Hume – Australia 2016

Labor vote is bad in Camden……. which like wa can swing and is overdue for a correction….. boundaries here are strange…… on current boundaries in a couple of elections time this seat could be ALP held..

I know “community of interest” is a nebulous concept, but it’s difficult to understand why you’d draw a seat that contains both the northern and southern extremities of the Southern Highlands, whilst leaving out the heart of it. It means that to go from one end of the electorate to the other necessarily involves leaving it.

DW, it seemed to me that the AEC started from the position of having no seat cross the Sydney/Wollongong boundary, and then drew the Sutherland and South Coast seats from there. Once you do that, you pretty much have to force Whitlam up into the mountains, and push Eden-Monaro into Yass to make up the numbers.

I had proposed a way to keep the Southern Highlands in Hume, with much less change to Macarthur and Werriwa. Unfortunately, that meant Cunningham had to push back up into Sutherland Shire again, and that was clearly a non-starter for the AEC.

Yeah, the southern highlands (and Hume more generally) suffers to protect a northern Wollongong seat. I think it’s become untenable and they need to either push Cunningham up into the Shire or push Gilmore even further down the coast.

I feel in terms of community of interest, putting Northern Wollongong with the Shire is better than combining the Southern Highlands and Southern Wollongong. This way would also prevent Goulburn and Camden being combined.

DW
You are 100% right. This was the worst possible outcome for Hume.

MM
Well you know i liked your proposal over all others.
The outcome would not have been so bad if, all of Kiama LGA had been placed in Whitlam, & the numbers made up in Cunningham from the shire.
The southern highlands have no place whatever in Whitlam

With current growth, the recent NSW redistribution can be expected to apply until after 2023, By that time I’d expect a seat to be abolished in the south east.

The Commissioners would have been best advised to remove the Bowral end from Whitlam and also to make up Eden Monaro’s numbers by running it further up the coast. Had those things happened then both E-M and Gilmore would have been better for the ALP but Cunningham very marginal, Hughes ALP and Macarthur safer for the Libs. The Cook changes were rather bizarre and unjustified when you think of the other side of the mountains in E-M and Bowral/Mittagong in Whitlam.

MM, you suggested– as you have for years that the Bowral end go into Gilmore even though the only road connection is a one lane iron bridge built in the 1890’s. In the objection phase you did propose the Highlands part of Whitlam to go into Macarthur to help the Libs.

Next time expect the country to be well short of numbers. If Tumut/Tumbarumba is excised; Highlands out of Whitlam and the remaining part of Camden LGA sent south, then a county seat won’t need to go.

With the above changes plus north of the River sent to Barton, expect Cunningham or Gilmore to be abolished or Hughes to become a Liverpool seat.

On behalf of the ALP I’ve written its submissions and appeared before the AEC since 1984. I’ve also written the ALP submissions for the boundaries of QLD; VIC and TAS. The Commissioners always put in enormous work, try to be fair but as with Cook can come up with mystifying solutions.

I proposed the Highlands go into Hume in the Objection stage, not Macarthur. And not to “help the Libs”, but because it was a more logical solution given the way the AEC had drawn Hume.

I was a bit disappointed in Labor’s comments that basically tried to alleged that I (and other Independents) were all Liberal stooges just because we didn’t agree with what Labor wanted. Which was pretty ironic Shane, considering you were the one who contacted me during the redistribution seeking my approval for Labor’s proposals.

Shane Easson
How can you possibly arrive at the numbers you suggest ??. NSW is only slightly UNDER a 48th seat by quota.
How can you even imagine a scenario where NSW would lose another seat ??, To which state ??. The NT, & SA would lose seats first, then probably QLD.

NSW is growing, that is a fact. It may start growing much faster than it has. Just on trend it will have nearly 1/2 million increase in population in the next 7 years. That is an average of 10, 000 per seat. No one knows where they will be living. To presume that there will be negligible population growth in the country is a big call.

Why would the AEC reverse their decision to have Cook cross the river ??. If they did, why then would they not revert to Hughes crossing the river ??. This would then push Banks east into the St George area of Cook.
Why does Hughes inevitably become a Liverpool based seat ?? It could easily stay pretty much where it is.
WHY would E-M move into the Shoalhaven ?? Are you kidding ?? The AEC have been desperately avoiding the reality, that sooner or later E -M will include Goulburn. Gilmore will probably be drawn south , not abolished.
With the level of population growth in the SW area how can you possibly predict what will happen with, Macarthur or Hume ?? It is quite ridiculous . You cannot…

MM
I’D like to say i’m shocked at what you said, but i’m not.

