ACT and VIC redistributions live

49

3:01 – This is my last comment for now. I’ll be working on the boundary map over the weekend and plan to return by Monday with some more analysis. I just wanted to zoom out to the big picture.

Two extra seats were created today, bringing the total seats in the parliament to 152. This will drop back to 151 when the draft boundaries are released in South Australia. We’ve also had 3 other redistributions already finished this term but they all had minor impacts.

The seat totals now are:

  • Coalition – 75 (-1)
  • Labor – 72 (+3)
  • Others – 5 (-)

Labor previously needed a 1% uniform swing to become the largest party. They now need a 0.6% uniform swing. They previously needed a 1.4% swing to become the largest party. If you assume that the abolished SA seat is a Liberal or NXT seat, they will only need a swing of 0.7%. This increases to 1% if Labor loses a seat in the South Australian redistribution.

Overall this is a very good outcome for Labor and, combined with strong polling, puts them in a stronger position to win the next election.

2:45 – Corangamite has shifted east, losing touch with Lake Corangamite (hence the renaming to Cox) and taking in the Bellarine peninsula from Corio. This has almost entirely wiped out Sarah Henderson’s margin. McEwen lost some of its Melbourne fringe area, while also losing Puckapunyal and Seymour to Murray/Nicholls, but gained Macedon. Overall this weakened Labor’s hold on the seat. La Trobe shifted east, to sit more clearly on the eastern fringe of Melbourne, while the Bass Coast area has shifted into McMillan/Monash. Changes to the large rural seats appear to have been small.

2:42 – In the western suburbs, the new seat of Fraser mostly covers the Brimbank council area, taking in areas formerly contained in Maribyrnong, Gellibrand, Gorton and Calwell. All of these seats have been pushed away from the new seat in different directions.

2:36 – There’s been some significant redrawing in the south-east which will make Labor happy. It appears Goldstein has been left alone, Chisholm has shifted north (and become slightly safer for the Liberal Party), and Deakin has shifted east (likewise becoming safer). Isaacs has shifted north, pushing Hotham east, making both Labor seats more marginal. Bruce has shifted west, becoming a lot safer for Labor, and all of these changes have pulled up Dunkley, flipping it from marginal Liberal to marginal Labor.

2:22 – In the north-east, Jagajaga has lost its north-eastern tip and gained territory from Scullin, while Menzies has jumped the Yarra (which has reduced its margin).

2:17 – Changes in central Melbourne are relatively modest. Batman has lost its northern fringe to Scullin (which helps the Greens with the margin based on 2016 results), and gained Coburg North from Wills. Melbourne lost its north-western corner to Bill Shorten’s seat of Maribyrnong. Kooyong has expanded slightly on its eastern edge, while Windsor has moved from Higgins into Macnamara.

1:59 – The new electoral boundaries for the ACT improve the Greens chances of breaking through in the lower house (although they are still distant). The old boundaries spread the Greens vote evenly, with about 15% voting Green in both seats in 2016. These new boundaries push up their support in Canberra to 18.7%, while it’s down around 13% in the two other divisions.

1:55 – Now it’s time to take a look at the maps! I’ll be putting together my own interactive maps over the weekend but not for today. Firstly, it’s worth noting that Bean is actually a successor to the old Canberra, taking in Tuggeranong and other southern suburbs. The new Canberra takes in parts of the two old electorates and is centred on Lake Burley Griffin, as Canberra was the last time the ACT had three seats from 1996 to 1998. Here’s that seat’s map:

1:48 – I’ve now updated both tables with the correct numbers. The changes are quite small but please use these updated figures. I’ve now added in estimates for Indi and Higgins. In Indi I ignored a few thousand votes from Murray where we don’t have an IND vs LIB count. In Higgins I counted some Labor two-candidate-preferred from Hotham towards the Greens. In Melbourne I counted some Labor 2CP from Batman and Wills towards the Liberal.

1:24 – Okay I’m revising up my margin of McEwen from 3.6% to 5.9% and Nicholls down from 25.2% to 22.4%.

1:22 – I’m doing some tinkering with my estimates – found a small bug which mainly effected McEwen and Monash.

1:11 – I’ll have plenty to say about the AEC’s policy on naming divisions, but not right now.

1:10 – The Greens are closer to overtaking Michael Danby in his renamed seat of MacNamara. Danby outpolled the Greens by 3.2% to stay in second place on primary votes in 2016, but this gap has dropped to 2.35% on the new boundaries.

1:07 – This gives Labor 72 notional seats, with the Coalition down from 76 to 75, and five independents. Bear in mind that we will see a seat abolished in South Australia next week, so those numbers don’t add up.

