NSW federal redistribution – final margins

The following seats will be liberal targets In 2025 and 2028.
2025
Bennelong
Dobell
Eden Monaro
Gilmore
Greenway
Hunter
Mackellar
Macquarie
Parramatta
Paterson
Reid
Richmond
Robertson
Shortland
Werriwa
Whitlam

Obviously they won’t win all of these but they will likely win Bennelong, Gilmore and Paterson and I rate their chances as fair in Parramatta, Robertson, Werriwa and Hunter. Richmond I think could be won if they can get a centrist liberal in there in addition to the nats candidate as justine elliots vote will likely deteriate to a point where the the 2cp is against the greens and the right candidate could draw the centrist vote with Labor out of the 2pp. All the others should at least become marginal enough to win back in 2028. In regards to the 3 teal seats they probably won’t win warrigal Wentworth or mackellar this time around but the teals support a Labor minority govt they should be able to topple then in 2028. The greens will be hoping to make inroads in Sydney and Grayndler and just have to wait until albo and plubersek retire.Labor will probably try and target Banks and Hughes but with incumbent members and the fact the libs are in opposition it shouldn’t be hard to hold them especially with a govt that has gone backwards since 2022.

re Banks this is a much better chance then it appears. The punchbowl area can vote 70% plus for
Labor

Yea but if they couldn’t win it I. 2022 why would they now it’s not like things have gotten better for them anywhere bar sa.

Re Bennelong.. official figures show lib 50.1% this is no sure result for the liberals. The major factor in this seat is .John Alexander’s retirement which allowed Labor to win

Hughes electorate has taken a massive cut to the margin however I’m doubtful in the current political environment Labor will be picking up any seats in NSW at the next federal election.

@mick your forgetting the Chinese voters who may come back and the teal voters from across the river.easy liberal gain. This is now Labor most marginal seat in that they in negative territory and he needs to win votes to hold the seat.

@fish I doubt he’ll win seats anywhere

The climate now will not be the same in late may 2025. There is nothing the lnp can win federally in Qld. There will potentially be extra seats to win in nsw. VIC and SA Dutton may be quite unpopular
But of course with a small absolute majority it is possible that may revert to a minority.

@Mick Quinlivan the Coalition could still gain Blair in Queensland, Lyons in Tassie and Lingiari in the NT, which I think they will. But other than that the Coalition gains will be in NSW and WA unless they somehow gain a seat or two in Victoria and/or SA.

Labor’s gains on the other hand (if there actually are any) will be in Victoria unless they somehow gain a seat or two in NSW. The Greens will likely gain Wills in Melbourne but that’s about it, unless they get up in Macnamara which I currently think Labor will retain. With Higgins gone that gets rid of another potential Greens gain in Melbourne.

@np they will. Get Lyons and lingiari. Blair will be lineball but I think Neumann may hang on. The coalition will definitely make inroads in Vic but if they start taking those seats in 2025 they’re probably I govt. Greens have prospects in macnamara richmond and wills. Labor probably won’t make any gains in 2025.

Wa at.worst.minus 2
Nothing nt
Lyons I am not convinced it will fall

Gilmore, Bennelong, Robertson and Paterson are the low hanging fruit for the Libs. Parramatta a possibility.
The margins for Hughes and Banks are probably understated as they take in areas where the Libs would have put in zero resources and money and now they will.
Same possibly goes for Eden Monaro as Labor will put more effort into Goulburn.
Expect a big swing in Riverina as Tumut and Tumbarumba will swing hugely now that Labor will not spend $$$ there.

Mick
Bennelong was a one of the seats in 2022 where they had no candidate until 5 weeks before polling day. Not enough time to build a campaign and now Scott Yung is s good fit for the seat.

My tier list rating the new boundaries:

– S: Calare, Cunningham
– A: Farrer, Hume, Lindsay
– B: Banks, Blaxland, Bradfield, Dobell, Gilmore, Lyne, Mackellar, Newcastle, Page, Parkes, Reid, Richmond, Riverina, Robertson, Shortland, Warringah, Watson, Wentworth
– C: Bennelong, Cowper, Eden-Monaro, Fowler, Grayndler, Greenway, Hunter, Macarthur, Macquarie, Mitchell, New England, Paterson, Sydney, Werriwa, Whitlam
– D: Barton, Berowra, Chifley, Cook, Parramatta
– E: Kingsford-Smith, McMahon
– F: Hughes

I feel like I’ve been rather generous. Those bottom three really made everything else look better. I needed to put Hughes in a tier of its own.

