    If I can put forward that as a workable solution, then I can abandon my attempts to fix Parramatta because the numbers there are proving quite tight for clean boundaries.

26. Darren, I emailed you my draft objection, be interested in your thoughts.

27. The thing that would make a big difference for Tink would be to forget about the third that went to Warringah, but keep the other 2/3s together with southern Bradfield, but they’re so focused on saving the name “North Sydney” and it sounds like they’re just arguing to be left alone, which isn’t going to happen, because it implies major changes to the Mackellar-Bradfield border.

    Her original comment was so weak because it made suggestions only in regards to her own seat and didn’t try to deal with what that meant for her neighbouring seats.

28. I also spent a bit of time in my objection writing about the best way to draw electorates with two distinct communities that don’t have a lot of overlap. Think Macquarie, Warringah, Whitlam, Hughes, Cook. This is different to a suburban electorate spilling over an LGA border where suburbs on both sides are similar and there’s no deep divides (ie. Parramatta with many of its neighbours).

    They are inevitable sometimes, but I argue that it’s particularly problematic if one of the two communities is overwhelmingly dominant. In the old Cook, the area north of the Georges made up 25% of the enrolment, but in the committee draft it’s just 9%. That community is going to have less effective representation than if they were grouped with surrounding suburbs in a Rockdale-area seat. Likewise I use this to argue against the Kingsford Smith change, which leaves just 9.7% of the seat south of the airport, and northern Campbelltown which is just under a quarter of Hughes and disconnected from the rest.

    Whereas I didn’t even put Earlwood in Grayndler in that category. The Cooks River is not a deep divide like those others – Dulwich Hill and Marrickville have strong connections to Earlwood and Undercliffe. But even then, that part of Earlwood I added to Grayndler makes up a larger share proportionally than the Rockdale-area parts of Cook or Kingsford Smith.

29. Agree Angas about the fixes for all of the Northern Sydney electorates. Lane Cove shares a closer connection with Chatswood compared to Ryde so it should be combined with Willoughby rather than Ryde council.

    Also, Pennant Hills Rd did function as the old boundary separating Parramatta council from Hornsby and Hills Shire LGA’s prior to the 2016 council mergers so there is precedent in retaining this boundary for state/federal electorates.

30. Epping/Carlingford is a difficult area to deal with because it essentially falls at the triple point where the Hills District, North Shore and Western Sydney regions all converge into each other. It is also roughly equidistant from four major centres: Ryde, Parramatta, Hornsby and Castle Hill.

    But I do agree that this area is closely linked to the Macquarie Park hub, so any district centred on Ryde council is probably the best fit for these suburbs to fall into.

31. McMahon and Parramatta can be as necessary for the divisions to the south, but I’m certain this is broadly what we should be aiming for for Northern Sydney:
    https://ibb.co/HFVrQhh

    Agree @Ben that Team Tink needs to be pragmatic at this stage. North Sydney is gone, but it can effectively live on in Bradfield if they get their arguments in line. The AEC only really cares that the numbers work overall. Just like with Higgins, arguments on the basis of ‘we like the vibe of our division’ aren’t going to cut it.

    @Darren
    I’m a big fan of how you’ve highlighted the changes in your maps. Makes it very clear for the commission. So if you happen to find a good solution for Parramatta and Botany, then it’ll definitely help the overall cause.

32. @Yoh An
    Good point about Epping. It definitely does feel like it sits in a bit of a transition zone between different areas (plus it is at the intersection of 2 rail lines), so I can see why proposals have been mixed on whether it should be with Bennelong, Berowra or Parramatta. I think even the Liberal Party submission suggested it should go into Mitchell, but that seemed like a bit of a stretch.

33. @Ben Raue, thanks I’ll take a look tonight and see.

    @Angas, I’ll take a look at your suggestion tonight to when I’m on a machine that doesn’t restrict sites (ie work). I thought the highlighting was a good idea (except I stuffed up the Callwell-McEwen changes and forgot Craigieburn North). I finally learned how to use QGIS and that with Mapbox I can make maps in next to no time. Although I provide the links in my report, I noticed the AEC render them as images so they’re not clickable!

