NSW federal redistribution drafts released – live

I probably reckon over 700 objections will be released for NSW. The previous 2016 redistribution had 790 objections, even though that one was less controversial.

Irrelevant question but why was Lowe abolished instead of Reid, as the Reid (2010-onwards) is more like Lowe (before it was abolished) and now the planned redistributed Blaxland boundaries will be more like Reid (pre-2010)?

Marh
Reid was effectively abolished and the name recycled for Lowe. As the seats were adjacent and some voters possibly changed over the myth of an abolition of Lowe could taken forward. A bit like the Victorian government who will ‘merge’ 2 or 3 schools but none were ‘closed’.

While it’s correct to say the proposed Kingsford Smith is connecting two disparate areas without common communities of interest through the airport, as I understand it, this was already done a few years back to create Bayside Council. Which raises the question, if the proposed Kingsford Smith is inappropriate, why should Bayside Council continue to exist with similar boundaries? From what I’ve heard it’s been a disaster for the former Rockdale Council, having to absorb all of the former Botany Council’s

(continued from last comment) debts.

There has been a consensus here and in almost all other submissions (ALP excepted) that either North Sydney or Warringah would have to go. The harsh reality of demography, numbers and geography dictating that. Kylie Tink will just have to suck it up and either run agaibst Boele or Steggall or run in Bennelong or not run. IMO the best course would be to run in Bradfield. Her base is moving to Bradfield and Boele is acting rather ‘entitled’. Have two Teals and see how it goes.

Wilson
Part of the problem has been that in NSW council mergers have had a political element that suited either Labor or Liberal. Some strange combinations have resulted such as Canada Bay, Inner West or Botany Bay. The former Concord Council would always have had more in common with Burwood and Strathfield than Drummoyne. Rockdale with Kogarah and Hurstville rather than Botany. Ashfield with Drummoyne or Burwood rather than Leichhardt and Marrickville.

Seemed like the Council Merger was definitely based on politics than the objectives with areas that strongly voted Labor merged but areas that voted Libs or were marginal seats just kept intact most notably Municipality of Hunter’s Hill which only has a population of 13000

I reckon that most of the objections will be relating to:
1. Abolition of North Sydney
2. The bayside bend of Kingsford Smith
3. Hughes
4. Hume

I’m sure that Kylea Tink’s fan base will be objecting. It’s kind of like how Katie Allen’s and Michelle Ananda-Rajah’s fan base protested against the abolition of Higgins. There was a concerted effort to get Tink elected two years ago and there might be some uproar who feel their hard work will be wasted. Claims such as “it is a federation seat with almost 125 years of history” will fall on deaf ears.

Kingsford-Smith will get more attention from psephologists and election observers like Ben Raue. There’s a cohort who live on the western shores of Botany who will want to go back to Barton or even Cook.

Hughes will get objections from Sutherland Shire residents who are against being lumped together with Macquarie Fields and Ingleburn and vice versa. Sutherland Shire is like an exclave and has its own character.

Hume is radically redrawn and has notably lost Goulburn but taken up Leppington. This will spur angst as its more outer suburban and less rural.

Hughes urgently needs to be redone. Upper-middle-class Menai and Bangor do not belong in the same electorate with public housing and low-income Macquarie Fields.

Why should class or perceptions of class have anything to do with electoral boundaries? That is like saying all electoral boundaries have to run down Williams Road because Toorak and the Prahran Housing Commission can’t be in the same electorate or the South Melbourne Housing Commission with Middle Park or Albert Park. Yes, the Hughes boundaries are strange and Glenfield looks like an appendage. There are lots of communities of interest differences but class should not be one. The definition of community of interest should specifically exlude any reference to religion, ethnicity, class or sexuality. It should relate to proximity, local government, transport links, community focus (shopping and services), school and non exclusive community links.

” if the proposed Kingsford Smith is inappropriate, why should Bayside Council continue to exist with similar boundaries?”

Easy answer: it shouldn’t.

But it’s much harder to unpick a council amalgamation than it is to change electoral boundaries.

We shouldn’t further embed that mistake in federal boundaries.