1:05 – I can see one seat that has changed hands – Dunkley appears to be a notional Labor seat now. Cox (formerly Corangamite) has almost become a tied seat, while Labor has also gained the two new seats. Labor seats like Holt, Hotham, Isaacs and McEwen have all become more marginal.

1:02 – And here is my estimate of margins

I need to go back and calculate a LIB vs GRN margin for Higgins and also an independent margin for Indi.

Seat Old margin New margin
Aston LIB 8.6% LIB 7.6%
Ballarat ALP 7.3% ALP 7.4%
Batman ALP vs GRN 1% ALP vs GRN 0.7%
Bean (Canberra) ALP 8.5% ALP 8.9%
Bendigo ALP 3.7% ALP 3.9%
Bruce ALP 4.1% ALP 14.2%
Calwell ALP 17.9% ALP 19.7%
Canberra New seat ALP 12.9%
Casey LIB 6.1% LIB 4.5%
Chisholm LIB 1.2% LIB 3%
Corio ALP 10% ALP 8.3%
Cox (Corangamite) LIB 3.1% LIB 0%
Deakin LIB 5.7% LIB 6.3%
Dunkley LIB 1.4% ALP 1%
Fenner ALP 13.9% ALP 11.8%
Flinders LIB 7.8% LIB 7%
Fraser New seat ALP 19.8%
Gellibrand ALP 18.2% ALP 15.1%
Gippsland NAT 18.4% NAT 18.3%
Goldstein LIB 12.7% LIB 12.7%
Gorton ALP 19.5% ALP 18.5%
Higgins LIB vs GRN 8% LIB vs GRN 7.6%
Holt ALP 14.2% ALP 9.7%
Hotham ALP 7.5% ALP 4.1%
Indi IND vs LIB 4.8% IND vs LIB 4.9%
Isaacs ALP 5.7% ALP 3.1%
Jagajaga ALP 4.7% ALP 5.6%
Kooyong LIB 13.3% LIB 12.7%
La Trobe LIB 1.5% LIB 3.3%
Lalor ALP 13.4% ALP 14.2%
Macnamara (Melbourne Ports) ALP 1.4% ALP 1.2%
Mallee NAT 21.3% NAT 20.1%
Maribyrnong ALP 12.3% ALP 10.5%
McEwen ALP 7.8% ALP 5.9%
Melbourne GRN vs LIB 18.5% GRN vs LIB 18.5%
Menzies LIB 10.6% LIB 7.8%
Monash (McMillan) LIB 6% LIB 7.5%
Nicholls (Murray) NAT vs LIB 24.9% NAT 22.4%
Scullin ALP 17.3% ALP 20%
Wannon LIB 9% LIB 9.4%
Wills ALP vs GRN 4.9% ALP vs GRN 4.9%

12:51 – Okay here are my estimates of the vote in each seat. A comparison of margins will be up next.

Vote estimates

Seat ALP 2PP LNP 2PP ALP prim LNP prim GRN prim
Aston 42.4 57.6 30.99 49.69 8.9
Ballarat 57.4 42.6 43.32 38.9 10.8
Batman 72.0 28.0 35.12 19.71 36.6
Bendigo 53.9 46.1 38.65 41.36 10.9
Bruce 64.2 35.8 54.31 30.22 6.6
Calwell 69.7 30.3 58.43 25.9 8.2
Casey 45.5 54.5 28.17 47.49 12.9
Chisholm 47.0 53.0 34.69 47.15 11.4
Corio 58.3 41.7 43.54 36.52 11.7
Cox 50.0 50.0 34 43.74 12.1
Deakin 43.7 56.3 30.09 50.09 11.4
Dunkley 51.0 49.1 36.41 41.13 9.5
Flinders 43.0 57.0 27.55 50.55 11.0
Fraser 69.8 30.2 58.61 25.35 9.7
Gellibrand 65.1 34.9 46.1 29.8 19.1
Gippsland 31.7 68.3 20.12 56.25 7.8
Goldstein 37.3 62.7 21.88 56.33 15.9
Gorton 68.5 31.5 61.2 28.77 10.0
Higgins 39.9 60.1 16.53 51.58 24.2
Holt 59.7 40.3 48.64 33.98 6.5
Hotham 54.1 45.9 42.91 40.44 9.1
Indi 45.0 55.0 9.95 45.52 3.9
Isaacs 53.1 47.0 41.06 42.59 10.6
Jagajaga 55.6 44.5 41.05 40.14 13.5
Kooyong 37.3 62.7 20.72 57.51 18.5
La Trobe 46.7 53.3 32.13 44.25 8.2
Lalor 64.2 35.8 52.62 30.21 9.6
Macnamara 51.2 48.8 26.55 41.94 24.2
Mallee 29.9 70.1 22.34 63.29 7.0
Maribyrnong 60.5 39.6 42.07 33.69 17.3
McEwen 55.9 44.1 42.07 37.95 8.6
Melbourne 66.9 33.1 23.86 24.91 44.6
Menzies 42.2 57.8 26.95 49.8 10.4
Monash 42.5 57.5 27.84 49.82 10.1
Nicholls 27.6 72.4 17 64.85 4.4
Scullin 70.0 30.0 59.91 25.63 7.2
Wannon 40.6 59.4 29.91 53.48 8.1
Wills 71.6 28.4 37.89 21.52 31.0
Bean 58.9 41.1 44.48 37.28 13.6
Canberra 62.9 37.1 42.44 32.87 18.7
Fenner 61.8 38.2 45.97 33.29 13.0