34. if the election is held when i think it will the only redistribution not to be completed will be the NT one

35. Regarding Mitchell and surrounds, I can offer four variations, parameterised on how severely we want to excise its southern end (south of the M2):
    – If Mitchell loses the balance of North Rocks, both Mitchell and Parramatta are still within tolerance with no other changes. If the committee makes just this change, I will be happy enough.
    – If Mitchell loses the balance of North Rocks and the southwestern boundary is moved to Toongabbie Creek and Hammers Road (thus excising the balance of Old Toongabbie and the southern end of Northmead), Mitchell will need to take some electors from Berowra. Glenhaven would do it, as would the Hornsby LGA portion of Castle Hill. No further changes would be necessary to meet numerical requirements.
    – If there is one suburb south of the M2 that needs to remain within Mitchell, it should be Winston Hills. While it was not part of The Hills LGA on the old LGA boundaries, it ought to be considered part of the Hills District as it is a very similar suburb to Baulkham Hills. In this case, the Glenhaven (or Castle Hill) transfer must take place, but then Parramatta has too many electors. Perhaps the solution here is to place everything north of Carlingford Road in Berowra.
    – And how about transferring everything south of the M2 to Parramatta? It is possible. This means Mitchell would have to go all the way north to Wisemans Ferry, with the LGA boundary separating Mitchell and Berowra. Berowra would then take in the entire Epping area from Parramatta.

    Which of the above is preferable?

36. @Nicholas
    Good analysis. I would suggest both #1 as its a straightforward improvement, and also #4, but I don’t think Mitchell should extend further north than Glenhaven. Maybe as far as Kenthurst and Middle Dural like the state district of Castle Hill? Could Macquarie take the remainder of the Hills from Berowra without going over?

    The other option is Mitchell retains Rouse Hill from Greenway (matching the state district of Kellyville), but that causes changes further west.

    I like your idea of Berowra taking all of the Epping area (if it has to be removed from Bennelong). The proposed split along Midson Road is a pretty minor boundary I think, so using Pennant Hills Road is far better.

37. @Leon
    In regards to your question, were you able to view the map I shared on page 3?

    I’ve also got another rough sketch that could work but I’m not sure how well it would work for Watson:
    https://ibb.co/4V9Ggx0

38. Following up on the situation with Northern Sydney, both Tink and Boele ran Webinars on the redistribution, with Tink’s webinar basically a Tutorial on how to raise an objection to the AEC. It is noted that Tink is still refusing to put forward an alternative plan for the redistribution. Most of her hard-core supporters are also going on about the same piece, although I think there is more objection with the Name (North Sydney vs Warringah), but really, this is semantics.

    To her credit, Boele has steered clear of this and is steadily distancing herself from Tink, which leaves me to believe that there may be movements to isolate Tink from the rest of the ‘Teals’.

    In terms of Liberal Party Influence, the new Warringah Seat should now be a Moderate strong-hold, given that I expect it to have lost one Conservative Branch, along with picking up a swarthe of North Sydney branches. This should give the Liberal Party a chance because they will hopefully be able to pre-select a candidate against Zali Steggall that will actually have a pulse.

    The Liberal Party in Mackellar is really struggling to find a candidate, with a laundry list of Party Hacks and No-Namers all expressing interest in the seat. The longer that goes, the more likely that Sophie Scamps will hold the seat.

39. @Angas

    Your northern Sydney map looks pretty good.

    My only query is the boundary between Bradfield and Berowra – splitting along the Old Northern Road between similar communities on each side isn’t ideal, even though it’s a fairly clear line to draw.

    So could Berowra take Galston from Bradfield – right up to Galston Gorge / Berowra Creek?

    If so, could Bradfield take West Pennant Hills from Mitchell, and then can Mitchell take some from Berowra (or does Greenway have to get involved too)?

40. So I’ve decided to abandon my changes in Parramatta, Mitchell and the surrounding north west. I was close to getting the numbers to work but it meant redrawing Greenway, Chifley, McMahon, Parramatta, Mitchell and even minor changes to Berowra and Bennelong. I think there might be sufficient other objections from others here who know more about the microdynamics of the area better than me. I can then lend my support in a comment on suggestion.

    @Angas, I’m pretty much putting into plan what you suggested to fix Kingsford Smith and Barton. It also helps push Cook back and try to tidy up Hughes as per Ben’s changes.

    @Ben Raue, I like your objection, I worked changes around Hughes, Werriwa and Fowler, putting Georges Hall and Bankstown airport into Fowler, Lurnea into Hughes and realigned the boundary through Miller, Busby and Green Valley.

    I don’t have access to making maps or uploading them here today, but I’ll try and get my map available.