What are the odds the proposed Hughes will be undone?
I think Shire pride is one of the reasons against the proposal but the other is Macquarie Fields is geographically cut off from Sutherland Shire and the electorate looks like a mish mash. The state electorate of Holsworthy also crosses Holsworthy Barracks.

It will be tricky to redraw electorates as metro Sydney is bounded by geographical boundaries such as national parks and bodies of water like Broken Bay and has Sydney Harbour, bays and national parks within. Hughes might have to be the unlucky one.

@Wilson – The Bayside LGA borders, being the merger of the former Botany Bay and Rockdale LGAs, is perhaps the most egregious example of bad LGA boundaries arising from the merger process in 2016. Even just this week Bayside council was tabling motions to undo its merger. There is still strong community anger about the merger. Months

It’s not a good example to use when making community of interest claims, which is what the redistribution commission has attempted to do with its version of Kingsford Smith.

As I noted as a reply to a @Ben Raue twitter post earlier in the week, it is my opinion that they should Bayside council up, give the former Rockdale council to Georges River and give the former Botany Bay council to Randwick. All of a sudden you end up with a logical outcome that should have occurred in 2016.

The numbers probably work that you could draw a Kingsford Smith that is entirely made up of the Randwick and former Botany Bay LGAs. There seems to be a strong desire for this not to occur. Both Allegra Spender and Malcolm Turnbull urged the commissioners not to move the Kingsford Smith-Wentworth border north (to the more logical LGA boundary between Randwick and Waverley, rather than the other random back streets used now). This is seemingly not due to numerical or geographical concerns, but due to socio-political ones relating to the Jewish community. It’s an argument that’s been made at multiple successive redistributions. I wonder how much this concern has played into the creation of the tail. Probably little, if any at all, but interesting to consider nonetheless.

@Redistributed No one is proposing Warringah to be abolished with its territory divided among surounding seats. The Liberal Party submission effectively abolishes North Sydney and renames Warringah to North Sydney.

The overwhelming concensus is that either North Sydney or Bradfield needs to be abolished with its territory divided among surrounding seats. It is obvious that Kylea Tink and her supporters don’t want either of the two seats abolished because they want both Tink and Nicolette Boele (who calls herself the “shadow representative for Bradfield”) to be in federal Parliament not just one of them, otherwise they can just launch a “Kylea Tink for Bradfield” campaign without any need to campaign against the abolition of North Sydney. It’s easy to understand why they haven’t put forward an alternative seat for abolition, because there are no obvious alternatives to abolishing North Sydney or Bradfield. Even if someone manage to come up with an alternative redistribution that keeps North Sydney and Bradfield, that would basically means asking the Augmented Electoral Commission to start the whole process all over again.

Kylea Tink’s most likely fate is unsuccessfully contesting Bennelong, and Nicolette Boele hiring her as an adviser or COS after winning Bradfield. Tink will be sorely missed in federal Parliament, but our democracy is so much bigger than any one person.

Interestingly and perhaps not surprisingly, 330 of 508 (around 65%) of objections to the proposed VIC redistribution object to the abolition of Higgins. As for the potential number of objections that may be received for the proposed NSW redistribution, I won’t be surprised if it surpasses 1000, due to hundreds of objections that objects to abolishing North Sydney. A change.org partition to “Save our North Sydney electorate from abolishment” has 2134 signatures. If most of them made an objection the number of objections can surpass 2000.

when can we expect to be able to see the objections for NSW?

Probably after 12 noon, that was when the objections for WA and Victoria were released.

Not long left then!

Still not up yet. There might be a lot to sort through.

Objections are up 738 objections. Comments on vic objections are also up.

I hope the first thing the AEC does when parliament expands is to restore a seat with a similar structure to the North Sydney of today, but right now I am slightly cringing at the “North Sydney only” objections.
(Note: I have been living in this seat since birth (22.5 years since 2001) and being just out side of it right now (my current home would still be in NSyd on 1968-2000 or 2009-2016 boundaries)

Other than objections to the abolition of North Sydney, the next most contentious change would appear to be Epping being moved from Bennelong to Berowra. Obviously that change has been driven by the North Sydney abolition, but I wonder if there would be a way to rotate Bennelong, Berowra and Bradfield so that Epping could remain in Bennelong.