If i were politicised the way you have described i’d be a lot more than “disappointed ” . What you referred to as ” ironic ” , i’d call it all out, as blatant hypocrisy, & unconscionable manipulation. Then again i’m not as restrained or polite as your good self

Mark, your correct about Hume but the round robin of changes you proposed had the effect of improving Macarthur for the Libs.

Yes I contacted you to gauge your thoughts early in the process. Forgive me for trying to stoop to conquer. Once I understood that you wanted the Highlands placed in Gilmore, it became difficult for me to take your suggestions seriously. Ditto to your thoughts during the objections re E-M and the North Coast.

I also am flummoxed by your comments regarding the next Victorian Redistribution that the Division of Murray should be abolished. That suggests to me a pattern.

In Victoria its growth points to an additional seat in the Parliament after next which forestalls any rural seat being abolished. It’s also clear a Western/Northern new seat will replace a seat East of the Yarra.

But go ahead make my day next time.

Geez, talk about ungrateful. My proposals would have given Labor at least 2 extra seats in NSW and possibly even 3. How many more do you want?

In Victoria, I would suggest a new safe Labor seat in Melbourne’s west, with a likely conservative seat in the bush or eastern suburbs abolished. There’s another nice free kick to Labor right there.

So I guess I am really doing very poorly in my role as Liberal Stooge by gifting Labor all these extra seats.

MM
Yes mate. You ARE SUCH a disappointment to them !!!!.

Didn’t the Libs estimate that the labor proposal would nett them 5 or even 6 seats !!!????
Well, that’s what they wanted. Moreover that is what they believed they were ENTITLED to.

In point of fact Labor received Patterson , Dobell , & probably Macarthur , as a result of the redistribution. However they Felt they were entitled to Gerrymander Hughes, Reid, & Banks too as i recall.

Additionally they were very fortunate that they received such favourable treatment in Lindsay, Greenway, McMahon, & Macquarie
As iv’e said before Mark. Overall i liked your proposal best, & would have liked it adopted in full. Even though it did not include several elements i felt were crucial.

WD, on current growth I don’t expect NSW to lose a Division. I predict however that SE NSW will effectively lose a seat to be replaced elsewhere.

My reasoning is partly based on the need for future Commissioners to make up for the shortfall of numbers in the country. NB assuming the Hawkesbury River remains a boundary as it has been since 1969, then the country shortfall will depend on the combined projections for the entire Central Coast to the North Coast as well as that of the inland country. On current trends, you’d expect below average growth in all these areas.

Historically, Sydney’s surplus or shortfall has been made up via either the Great Western Highway or the Hume Highway. That changed last year when Barton’s Georges River boundary which had existed since 1922 was moved north. That was a mistake and I don’t see the error being repeated.

From Federation until 1977 and again in 2007 the seat of Macquarie contained Lithgow and Bathurst. That option is available next time but it would mean an abolition of a rural Division.

E-M contained Goulburn from 1934-84 but since then the ebb and flow of Sydney has mostly been via the Hume Highway. Again, can’t see that changing.

Shane Easson
Yes you are broadly correct. i also agree with the position that NSW will in effect lose a SE seat, this will broadly speaking be E-M, but i’d think names will be changed : i.e. the abolition of Riverina.
However you are not considering the Hunter, which may be absorbed into N.E. , or Parkes. Also Gilmore moving south as i previously suggested.

I like the way you airily dismiss any other possibility than the AEC reversing their decision to have Cook cross the Georges River. Just because that would suit your purposes , doesn’t mean it will happen !!!.

Prey tell what are the alternatives ??? I note you have not responded to the proposition that the AEC would return to the strategy of moving Hughes into Bankstown LGA.

Putting St George into Cook, connected by two bridges, was a far lesser evil than putting Bankstown into Hughes, connected by none.

DW
You are forgetting Alfords Pt bridge, & Milperra Bridge. However i do agree with you.

It is a good time to make the point of comparing the inviolate nature of the Hawkesbury where few people live : i.e. Berowra, Robertson, & the easy adoption of ignoring the Georges river (boundary) which has hundreds of thousands. Just saying.