@John

The Teal voters “from across the river” have not been forgotten in a 2PP. Every formal vote is counted. 70% of the Teal primary voters preferenced Labor across the old North Sydney, so that factor is not going to get the Liberal candidate home in Bennelong…

@Ben – can you clarify how you treated the North Sydney votes at Chatswood HS booth and the Chatswood PPVC? They were both joint booths with Bradfield however all the Bradfield votes would remain with Bradfield, whereas I do not think it is obvious what to do with the old North Sydney votes.

@high street even so thats when they were voting for a teal candidate now there is no teal and they have to choose between liberal and labor. the fact is still that on the current boundaries liberals are in front as its notionally liberal now. scott yung will help them out a lot with the chinese voters in bennelong that helped jerome get elected and i think most will come back to the liberals now that morrison is gone and they are not pursuing the nti china rhetoric

@ John – LNP not pushing the china rhetoric? You mind need to read a newspaper more often – lol!

Your first sentence contains no logic at all. They did choose between Labor and Liberal last time – that’s what the 2PP count measures. You might need to go back to “2PP school” with Rebekha Sharkie.

At east your second sentance has some logic to it – but as per my opening comment, I think its a bit tainted by rose coloured glasses.

A factor working in Labor’s favour – similar to have been pointed out by others above – is that Labor has never campaigned hard in Lane Cove and Chatswood (western side) Nor in Hunters Hill for that matter. A VERY large amount of teal IND voters choose that option because they do not believe Labor can win in their electorate, and worse they believe they are not even trying. This will change. The Liberal primary is very high in some of these suburbs new to Bennelong so they actually have a lot to lose – in North Sydney until 2022 it was “fat” – now its vital to the result.

@High Street, I assigned them to the SA1 that they came from.

For the three Chatswood booths in Bradfield (Chatswood, Chatswood West, Chatswood pre-poll), between 98.1% and 99% were kept in Bradfield and the remainder moved to Berowra.

Much messier for North Sydney, but this is the proportion moved to Bradfield for all the Chatswood booths in North Sydney, with the remainder put in Bennelong:
– Chatswood – 56.4%
– Chatswood East – 83.6%
– Chatswood pre-poll – 32.5%
– Chatswood South – 1.2%
– Chatswood West – 21.7%

Thanks Ben.

I don’t 100% understand your first statement as though I like election result stats, I’ve never dug in census stats and got familiar with SA1, etc. Are you saying that for each polling place, the AEC knows (tracks) and publishes the proportion of votes taken at that booth for each SA1? So the only real possible error arises from the degree to which voters from the various SA1’s voted in a different way (different parties) at the same polling place? (Because your method assumes each SA1 result matches the overall booth result?)

Yes the AEC publishes data on the number of people from each SA1 that voted at each booth (or other method such as postal voting).

Yes my method assumes that each SA1 gets the same proportion from the booth, so the only variation is because there are different mixes of booths at each SA1. This is slightly problematic because in the case of postal voting you’re effectively applying the same proportion seatwide even though we know (from the booths) that the voting patterns are not the same. For state and local elections where I don’t have SA1 data I use a different methodology that transfers special votes skewed in the same pattern as election day (so the more Labor-voting end of the seat gets more Labor special votes than the other end).

It does mean that if you look at a map of SA1 estimates (which I don’t publish) or, say, the estimates of vote by Victorian ward (which is in my guides) it tends to flatten out the results and make everything look similar within the one seat, but I don’t think it has a significant impact on the margins.

But yes we don’t actually know if all the voters from a particular booth are evenly distributed between the different SA1s in their catchment area. I’m sure in many cases they are not, but we don’t have that data. One of many reasons why redistribution margins are estimates and are not perfect (and why it’s not worth quibbling over whether Bennelong is 0.1% LIB or 0.1% ALP).