I think I’m going to submit a comment on objections with two alternatives – one for how the abolition of North Sydney can be ameliorated, and another for how it can be prevented.

In both:
– Bennelong is restored to its current boundaries but expands into Beecroft and Cheltenham.
– The M2 becomes the boundary between Parramatta and Mitchell.
– Mitchell gains semi-rural parts of The Hills LGA.
– Ku-ring-gai LGA is split between Berowra and Bradfield.

In the first alternative, Bradfield unites the eastern half of Ku-ring-gai LGA with all of Willoughby, Lane Cove, and Hunters Hill LGAs. No changes to Warringah or Mackellar (relative to the proposal) are necessary (except maybe a tweak around St Leonards). At least this avoids a three-way split of the Lower North Shore.

In the second, North Sydney is retained. It becomes precisely the union of North Sydney, Willoughby, Lane Cove, and Hunters Hill LGAs. Warringah pushes north and the boundary with Mackellar becomes the Wakehurst Parkway. Then Mackellar takes the eastern portion of Ku-ring-gai LGA. This is much more radical and sure to elicit objection to the changes to Mackellar. But if North Sydney is to be saved, this is how.

Agree Nicholas about the messy split of Epping and Carlingford two ways between Parramatta and Berowra. Ideally, Berowra being a Hornsby centric district should have closer links to northern parts of Ku-ring-gai council (suburbs like Wahroonga and Turramurra). Then Bradfield can be drawn as a Lower North Shore district centred on Chatswood that also includes the localities that share a close connection with it, including Lane Cove, Castlecrag, Willoughby, Lindfield/Roseville and St Leonards/Crow’s Nest.

Bennelong will still absorb Hunters Hill, which has a close connection with Gladesville and Putney and then be drawn to also include Beecroft and Cheltenham which are probably more closely linked to Epping rather than Hornsby.

Frankly, if I were the Commissioners I would just put a lot of those in the bin as so many demonstrate lack of basic understanding of the issues involved and how the systems work.
Methinks that the objections regarding Epping may be from Labor members as they seem to mirror the ALP concerns.

There are a small number objecting to parts of Warringah going to Mackellar. And then a couple about Parkes expanding. Interestingly, the ones from Mackellar seem to all support the change.

The number of Epping ones – including a few categorised as no division mentioned – are all basically the same, Epping and the surrounding area should be back in Bennelong not Berowra. There were also a fair number of Lane Cove based submissions objecting to going into Bennelong.

So far I’ve assessed that none of the North Sydney objections contain anything compelling. I’m not going to read them all but of the few that I have they are all basically the same.

Perhaps a rotation of Bradfield, Bennelong and Berowra, with maybe flow on effects to Parramatta and Mitchell.

Of the ones I havent looked at yet:
There seems to be a couple about Lindsay and Macquarie.
A couple about Hume and Eden Monaro – guessing about Goulburn.
Only a few about Kingsford Smith. I’m wondering if the more DCALB this area is, they may not be a engaged in a political sense as those on the north side.

Redistributed, I do agree with your view that a lot of the North Sydney objections clearly lack understanding about the AEC’s processes. They frequently mention the area has high population growth, yet population isn’t a factor in drawing boundaries because numbers are based on enrolled voters which excludes children and non-citizens.

They also seem to mirror the Higgins objections in that they all argue along the lines of ‘the seat has a long history’ or other pointless reasons.

On your point about the Epping objections, I would argue they all have merit. As a former resident of the area, I agree that Epping and Eastwood form a cohesive unit and breaking them apart as the draft boundaries have done is not a good solution. A better split is to divide Bennelong and Berowra using major arterial roads (like Pennant Hills Rd to separate Beecroft and Pennant Hills from each other or even the Cheltenham/Beecroft suburb boundary). The only link in this area is the T9 train line, with local buses being split (Epping/Eastwood having routes connecting to Macquarie Park vs those in Pennant Hills connecting with either Hornsby or Castle Hill).