12:37 – There was a campaign to rename Batman due to the seat’s namesake’s historical atrocities against Aboriginal people. Smaller campaigns focused on McMillan and Gellibrand. This appears to have succeeded in McMillan but not Gellibrand or Batman. The other three seats with new names were all named after geographic features. While the AEC has generally not supported seats named after geographic features, they haven’t actively sought to rename these seats when there’s not a need. This suggests a change in policy.

12:32 – According to this statement, the seat of Batman will not be renamed.

Other information includes:

  • 19.5% of electors will change their electorate.
  • Renaming of seats will effect 10.54% of electors.

I still don’t see the report or the data online.

12:30 – We don’t have anything online but there have been some people who must have the report tweeting about name changes, including:

  • The new ACT seat named Bean
  • McMillan renamed Monash
  • Melbourne Ports renamed Macnamara
  • Corangamite renamed Cox
  • Murray renamed Nicholls

And the new seat of Fraser will be in the north-west of Melbourne.

11:45 – The AEC is promising to release the draft electoral boundaries for the ACT and Victoria around ‘lunchtime’ or ‘midday’. I’ll be posting my analysis of those boundaries here as quickly as possible, prioritising calculating primary vote and 2PP by seat. Stay tuned.

Liked it? Take a second to support the Tally Room on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!

49 COMMENTS

  1. The proposal for the ACT has been released with the addition of a seat called Bean after Charles Bean.

    The seat of Bean has largely taken area from Canberra, whilst the aforementioned Canberra has moved to cover the city and the north east of the ACT.

    Canberra could become interesting especially when calculating its Green vote.

  2. L96 Sadly it will be a long time before anything changes in the ACT,let alone Canberra. They are all so comfortably ensconced in their own dreamworld. These people know they will always be over- funded by the commonwealth, so there is no fuel for electoral volatility.

  3. For anyone still having trouble finding the new map, that’s because the Commish has hidden it very well. If you look at the main redistrib page at http://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2017/vic/index.htm , the only sign of change is that “Current step” has changed to “4. Objections to the redistribution proposal “. No mention at all of the fact that they have now published the proposal, just inferred from the fact that they are now calling for objections!

    But you might notice that the “4. Objections…” bit is coloured like a link so be bold and click it! Then you get a new page about objections , http://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2017/vic/objections.htm > and almost incidentally some way down the page you find a heading “Report of Victorian Redistribution Committee” and under that are the proposals. Truly they have all the communications skills that you’d expect of a bunch of nerdy mathematicians!

  4. Just a few things to add, personally I’m not a fan of moving Windsor out of Higgins into MacNamara, the suburb has far more in common with Prahran and South Yarra then its neighbouring suburbs to the south.

    The boundary between Melbourne and Batman would be far better suited if it were the Merri Creek, the locality of Clifton Hill would then be in Melbourne and placed with Fitzroy North and Collingwood of which it has far more in common then Northcote, Preston and Reservoir to its north.

    Finally the western suburbs is a bit messy and needs to cleaned up quite a lot.

  5. Kelly O’Dwyer safer but Greens stronger to challenge in (former) Melbourne Ports with Windsor relocated. Now Danby really has to go if ALP are to hang on there.

  6. I’m a strong advocate for all the portion of Windsor, South Yarra and the part of Prahran west of Williams Road transferring to MacNamara and the Caulfield area east of the Port Phillip/Glen Eira border transferring into Higgins and/or Goldstein.

