I’ve been pondering the fact that every single statewide submission to the NSW redistribution that I’ve read has proposed shifting the border in the Macarthur area so that one electorate covers all of Campbelltown, while most or all of Camden is grouped with Wollondilly and the Southern Highlands, creating a safe Liberal semi-rural seat and placing all of Campbelltown in a safe Labor seat, effectively destroying the current marginal seat.
I’ve just started working on my own set of boundary proposals, and I’ve come around to believing that there is no future for a Camden-Campbelltown electorate at the 2010 election, and the statistics demonstrate an elegantly simple explanation.
Drawing electoral boundaries in Sydney is inhibited by the large number of geographic barriers. It is difficult and implausible to draw electoral boundaries over a number of barriers. Sydney is blocked to the north by Broken Bay, and the Hawkesbury region to the northwest. The Blue Mountains in the west and the Royal National Park generally prohibit electorates crossing these areas. There have been some cases of seats being drawn across these areas, but it is largely frowned upon.
This leaves the path of the Hume Highway through South-West Sydney and the Southern Highlands as being the only area where there is a continuous community of interest and lack of geographic barriers between Sydney and the rest of the state. Thus any shifts between Sydney and the rest of the state tend to move through this area.
If you exclude Macarthur, there are currently 26 seats in the Sydney region. This does not include Macquarie, which covers the Blue Mountains but also covers much of Central West NSW. These 26 seats make up 25.7 quotas in 2009 and will make up 25.71 quotas in 2012. So you need to add about 0.3 quotas in order to bring the entire Sydney region up to quota. If you assume that you cannot expand any Sydney seats into the Central Coast, Blue Mountains or Wollongong, then the only place where these extra voters can come from is from the seat of Macarthur, either from Camden or Campbelltown.
The whole of the Camden LGA, currently in Macarthur, currently makes up 0.34 quotas, but will grow rapidly to 0.41 quotas by 2012. The part of Campbelltown currently in Macarthur adds up to 0.42 quotas, and will stay at 0.42 quotas up to 2012. So either part of Macarthur could bring Sydney up to a full 26 quotas, with a little bit left over. Any community of interest argument, in my opinion, would result in Campbelltown being transferred. Since Campbelltown is much more strongly Labor-voting than the remainder of Macarthur, any new Macarthur seat would be much safer for the Liberal Party.
You see the same thing at state level, with area like Camden, Goulburn and the Southern Highlands jumping in and out of different seats.
Interestingly, it seems all suggestions have struggled with this area….they’ve all been forced to do something unusual like split Camden or put part of the highlands in with the coast. Maybe the AEC will find a different solution by going further across the Blue Mountains, or pushing into Wollongong? They did last time- nobody saw their Macquarie/Greenway arrangement coming.
I don’t think it’s that difficult. I like the Liberal proposal, that shifts Gilmore south into Moruya, thus bringing the 3 Illawarra seats up to quota, compensate Eden-Monaro by adding Goulburn-Mulwaree, making Werriwa synonymous with Campbelltown and making Macarthur a Camden-Wollondilly-Wingecarribee seat.
I would, however, not create Bradman. I’d keep it’s name as Hume. While it is radically different to the 2006 Hume seat, it’s worth remembering that Hume was originally on the Victorian border in 1901, and has gradually moved towards Sydney. Thus it’s justifiable to move it back (as long as it stays on the Hume Highway).
I don’t think Camden has changed much at state level, it just has shifted as to what parts of Campbelltown are included with it, and what bits of the Wollondilly end up in Camden or further south. Now there is a Wollondilly seat, it will all be about how to best carve up Campbelltown’s south.
There are some interesting suggestions coming out of both major’s submissions for Sydney. On this, I think Werriwa being all of Campbelltown makes a lot of sense, but it will be interesting what they redraw in the Reid, Prospect, Fowler and Lowe corridor. Not that it makes much difference as to the party who wins those seats.