Must be 0.1 alp

wont matter either way Liberal gain in 2025

I thought after John Howard lost Bennelong there had to.be an improvement for Labor as the libs must field a weaker candidate than him. Then came John Alexander as Mp.. who happily kept a approx 7% margin.
I was forced to re-evaluate my opinion
I think the reason for Labor “s win was that Mr Alexander was not the lib.candidate. I think this absence of Mr Alexander is more important than the boundary change. I think it is not certain that the libs will Win here in 2025.

Thanks for the explanation of Sa1s. I gather from this there would be a minimal variation due to this methodology. Am I correct?

@mick tbh the libs should have tried to keep him around for one more term to hold it against the tide then he could retire and have a by election mid term once the polls rebounded. i think its the same reason they kept warren entsch around in lecihardt the new candidate is a pretty good fit for the seat i believe the other reason for the vote collaspse was the chinese vote whcih flipped on the libs which i believe will now recover hence my prediction of liberal gain

The Liberals will retain Banks. Even with the slight redistribution, as John mentioned, if Labor couldn’t win with a big nationwide swing last election where you had traditional Asian Liberal voters voting for Labor in Banks due to Labor running an Asian candidate, they aren’t likely to win at this one with a swing against them nationwide.
Coleman is a very hard worker and is known to do good for the community.
I would not be surprised if you saw Coleman even increase his margins at the next election due to the traditional Asian Liberal vote coming back.

I know it’s early but the sydney divisions are already 3/4 of a quota under.

As mentioned in the Corio thread, here is a map of a potential arrangement for Greater Sydney if parliament expands to 14 senators per state and New South Wales becomes entitled to 54 divisions:
https://ibb.co/PxMZZSZ

In some cases it isn’t obvious which is the new seat and which is the continuation of a current seat, but essentially, the 8 new seats would potentially be based on:
1. Port Macquarie
2. Lake Macquarie (like the old Charlton)
3. the Hume Highway corridor (like the old Hume)
4. Badgerys Creek, Camden & Leppington (like many of the recent proposals for a Bird-Walton division)
5. central Liverpool
6. central Blacktown
7. former Canterbury council area
8. plus a preserved North Sydney

Some comments:
– The divisions of Inner Western and Eastern Sydney work out quite sensibly. There would be the option to realign Grayndler and Sydney using Parramatta Road as a boundary
– The North Shore would essentially revert to its most recent set of boundaries, with the return of North Sydney
– Greater Western Sydney has a bit more room for variance. In this version, Macquarie and McMahon retain their awkward configurations to ensure that Chifley and Lindsay keep more sensible arrangements, but it would also be possible to base a new division on the Hawkesbury and northern Blacktown
– The new division based on Badgerys Creek/Camden/Leppington would technically be in breach of the numerical requirements as it would start 20% under quota, but it seemed impossible to avoid this without significant disruption to seats like Lindsay and Hughes
– Hughes extends across Royal National Park to Thirroul as it has occasionally done in the past
– Hume extends to Bowral

Illawarra Region:
https://ibb.co/qxVZKqs

Regional NSW:
https://ibb.co/XS2195S

Thanks for sharing, Angas!

Is your use of “(new)” taken from my redistribution suggestions? I’m flattered either way.

Blaxland, Reid, Watson, and the nearby new division remind me of the configuration in that region a couple decades ago when Lowe was still around – but the names have been permuted!

No worries Nicholas! I hadn’t realised I had borrowed your naming convention there, but I reckon I must have been subconsciously influenced by it. Just seemed like the right way to handle it!

Nice observation about the clockwise rotation of Blaxland/Reid/Watson. I suppose it would be fine to return Blaxland and Watson to their historical positions on Bankstown and Canterbury respectively, but it definitely feels like Reid has firmly established itself as a Canada Bay based division nowdays.

@Angas – I love the suggestions and maps! The proposed Whitlam feels like the best as it can finally be a solely Illawarra/South Coast division.

A quick question, what program/software/website did you use to create these maps? I’m interested in testing it out.

@James
Thanks, glad that you like it! The reduced quota really helps keep the divisions within cohesive areas.

It’s a bit of a manual process unfortunately. I refer to ABS Maps (https://maps.abs.gov.au/) and then I use a relatively simple Python script to assign SA2s/SA1s to different divisions and sum up the electors from the AEC spreadsheet. My maps are just drawn in Paint.