    I don’t agree with Danby’s 2010 objection about keeping the Jewish population together (most are in the portion that would have transferred anyway) and Caulfield having stronger ties to St Kilda than Prahran/Windsor.

    Firstly, let’s look at the main activity hubs. Caulfield residents are most likely to frequent Glenferrie Rd, Malvern and Glenhuntly Rd, Elsternwick as the closest strips outside their own suburb; while St Kilda residents (especially those east of St Kilda Rd) typically frequent Chapel St in Windsor/Prahran as their main hub. Windsor is also the closest train station for many residents in St Kilda & St Kilda East.

    Also the residents who live around the Chapel St area probably have far less to do with the other activity hubs in Higgins (Glenferrie Rd, Chadstone Shopping Centre) than people who live in Caulfield.

    Secondly – housing, density & demographics. Higgins is mostly leafy & suburban, with more families & more homeowners. Ports/MacNamara is mostly inner city, higher density with more apartments, less families, and far more renters.

    Windsor, South Yarra & the western half of Prahran fit the profile of MacNamara much more than Higgins, while Caulfield is far more at home alongside suburbs such as Malvern, Carnegie & Armadale.

    I am glad Windsor has joined MacNamara now. It’s a step in the right direction. However, I think splitting it from the Prahran section of Chapel St is a mistake as no two areas are probably more connected than Windsor & Prahran (west of Williams, east of Wililams I agree fits more with Higgins), so I think they should be kept together by swapping western Prahran with a section of Caulfield.

  7. T, don’t forget to send your concerns to the AEC. Otherwise they can’t concern the merits or otherwise of your concerns and weigh it against the other trade offs they have to make.

  8. @PJ, the AEC publishes data on how many people from each SA1 voted at each polling place (or other method). They also publish data on which electorate each SA1 is assigned to.

    You can use that to calculate what proportion of each polling place (and, say, the absent vote in a particular seat) should be distributed to each new seat. Then just add up the totals.

    I do it all with an R script, although I added a new feature this morning to do some more steps in there instead of in Excel and there’s a bug I need to find before next Friday, hence why there was a few small updates that had to be made once I finished the process using a different method.

  9. I think the proposal for Victoria is quite good. My biggest reservation would probably be the awkward new Jagajaga, but with Menzies taking the eastern section of the existing division, it didn’t really have anywhere else to go.

    That option for Menzies was one of four that I can think of to resolve the imbalance of divisions north and west versus south and east of the Yarra. The other options were Menzies extending into Ivanhoe, Casey extending west all the way to Diamond Creek, or just juggling the tolerances so that the SE divisions were on average under-quota and the NW divisions were on average over-quota. None of the options are ideal. My submission was Casey extending to Diamond Creek, but I wasn’t happy with it and can’t say the AEC option is inferior. Quite a few suggestions went with the final option to just work with narrowed tolerances, although many of them did so without actually acknowledging the issue.

    Of the re-named divisions, Corangamite (now Cox) needed a new name because it lost its link to the lake it was named after, and Murray (now Nicholls) has become less river-focused with the extension south into the Mitchell LGA. I’m pretty sure the campaign to re-name McMillan has actually been around longer than the one to re-name Batman, and was supported by the sitting member and his most recent opponent. In fact I’m not aware of anyone game to mount any sort of defence for McMillan.

    I was surprised that Hotham and Bruce were altered quite as radically as they were. Bruce moving east was part of my suggestion, but its extension south and the big changes to Hotham have arisen largely as a result of Flinders being pulled back to just the Mornington peninsula. That is a very good outcome for that area, but one I opted not to suggest because of the extent to which it cascaded through Dunkley, Isaacs and Hotham.

    There are a few other things that might have been done differently. I had suggested a different organisation of Lalor/Gellibrand and Gorton/Fraser but the AEC options are not terrible. There may be better solutions for a few numbers-driven changes (e.g. Windsor into Macnamara). However overall, I think the proposal is a solid one.

  10. Paul, Higgins has improved for the Greens on these boundaries – it’s not safer for Kelly O’Dwyer.

  11. I agree with “T” on Melbourne Ports. My submission back then was to remove Caulfield and add the western parts of Higgins. Which was one of the AEC option from memory.

    This would have made Melbourne Ports closer to Port Melbourne where the electorate started from about 110 years ago. Melbourne Ports included Williamstown back then too.

    The current map looks like an old fashioned Queensland gerrymander.

    Some in Caulfield dont like the name Melbourne Ports either as Caulfield is not near the Port of Melbourne and they may be a bit snobby; well at least back when the waterfront was a rough area.