Alfords Point bridge goes to Padstow, which was in Banks, not Hughes.

Whilst Milperra bridge was indeed a crossing over the Georges River within the electorate, it only connected Bankstown LGA with Liverpool LGA, not the heart of Hughes: Sutherland shire.

winediamond,

Why Eden-Monaro? How on earth do you abolish a seat anchored in the south-east corner of the state?

The idea here is that you cut St George from Cook, Liverpool LGA from Hughes, Southern Highlands from Whitlam and Tumut, Tumbarumba & Yass from Eden-Monaro. And then hopefully that turns five seats into cleanly into four. (Which is the abolished seat is somewhat arbitrary, I’d say Gilmore.)

In the redistribution just gone, these numbers didn’t work. The combination of Sutherland shire, Illawarra, the south coast and Monaro region accounted for more than four quotas. Hence you end up with five seats and all the aforementioned top ups. (One could criticise the AEC for topping up four of these seats, rather than just one or two.)

Perhaps the numbers will work next time. Perhaps they won’t. We are talking about a redistribution that’s probably three parliamentary terms away.

Oops I flubbed my maths in the previous post. Hughes, Cook, Cunningham, Whitlam, Gilmore and Eden-Monaro amount to six seats. So the above should read:

* SIX seats cleanly into FIVE
* accounted for more than FIVE quotas
* you end up with SIX seats

DW
I did say names would be changed. So Whitlam, & Gilmore move south. E- M would move north to take Hume’s western areas. You are correct that abolishing the SE seat is impossible.

MM, some people are never satisfied, eh? On the North Coast, it was virtually certain that Paterson, if not abolished would change hands. And it was also likely that Dobell would become a Labor seat, albeit with a wafer thin margin. So I don’t see you or anyone else gifting the ALP. This time the numbers simply favoured us. Won’t be the case in say, the next QLD redistribution.

J M Keynes once said “when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” And that brings me to the pattern I see in your work. Should the next Vic Redistribution last a single Parliament due to an expected gain of a Division in the one following, and given the swap of a SE Melb seat to the NW, why would you insist Murray has to go? Seems to me that in this case and also exampled by the Highlands earlier cited that you’re presupposing an outcome regardless of supporting evidence.

Offering my opinion on a subject I am interested in =/= “insisting” on one sole option that shall be set in stone for eternity.

I must admit that I really don’t get where you are going with that post, tbh.

Shane,
Let’s wait and see how the shut down of the car industry affects Victoria’s population growth before calling an extra seat in Victoria. A lot of water to flow under the bridge yet.

While I hate to ‘inject’ myself into this argument, I do have one thing to say: quoting Keynes? Seriosuly!? XD

Should the next Vic Redistribution last a single Parliament due to an expected gain of a Division in the one following

Now this is an interesting assertion. Do you anticipate that the Victorian redistribution will use projected figures closer than the standard three and a half years?

DW
Will you offer an opinion on my comparison of the Hawkesbury, & Georges rivers ???

We have just had this NSW redistribution. Let’s not start a new argument about the next one……

The Hawkesbury River is a clear natural barrier, it demarcates the (unofficial?) northern boundary of the Sydney metro area. The fact that few people live either side of it is a good reason for keeping it. If you were to have a seat straddling both sides of the Hawkesbury, it would have to go a fair way north and a long way south to take in a meaningful number of voters. At which point you’re lumping together very disparate communities.

The Georges River is also a strong natural barrier. Ideally, it would also be utilised as an electoral boundary, as it often has been. But its a river within Sydney, with settled suburbia on both sides. Thus you don’t have to go far to take in a decent amount of voters. Indeed, Cook’s modest intrusion into St George took in 25k+ voters.

DW, we’ll have a better idea when the next Vic Redistribution is due at the end of 2017. But that’s what happened at the recently completed WA Redistribution.

Which is funny since the WA boundaries will probably last three elections.

In the next few years I expect Eden-Monaro is going to start to see population gains from new dormitory suburbs of Canberra being built just over the border.

kme
Do you think this already gathering pace??

DW
Thanks for that. it’s a valid point of view.

Not to an electorally significant extent, yet.

thought I made a comment here but appears I did not………. this is made up of Goulburn, Camden and the wolondilly suburbs.(excuse spelling)…………. safe on 2013 figures for the Libs but not in the longer term 6 years odd…. if there are not further boundary changes this would be close