I’ve got some ideas for a basic interactive tool that I might try to put together over the Christmas break, but it might be beyond my skill level! If I can get something working, I’ll share it here. It’d definitely help save some time.

@Angas – thanks for the help!

@ James
I agree 100% i really want Whitlam to be an Illawara based division with parts of South Coat.

@Nimalan based on current trends, with NSW further reducing to 45 seats at the next redistribution, it is more like for Whitlam to be a Wingecarribee-Wollondilly based electorate with Shellharbour LGA split between Gilmore in the south and Cunningham in the north.

My logic for this is the next redistribution will further see the increase in the size of rural electorates, with Goulburn-Mulwaree LGA being moved to Riverina, Eden-Monaro taking the rest of Eurobodalla LGA and pushing up Gilmore up the coast as a result. This will push Whitlam inland, as mentioned above, with Hume contracting further to become a fully outer suburban seat.

Of course, a change to the size of Parliament would blow this all completely out the water but I do not see any political appetite for this before the next redistribution.

@blast b my reckong the next determination will maintain nsws 46 current seats. and by the time of the next one we will likely have an increase to parliament

Blast, in this hypothetical scenario it may be better for the Camden based seat to be named Whitlam (being on similar borders to Whitlam’s old seat of Werriwa which was Campbelltown/Camden focussed) with the Wollondilly and Wingecarribee seat being named Hume instead.

But I do agree with John, NSW is not declining in population much now post Covid and will retain 46 seats at the next determination. It may even still be at 46 in 7 years’ time when the next redistribution is due (although there may be an appetite for Parliament expansion by then).

@yoh id say we will gwt a expansion by the time of the 7 years. However it may decline enough by the 2029 determination maybe.

NSW population isn’t declining – it is increasing.
NSW loses seats because it population growth rate is less than the growth rate of Australia as a whole.
In the most recent ABS release, year to 31 March 2024, Australian population grew by 2.3%.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/latest-release
The next release, year to 30 June 2024, is due to be released tomorrow.

With last week’s population figure release, we’re now halfway to the next determination, which will be based on the figures released 6 quarters from now.

Queensland had a strong quarter of growth (+0.05) and is now in striking distance of a 31st seat. New South Wales’ decline relative to the other states (-0.06) also appears to be accelerating.

If Queensland doesn’t gain its new seat before the 27/28 election, there’s a strong chance that we could be seeing redistributions for the 4 largest states before the 30/31 election. Looks like a perfect time for an expansion of parliament (and a tough time for the AEC).

– New South Wales: 46.15 quotas (-0.18 annual change) [3.5 years until decrease]
– Victoria: 37.98 quotas (+0.12 annual change) [4.2 years until increase]
– Queensland: 30.39 quotas (+0.05 annual change) [2.1 years until increase]
– Western Australia: 16.13 quotas (+0.13 annual change) [2.7 years until increase]
– South Australia: 10.22 quotas (-0.07 annual change) [9.8 years until decrease]
– Tasmania: 3.13 quotas (-0.05 annual change) [11.9 years until decrease]
– Australian Capital Territory: 2.58 quotas (-0.01 annual change) [12.1 years until decrease]
– Northern Territory: 1.39 quotas (-0.02 annual change) [3.5 years until decrease]

@angas in my opinion wa stands a better chance of getting its 17th seat next time and qld not likely until after 2028. vic will likely get a 39th seat at some point. nsw not likely to lose it until after the 2028 election

any reduction/increase in any of those states will likely be a net benefit to the liberals

@angas also queensland will get a redistribution this time around anyway so changes in after 28 will be alot smaller. i doub their will be enough political will or time for given the logistics and based on the proposal https://www.pbo.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-07/Increasing%20the%20size%20of%20the%20Federal%20Parliament_PBO.pdf it looks like it wont be ready to implemet til at least after the 2031 election at minimum

@angas property reports indicate growth in wa and sa likely due to AUKUS. Also Vic is tipped to slow due to new taxes and state debt so I doubt we will see Vic increase its seats back to 39 this time around. WA might get a 17th though. Also barring a change in entitlement Vic nsw a sad wa will be there for the next 3 elections given the 7 year deadline won’t be until sept/October 2031 which will be after the election that year. That could even be pushed to 2032