    Danby’s grandstanding was ridiculous but the AEC panel went with his submission mostly unfortunately. I actually attend the verbal submission session and the panel leader interrupted me trying to cut me off as he probably had a set view and I was presenting a different view. Ignorant former judge I think but we were not in a court.

  12. The Yarra is breached between Fitzsimmons Ln (a major road despite the name for those unfamiliar) and Watsons Ck. In between, there’s a bike/pedestrian bridge and Warrandyte-Kangaroo Ground Rd. Both roads carry buses routes. Is that really enough?

    The option that Dean didn’t mention is breaching the Yarra in the city. That’s exactly the place where thousands of people cross the river several times a day without even remarking on it.

    There’s also a great deal of similarity on both sides, and the breached area would be much smaller. The continuous development in both directions at this point yields fertile ground for future changes, to suck divisions across the river as need be.

    In the common border between Macnamara and Melbourne, i.e. between the Maribyrnong and Punt Rd, there’s two motor bridges, 5 pedestrian/bike bridges, 5 mixed/general transport bridges plus the Citylink tunnels and the proposed Melbourne Metro tunnels. There’s many tram lines and several bus routes that cross the river.

    What would have been wrong with this option?

  13. The AEC propose to change Melbourne Ports to MacNamara.

    No not after former National leader in Victoria during the Kennett era (Pat MacNamara) but after Dame Annie Jean MacNamara DBE (1899-1968) who was a doctor and medical researcher who dealt with medical subject like paralysis in Melbourne.

    A good choice in my view as she is a women and for her outstanding medical work.

    The boundaries of the former Melbourne Ports would remain the same but with Prahran- Windsor added with just over 5000 voters. Correct me if I am wrong but Prahran-Windsor is Greens territory I think.

  14. Further to “T” comment.

    Danby is obsessed with the Jews (and Israel) in the electorate however they only make up about 10 to 15% of voters and most Jews I think vote like everyone else be it for the ALP, Libs, Greens etc.

    Voter regardless of religion also vote for good policies and how the policies may affect their back pocket (wallet/bank account/taxes)

    The state seat of Caulfield is Liberal so I suspect Danby’s support is mostly in the rest of the electorate closer to the foreshore where few Jews live.

    Unless Caulfield Jews vote for a Jewish Liberal David Southwick while Melbourne Port Jews vote of a Jewish Labourite Michael Danby. Some may jump ship based on religion rather that party politics but is that likely?.

  15. The AEC has done it again. Made marginal Bruce safe for Labor, switched Dunklet to Labor, dropped Chisholm to a 0% margin and even cut 3% out of the Liberal margin out of Casey and Menzies.

    All in exchange for maling Deakin a little safer for the Liberals as the token we are not bias counter argument. Well done AEC another brilliant stitch up nearly on the ECQ level.

  16. In response to Felix, the problem with breaching the Yarra in the city is identifying a transfer of the right quantum in the right direction. The imbalance that needed to be solved was an excess of approximately 0.2 quotas worth of electors in the divisions north of the Yarra versus a deficit of the same size to the south.

    So the requirement was for a “southern” division to take in approximately 20,000 electors north of the river. I’m struggling to see a right-sized lobe of the division of Melbourne that you could sensibly transfer to Macnamara without damaging communities of interest in both divisions.

    If the required transfer had been in the opposite direction, extending the division of Melbourne into the area of Southbank that is part of the City of Melbourne would have been an obvious possibility.

  17. Given that the high population seats were disproportionately Labor, and the low population seats disproportionately Liberal/National, the fact that the redistribution has improved Labor’s position should come as no surprise.

  18. Cox shifted 3% to labor and wannon shifted less than half a per cent to the libs…. the other changes besides. The areas exchanged between the 2,seats must have made all the difference

  19. I’m getting really annoyed how many people are labelling this result as gerrymandering, in no way shape or form is the AEC redrawing these boundaries to favour any particular political party.
    Th reason why this has been beneficial to Labor is because of the slower rate of grow in the country and already established areas in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne which tend to lean Liberal, whereas areas in the outer north, west and south east have been growing at extremely fast rates.
    Whilst there may have been decisions that people dislike, blaming the AEC for these decisions without understanding the need for fitting into numerical and community requirements is very short sighted.

  20. Adrian, I agree with all your comments. Interestingly, I think Labor will definitely try to pre-select anybody but Danby next time around because they know he is toxic in most of the electorate and just been in way too many scandals now.