41. as part of my objection/comments in all 3 redistributions replies ive submitted the following “The aec should be more pragmatic, aggressive and forward thinking in its redistributions. A redistribution is a chance to tighten up the boundaries in terms of shape, communities of interest putting entire lgas/suburbs together.”

42. @Peter
    Thank you for the feedback.

    Good question about using Old Northern Road as a boundary.

    I think it depends to some degree on whether Macquarie takes in Emu Plains from Lindsay or not. If it does, then it only has room to take in those parts of Berowra in the state district of Hawkesbury (north of Kenthurst/Middle Dural and west of Old Northern Road).

    If not, then Macquarie can extend all the way to Galston Gorge and Berowra can take in West Pennant Hills. But Mitchell would have to take in parts of Dural and also regain Rouse Hill for that to work.

    So while the split of Glenorie and Dural is not ideal, it seems likes it’s probably the best option to use the Old Northern Road for now as it is clear and it aligns with local government and state district boundaries. That way the proposed amendments would avoid having to modify Chifley/Greenway/McMahon (although I do want to propose a set of amendments for that area).

    Note that the map I uploaded was from a while back, and so in this proposal Mitchell would take in Dural and Kenthurst as per the state division of Castle Hill instead of Rouse Hill.

    Another option I’ve looked at would be to retain all of those peri-urban areas in Berowra and instead transfer Beecroft and Cheltenham out to Bennelong, and Ermington to Parramatta. I might suggest that as an alternative.

    Basically, I think the Mitchell, Berowra, Bradfield and Bennelong in that map are the best we can do for those divisions at this point in time. I think it’s going to be a hard one to sell to the committee though.

43. @Darren
    I agree, the Northwest is quite difficult. I think it’d be much easier if Lindsay retained Emu Plains and if McMahon didn’t have Fairfield, but it’ll be hard to shift those. I hope there’s some way to remove the 3-way split of Blacktown however, but I haven’t fully looked into that part yet.

    Sounds like there will be a bit of united front on the changes to the Botany Bay area. If we can get both Cook and Kingsford Smith out of Bayside, that will be an excellent result.

    @John
    I like that phrasing. I’ve got some similar concepts in mine and I’m going to try to give them a bit of grief on Hughes and McMahon especially as divisions that were drawn in the 70s/80s and haven’t been properly updated since.

44. The Werriwa/Fowler border was complex. I didn’t want to extend my changes any further than Werriwa and I found that it was hard to draw a seat in that area that wasn’t too small for the first quota or too big for the second.

45. On another news, I have found a way to enable Berowra to not cross Galston Gorge (majorly). I hope this gets adopted simply because there accessibility issues in crossing Galston Gorge from Gaston to Hornsby (esp. by public transport). I think it makes sense on other measures too.

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iE1tGNtDRxa7Bf6SsOa99SAIvKe0lv4V/view?usp=sharing
    Of course, this includes the rest of the train line parts of Hornsby LGA (up to Brooklyn)
    I have also ensured that Mitchell would work out (by removing anything south of the Hills Motorway)

46. @Leon

    Oh wow… I have mixed feelings about that… but to be honest, it’s mostly positive.

    It would be really nice for Cherrybrook and WPH to not be part of such a Berowra. But it does lead to a lot of desirable outcomes elsewhere.

    In the NSW state redistribution, I argued very strongly against the alignment of the old Epping district on the basis that Epping and Cherrybrook have little in common and thus should not be placed in the same electorate. Now I feel like a bit of a hypocrite endorsing ideas at the federal level which do just that! I suppose the difference is ultimately that federal electorates are twice as large as (NSW) state electorates.

47. @Nicholas
    To be fair to you, Pennant Hills which always had bus services to Cherrybrook was not in that edition of State Epping.
    Also I want to remind you there is now a Cherrybrook Station (which is very close to the Cherrybrook-WPH border) that directly connects to Epping.
    If one treats Berowra like a pennant hills-centric seat then I think it starts making sense.

48. Yes, that’s a good explanation. Berowra is a seat focused on the Hornsby corridor, of which both Epping and Cherrybrook are on the periphery. The old Epping was a seat with two foci – one on Cherrybrook and the other on Epping – which by themselves do not go together.

49. @Leon

    Nice idea. Of course it’s hard to see if it works in a broader context, but as a single division, those places do go together well.

50. Given Victoria had 508 objections I am wondering if the number of objections in NSW will be greater? My guess is just 515. What do others think?

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