I’m rather surprised and somewhat impressed that Kylea Tink has actually put together an objection that makes a proposal to save North Sydney rather than just oppose its abolition.

Tink argues that Berowra should be abolished in lieu of North Sydney, due to the stronger communities of interest in North Sydney vs Berowra. She also provides reasoning for why this change will create stronger boundaries across Northern Sydney. All those Epping people could go support her alternative proposal. She has Epping wholly within Bennelong and no Berowra in sight.

Whilst I suspect her submission will fall on deaf ears, it was nice to see a submission that actually tried to find a solution to the abolition of North Sydney rather than just blind opposition.

738 is pretty sizable, although at least 500 of those are related to North Sydney and probably devoid of much insight.

I wonder if the committee actually has to read through every single submission, or they just have a quick glance and move on. Reading through all of the duplicates would be excruciating.

I find it quite funny when people from Higgins and North Sydney say these divisions are growing, as these are some of the most NIMBY areas in the country. Eventually we may see some meaningful densification of these areas, but currently they’re not keeping pace with greenfield developments in the west.

From what I’ve seen so far:
– Kylea Tink and Zali Steggall seem to have agreed to a somewhat united front on using Warringah Freeway as a boundary, which wasn’t the case in the original round
– The Liberal Party has fully endorsed the proposal in a single page submission
– No submissions from Allegra Spender, Dai Le and Sophie Scamps who I assume are relatively pleased with their divisions

The objections that aren’t objections:

* OB6 (Michael Dredge)
* OB122 (Anonymous 16)
* OB382 (Anonymous 20)
* OB433 (Kathryn Chivers)
* OB532 (Diane West)
* OB709 (Carolyn Crossman)
* OB730 (Sue Brown)

One with a racist name that I reckon is fake:

* OB186 (I won’t repeat the term but it’s supposed to look like the N word)

Still can’t find my objection though. I’m pretty sure I mentioned Cowper, Hunter, Lyne, Page and Paterson.

Never mind, I found it. I’m Anonymous 2, OB15.

@Nether Portal
Is OB15 yours? I think sometimes they mis-categorise things

Beat me to it!

What I’ve noticed is that:

* In NSW most objections were about the abolition of North Sydney
* In Victoria most objections were about the abolition of Higgins
* In WA most objections were about Bullwinkel and southwestern WA (Canning, Forrest and O’Connor)

@Angas yep that’s mine. They forgot to mention that I mentioned Hunter so they’ve instead put it as “Cowper, Lyne, North Sydney, Page, Paterson”. I’ve argued for the name of North Sydney to be retained but that’s all on that matter. Most of it’s about the boundaries for the Coffs Coast and Port Macquarie.

Shit I just realised that I forgot to object to Greenway gaining Rouse Hill.

Should I do some target seat maps for the proposed boundaries (will be posted on the next federal election page)?

Did anyone argue for more of North Sydney going into Bradfield? Epping in Bennelong makes more sense..Re Bullwinkel… the Avon Valley as part of an urban seat makes sense.. but eventually this more rural area will be hived off to another seat

I’m surprised by the number of objections regarding Bennelong. There must be lots of political or redistribution watchers there. There might be some tweaks to Bennelong and its neighbours e.g. Bradfield, Parramatta, Warringah.

Not many objections from community organisations like in Victoria, unless they’re using personal names or Anonymous.

Not many objections relating to Kingsford Smith, Hughes or Hume. Looks like the monstrosity of Kingsford Smith and Hughes will go ahead as proposed.

@Votante
Yeah I’ve just finished reading through the less than 10% of submissions that aren’t related to Bennelong/Berowra/Bradfield/Mackellar/North Sydney/Warringah, and the only other somewhat consistent complaint is the 9 submissions regarding Emu Plains.

So we might see a bit of a rework of Greater Northern Sydney, but I imagine they’ll just phone it in at this stage. Too many mixed opinions about how to resolve it all.

It’s fascinating that splitting Epping generates so much commotion, but no one cares that Blacktown is split in 3. And also interesting there’s very little noise about Kingsford Smith. I thought that one would stand out as quite an obviously bad decision.