    You’re right that Prahran-Winsdor is strong Greens territory. The Greens got 47% of the primary vote in the Windsor booth in 2016. The Greens only needed to change something like 470 votes to topple Labor in the 3PP in Ports that year, so moving Windsor into Ports spells big trouble for Danby. I wouldn’t be surprised if a deeper analysis, looking at 3PP numbers from ‘Others’ preferences, made Macnamara a notional Greens seat to be honest, when you think the transfer brings another 2000+ Greens votes (compared to <1000 Labor votes) into a knife-edge seat.

  21. Ben, great work as usual. But I can’t fathom the maths behind the new MacNamara and Higgins margins.

    Windsor is a staunchly Greens area. Its addition to Melbourne Ports-cum-MacNamara surely increases the ALP-vs-LIB margin. But the table has the margin dropping from 1.4 to 1.2.

    Likewise the Liberal position in Higgins ought to strengthen with the excision of Windsor. Perhaps that’s outweighed by the addition of the Hughesdale/Murrumbeena areas; but this area is 50-50ish, so that doesn’t seem likely.

  22. Having a chuckle with the naming of Bean electorate in the ACT which is named after the WW1 historian. The wining candidate may end up being called “Mr Bean”.

  23. The renamed electorate of Monash (former McMillan) which is near were civil engineers Sir John Monash established the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SEC) brown coals plants and built Yallorn township for the workers in the post WW1 period is a fitting tribute to the WW1 Australian Corps commander.

    However I suspect that the Israel/Jewish lobby in my electorate of Macnamara (former Melbourne Ports) may be chocking on their bagels though as some want their “Jewish” electorate (10-15% only) named after Monash.

    Monash before WW1 constructed buildings in Melbourne with the new technique of re enforcer concrete floors and the Anderson St road bridge (now a pedestrian bridge) over the Yarra river in South Yarra when the river was straightened (it used to go through what are now the lakes in the Royal Botanic Gardens) amongst other works.

  24. it is not a gerrymander…… this is a term describing the deliberate rigging of the boundaries to benefit one political party…. which is not the case. the community of interest seems to be ignored for the sake of numerical precision….. look at Cook nsw…. takes in cronulla and san souci………

  25. mick you are correct.

    My point is that Melbourne Ports looks a bit like the gerrymander of US Governor Gerry with the boundaries making it look like a salamander. Melbourne Ports does not have the shape of a salamander but it is an odd shaped electorate.

  26. @David, so my methodology is I grab the exact proportion of each voting method or booth that has moved across. So this means I don’t take into account the possibility that the absent or postal voters from Windsor were more progressive than elsewhere. Just worth noting.

    So according to my methodology, in the Higgins/Macnamara transfer area, the Greens polled 51.03% of the 2CP, but the Liberals polled 52% of the 2PP. So while it improves the Greens vote, it doesn’t help Labor’s 2PP. It does appear things would look differently if you just look at the election-day booths moved.

  27. Adrian, I can’t see a salamander when I look at MacNamara – but it does look a bit like a toucan facing west! S 66 of the CEA doesn’t include a direct requirement (as it should!) to avoid outlandish shapes for divisions, but the criteria of community of interest and means of communication and travel are hardly satisfied by things like the proposed MacNamara and the current Petrie, which have two lobes joined by a “wasp waist”. I think a much more rational boundary between MacNamara and Higgins would run straight down one of the north-south roads – whichever one equalises the populations. Assuming that would be about Williams Rd, it would put Windsor, Prahran and St Kilda together and Caulfield with Armadale and Malvern, which seems to make sociological sense. And yes it would probably cruel the Greens’ chances of knocking off Kelly O’Dwyer but gosh it would make MacNamara interesting! (Numbers please Ben?) But I’m not using “who would win a particular electorate” as a criterion and neither does the AEC – despite the paranoid whinges from both the Greens in the press and a certain Queenslander on this site. A straightish north-south boundary line just makes sense on both common-sense and statutory criteria.

  28. And isn’t it hilarious that Fraser and Gorton are not only both in solid Labor territory but are snuggled up next to each other!

  29. There’s a simple formula for taking partisanship into account with declaration votes. That is, allocate the Labor declaration vote in proportion to where the Labor ordinary vote was distributed and allocate the Liberal declaration vote in proportion to to where the Liberal ordinary vote was distributed. I think this is how Antony Green does it.

  30. Jack Aranda – yes it is funny.

    However the electorates name does not take into account the party the former PM. There are probably other electorates with the name of an ALP, UAP, Nationalist, Liberal (the first one) and other post federation party PM’s some were too.

  31. Jack Aranda – Curtin electorate in WA is currently held by the Liberal Party. Other electorate names after former PM’s (post WW1) are mainly ALP electorates now.

    However there have been fewer ALP PM’s, some not for very long, compared with all the other so called “conservative” parties. They being Watson (under 4 months),Fisher (twice), Hughes (initially), Scullin, Fadden (9 days), Curtin, Forde (8 days), Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd (twice), Gillard

  32. The AEC Electoral Pocketbook which I referred to for the above data, and which was available after every federal election, had its last hard copy printed edition for the 2016 election. I got one of the last ones recently as the 2016 election print run was limited.

    From now on it will be online only on the AEC website. It is a great historical document too and great bedtime reading. Sad to see it discontinued. I have copies going back 6 election.

  33. To follow on from Adrian’s point, off the top of my head, Curtin is a safe Liberal seat, Forde is an LNP-leaning swing seat, Reid has gone through a few different forms, and in SA, the state seat of Dunstan is the new Liberal Premier’s seat.

  34. Ben, re: “in the Higgins/Macnamara transfer area, the Greens polled 51.03% of the 2CP”, I’m curious about whether this may be enough to make Macnamara Liberal v Greens?

    I am almost certain the transfer isn’t enough for the Greens to topple Labor on the primary vote, however the preference flow from the ‘Others’ in 2016 flowed very heavily to Greens to the point where the Greens almost caught from being around 2700 votes behind in the primary vote to only about 940 votes behind in the 3PP count.

    Given Windsor has 5000+ electors and had primary votes of 47% for the Greens v 19% for Labor, does your modelling indicate that it’s notionally no longer a Labor v Liberal seat?

  35. Thanks Ben, I figured Labor would still outpoll the Greens on primaries.

    In 2016 there were 6300 votes for “Other” in Melbourne Ports and their preferences flowed like this:
    Greens – 3218
    Labor – 1533
    Liberal – 1549

    Between primary votes and “Other” preference flows from Windsor, I have the Greens only needing 944 more votes than Labor to come across from Higgins to make the seat a notional Labor loss.

    The “Other” vote in Higgins also had 38% of preferences flowing to the Greens and only 22% to Labor at the 3PP stage too, so it looks pretty likely to be a Liberal v Green seat I think.

  36. T: using William Bowe’s three-party estimates (41.7-26.5-24.5) the answer I get is probably yes, Macnamara becomes notionally Liberal v Greens with the Greens notionally beating Labor by 0.1% based on the flow of micro-party preferences in 2016 (Greens gained 2.09 points on preferences). I doubt this will convince the AEC to do their initial throw as Liberal vs Green though, and it’s also possible that different modelling approaches would give a different answer given how close it is.

  37. And as we’ve seen from Batman (and from Labor’s continuing hold on Sydney and Grayndler), up to half of inner-city Green votes may come from “send a message to Labor” voters. So if Labor select someone better than Danby (ie almost anyone) they may still be in the final two, and then the winner, in Macnamara.

  38. Thanks Kevin, that’s fascinating!

    In that case I think it becomes a very interesting 2PP between the Liberals & Greens too. In most seats I’d say the Greens should win off the back of Labor preferences, but the Caulfield area where the Israel/Palestine issue is a factor likely makes the Greens’ preference flow from Labor a bit weaker than average in Macnamara.

    In any case, I think Labor’s chance of holding the seat really comes down to whether or not Labor replace Danby before the next election. Being as close as it is, a stronger candidate is probably all Labor need to hold off the Greens, but another run with Danby would pretty much be handing the seat over on a silver platter.

  39. Jack Aranda,

    The problem is that if Danby doesn’t stand, the Caulfield booths will probably firm up for the Liberal party.

    Caulfield is a natural Liberal area that is marginal at federal level because of Danby’s vocal support for Israel. Without him there, the natural swing back to the Liberals would probably be enough to tip the seat in their favour.

  40. And the Jewish vote (even assuming it’s a solid the-Israel-government-can-do-no-wrong bloc and there are no Jews for Peace among them) is what? 13% of the Caulfield population, I think someone said. Danby alienates many Labor voters and probably embarrasses quite a few fair-minded Jews. The party would really be better off without him. Replacing him would have a similar effect to replacing Feeney with Kearney.

    And anyway, as I already said, the boundary is crazy and Caulfield belongs in Higgins anyway. The AEC considered moving the boundary to Williams Rd/Hotham St but rejected it for what I think are pretty weak reasons. I’m composing my objection at the moment, in between checking comments on this site.

  41. I see in response to a question about this, Ben tweeted that he had Labor down 0.45 and the Greens up 0.38 for Macnamara – on that basis Labor would still be notionally ahead (just). The Labor-Green gap at the previous election was 1.12 points.