Looking back, there was barely a peep when Stirling or Port Adelaide were abolished. Wasn’t as nicely summarised before then, but doesn’t look to have been much flak about any of Charlton or Lowe either.

Murray in 2010 the only one that received anything notable and they reverted on that one.

Hoping they filter through a lot of it. I can see the temptation to not reward this kind of astroturfing – even though at the same time I and others have mount a case against scrapping Higgins on less spurious grounds. Losing North Sydney looks sound though?

@Votante and Angas it could be a coordinated campaign. Some of the submissions are similar. The seats that notionally flip tend to attract a lot of attention. Menzies’s boundaries had a decent amount of attention in the VIC redistribution. That being said Epping fits in Bennelong and even Parramatta a lot better than in Berowra.

Would it be fair to say that the main driving factor behind objections is if a division is “Blue Ribbon” or rural? Those areas seem to be the most against change to their representation. There’s generally an older, more established demographic in these areas that has time to get involved in the redistribution process. On the other hand, it seems like Labor-voting working class or middle class areas don’t seem to care which division they are in, although the objections to the split of Glenroy and Oak Park in Wills would be an exception to the rule.

I haven’t gone through many of those submissions yet, but I think North Sydney is as good as gone at this stage. Even if they manage to get it adjusted so that Bradfield is abolished, it’s hard to see them retaining the name of North Sydney. They’ll have to wait for an expansion of parliament to bring it back, after which it will probably get renamed to Howard anyway.

Do we think Labor might have had something to do with the Epping objections? They’d much rather have that area in Bennelong than Lane Cove. I think they had a big part in the large amount of the Wills/Maribyrnong submissions. Maybe they think this is the best way to make Bennelong go back to being notionally Labor.

You could see in a lot of the Vic objections, Labor and people connected to the Labor party try and make the argument that Southbank has no connection to Melbourne and that Prahran should stay in Kooyong. Because they see those changes have the possibility of getting up and they realise those would be good for the Greens.

Also it’s very funny when people say x doesn’t fit in the same electorate as y, and they are just picking the two suburbs that are furtherest apart from one another. Not any of the ones that are much more closer.

@Drake
That’s a reasonable conclusion. No one else seems to benefit, and it would nudge the scale a little bit in their direction. That said, I’m surprised they didn’t argue for the full removal of Lane Cove. That’d be the best outcome plus it’d be boost for the Teals.

Overall, Labor seems to be the most subtle at pushing their changes. Compare it to the campaigns driven by Katie Allen and Kylea Tink which might backfire as too many repeated submissions might just come across as noise.

I admit that I’m guilty of the “x doesn’t fit in the same electorate as y” statement, although I do feel like it sometimes does indicate areas that can be improved (eg. Balwyn North and Prahran, or Bundeena and Ingleside). I find that long, streched divisions are generally worse than compact, square divisions, although the commitees have seemed to think otherwise.

A major complaint from submitters is that Epping will be split into three. Epping is a major transport hub but not really a large commercial hub like Blacktown. Like Angas mentioned, there’s not a peep about Blacktown getting sliced up. I agree that Labor would rather Epping in Bennelong in its entirety than Lane Cove. From memory, Lane Cove is quite a teal area at the last state and federal elections and keeping Lane Cove out would help Labor get rid of two problems – a teal challenger and a strong Liberal vote.

Had the redistributions been last term and/or Liberals held onto Higgins and North Sydney last election, there would be more screaming from the Liberal Party. It’s actually within any party’s interests to maximise their seat count and margins of marginal seats.

My one (504) tries almost successfully keeps Blacktown in 1 piece (I am from nowhere near Blacktown) but I am worried it may get tossed out given the lack of specifics around Grayndler/Barton/Watson/Banks area.

@conor she suggested berowra because she wants to pteserve both her seat and bradgield as they’re hoping teal ally boele will get up that’s her unofficial reasons

@votante it wouldnt matter how it was cut last term as the libs held all the north shore seats along with berowra nad bennelong so they would f lost a seat no matter how it was cut.