    At the last election if the Greens made the top two then their own scrutineering had them getting exactly the target percentage to catch up, so on that basis if they did get into the top two on the redistributed boundaries they might win.

  42. For the next redistribution and electorate naming may I suggest in Victoria the following.

    Major General Sir Robert Risson who in the 1950/60’s was chairman of the MMTB (Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board) who almost single handedly saved Melbourne trams when other capital cities, even Ballarat and Bendigo, were getting rid of the trams. Melbourne now had the largest tram network in the world I understand. Risson as a WW2 Army engineer officer in North Africa and after the war was the head of the Freemasons organization in Victoria.

    Check out on You Tube the colour film “Citizen Tram” about Melbourne MMTB operation in the 1960’s including an interview with Risson.

    The other worthy person for an electorate name in Lieutenant General Sir Harry Chauvel commander of the Desert Mounted Corps in Palestine in 1918. Chauvel was the first Australian to be promoted to General in his post WW1 active role in Melbourne in the Army too.

    A further one is Major General Morsehead who was commander at the Tobruk defensive position “The Rats of Tobruk” during the German siege until his force was relieved about 8 months later by other British forces.

  43. In the short term,as others have commented, it’s pretty clear these boundaries will favour Labor. There’s really not much the Liberals can do about it either, since the general arrangement for Dunkley and Cox is very logical. They can’t undo this arrangement without basically rethinking the whole redistribution.

    In the longer term, though, I think this general pattern of seats will end up benefiting the Liberals. Almost all of Labor’s strongest areas in the south-eastern suburbs are now tied up in a single ultra-safe seat (Bruce) whereas the previous arrangement had this area split between multiple ‘fairly safe’ seats. Isaacs would be a genuine marginal on these boundaries, and Hotham will keep drifting that way as its old Labor areas continue to gentrify.

  44. I think the committee has done a really good job in Victoria. All the big changes make sense. Uniting the Bellarine peninsula. Uniting several urban LGAs such as Frankston, Hume, Kingston, Moonee Valley (and almost so in the case of Knox, Maroondah). The new seat takes in the lion’s share of Brimbank LGA. A more compact Flinders. A truly region/rural McMillan (or Monash).

    I can’t see any big community-of-interest problems here. Menzies crossing the river goes against recent convention; but it’s a reasonable outcome. It’s probably a better arrangement than my suggestion of a more elongated Casey.

    McEwen mops up two disconnected suburban corridors on Melbourne’s fringe. But it’s an improvement on what it was and every state has at least one ‘bits-and-pieces’ electorate.

    I could see cause for complaint in the transfer of territory from Ballarat to Wannon. It looks like area that would naturally associate with Ballarat. But the committee is just following the LGA boundary. I don’t see an easy way to reverse it.

    I expect a strong Liberal objection to Cox/Corangamite. The Liberal margin has been undone not just by the new western boundary but also by the substantial territory swaps with Corio. There’s little that can be done about the former change, but there might be an argument for a more minimalist change when it comes to the latter. However, I think the territory swaps are sound. It unites the Bellarine peninsula in Cox whilst putting more of urban Geelong in Corio. I suggested an almost identical Corio-Corangamite boundary.

    I can’t see what the case would be against Dunkley. The numbers with respect to Frankston and Mornington Peninsula LGAs work out so neatly.

    Certainly it is a favourable outcome for Labor. The trade of a little fat off the margin of Isaacs and Hotham to gain Dunkley is a happy one. But as Mark said, with Bruce the biggest vote sink in the eastern suburbs, it’s still a long way from being the optimal outcome.

    Expect a unfavourable outcome for Labor in South Australia.

  45. I fully agree with you Mark and would add these boundaries are well overdue.

    My prediction is that Hotham, Isaacs and Dunkley will move as a block. McNamara/Melbourne added 15,000 voters but was still underquota,that will change next time and with onflow effects dragging the seats towards the CBD, much in the same manner we’ve seen n the northern suburbs.This reverses the long term pattern we’ve seen since the 1960’s seat moving eastwards.

    The other nasty surprise for the ALP is some of the booths with the highest beta (or inherent volatility) are now clustered together in one seat. The areas with beta over two (i.e 2% swing statewide translates into 4% seat specific swing). Hence, Holt and McEwen are much more marginal than their margins suggest. When the swing is on, they over compensate. Oakleigh in Hotham is very high beta as well.

    But I now clearly see the day where the ALP wakes up one morning having only held Bruce east of the Yarra and wondering how that happened.

Comments are closed.