Some of my maps now cover up to four elections for the same jurisdiction. In order to view these in an interesting and simple way, I’ve developed a format which allows you to quickly flick between different maps for the same area, while holding to the same position on the map.

I’ve produced a number of these time-series maps, including state maps for New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, and national maps for Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

You can access them through a new page dedicated to time-series maps.

The following images show you how these maps are designed to work, in this case using the example of the Victorian state elections from 2002 to 2010.

Click to enlarge each image to its full size.

I have also decided to colour all Liberal National seats in Queensland as blue, rather than attempting to distinguish between which party they will be representing in Canberra, due to the fact that the LNP is running under a single banner. Below I’ve posted the overall maps of seat results in the areas around Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

You can download these maps and manipulate them yourself by visiting the Tally Room maps page.

Sydney and surrounds.

Melbourne and surrounds.

Brisbane and surrounds.

After the fold, I have maps showing the gender of each federal MP after the last federal election.

At the 2007 federal election, 110 men and 40 women won seats in the House of Representatives. Since that election, there have been five by-elections. In three of those by-elections Liberal or National male MPs were replaced by men from the same party, thus not affecting the figures. In the seat of Lyne a Nationals man was replaced by an independent man. In the seat of Higgins, Peter Costello was replaced by Kelly O’Dwyer, bringing the number of women in the House of Representatives to 41. Most of the following figures ignore the results of the Lyne and Higgins by-elections, although the seat of Higgins is highlighted in yellow to indicate that the seat was  originally held by a man and is now held by a woman.

Out of the 150 seats in the federal parliament, at the 2007 election the breakdown of seats by party and gender were:

• Labor – 27/83 – 32.5%
• Liberal – 12/55 – 21.8%
• National – 1/10 – 10.0%
• Independent – 0/2

Clearly the ALP has the highest proportion of women in Parliament, with just under one third of its lower house seats being held by women. The Liberal Party has much better representation of women than their smaller coalition partner. Indeed, a majority of Liberal women hold seats in regional areas, with seven Liberal women holding seats in regional New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. The remaining five Liberal women include three in Sydney and one each in Perth and the Gold Coast.

Breaking down seats by state, you get the following split:

• NSW – 17/49 – 34.7%
• VIC – 9/37 – 24.3%
• QLD – 4/29 – 13.8%
• WA – 5/15 – 33.3%
• SA – 2/11 – 18.2%
• TAS – 2/5 – 40.0%
• ACT – 1/2 – 50.0%
• NT – 0/2

The gender split is strongest particularly in Tasmania, New South Wales and Western Australia, and the ACT where one of their two seats is held by a woman. Almost half of all women in the House of Representatives hail from New South Wales.

In contrast, there are only four Queensland women in the House, and only two Labor women from South Australia.

Gender of federal MPs after the 2007 federal election. Seats held by men in blue, seats held by women in red.

In regional Australia, most seats are held by men with a few exceptions. There is a block of five seats in southwestern NSW and northern Victoria all held by female Coalition MPs, in Farrer, Riverina, McEwen, Murray and Indi. The two large rural seats of Pearce and Forrest in Western Australia are both held by Liberal women. All regional seats in South Australia are held by men, as is Lingiari in the Northern Territory. With the exception of Capricornia, all regional seats in Queensland are held by men.

Southern NSW and the Australian Capital Territory.

All three seats in the Illawarra region: Throsby, Cunningham and Gilmore, are held by women, as is Newcastle and Shortland in the Hunter region. The two central coast seats are split, with one seat held by a woman and one by a man.

Sydney

In Sydney, there are seven seats held by women. Greenway, Hughes and Mackellar are all held by Liberal women, while Labor women hold Sydney, Bennelong, Parramatta and Fowler.

Melbourne

Prior to the 2009 Higgins by-election, there were no Liberal seats in Melbourne held by women, although the regional seat of McEwen includes parts of the fringes of Melbourne.

South-east Queensland and northern NSW.

The ALP seats of Bonner and Petrie in Brisbane are both held by women. The only female Liberal MP in Queensland seat of McPherson, at the southern end of the Gold Coast. This seat borders Richmond, which along with Page are both Labor seats in northern NSW held by women.

Adelaide

The only two South Australian women in the House of Representatives are Labor MPs Kate Ellis and Amanda Rishworth.

Perth

There are five female MPs in Western Australia: Liberal MPs in the regional seats of Pearce and Forrest, and three in Perth itself. Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop holds Curtin, while Labor MPs Melissa Parke and Sharryn Jackson.

You can view Google Earth maps on the iPhone (and presumably on other smart phones such as those using Android) by uploading a map to “My Maps” in Google Maps, and then logging in to the Google Earth phone app.

I have uploaded the 2010 federal election maps to my own Google Maps account, and you can access them and add them to your own maps collection at the following links. I have taken all labels and included them in a separate file, allowing you to turn labels on and off as you wish.

• New South Wales
• Victoria
• Queensland
• Western Australia
• South Australia
• Tasmania
• Australian Capital Territory
• Northern Territory
• Labels

I have also now posted a tutorial explaining some of the ways you can use the Google Earth maps posted on this blog to make your own maps by overlaying maps and changing colours  and styles.

Have a read of those, and the flow of federal election seat profiles will resume shortly.

Cameron’s plan involves immediately introducing legislation following an election which would trigger a rapid review of electoral boundaries in England and Wales in order to cut the number of seats by approximately 10%.

Electoral boundary reviews in the past have taken as long as seven years, and the new boundaries being used for the 2010 election are based on registered voter figures from the year 2000. Cameron’s legislation would give only 18 months for a new review.

The Conservatives are arguing that the cut in the size of the Commons, which will have 650 members after this year’s election, is intended to cut the cost of politics, not to achieve electoral gain. While it is probably a good idea to shrink the Commons to less than 600 seats, the costs of those 65 members of Parliament really don’t add up to a lot in the scheme of things.

There is some electoral benefit for the Conservatives in speeding up the process of boundary reviews. Strong Labour areas like the inner cities tend to be depopulating, which means that boundaries drawn using out-of-date data will tend to mean that the number of voters in Labour seats is less than in Conservative seats. Yet this is only a minor issue. The main bias against the Conservatives in the electoral system comes from the geographical distribution of Conservative voters. Labour voters tend to be more ‘effective’, spread efficiently over marginal seats, while Conservative voters are locked up in huge majorities in safe seats. This is the main reason why the Conservatives need to beat Labour by a wide margin to win a majority. No redrawing of the boundaries will fix this: all systems of single-member electorates favours one party over another.

Labour in the UK is crying ‘gerrymander’ over the proposal, although it seems that numerical fairness is on the Conservative side. It seems that the Conservative plan is a good idea, but won’t achieve any of the aims being spun by either side about removing the bias in the electoral system.

In other news, I have just finished the South-East England region in my map of the 1997-2005 electoral boundaries, which I am hoping to finish before the UK election later this year. Maps below the fold.

1997 election.

2001 election.

2005 election.

In addition I have also produced maps for the previous two redistributions. South Australia holds a redistribution after every election, so these maps cover elections from 1997 until the coming election.

You can download the maps at the following links:

• 1997 election
• 2002 election
• 2006 election
• 2010 election

Screenshot images from the new maps posted below the fold.

1997 South Australian election.

2002 South Australian election.

2006 South Australian election.

2010 South Australian election.

I had previously completed maps for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and have now completed the map for Scotland. I have also updated the map of England to take account of by-election results and the change of Speaker.

Maps below the fold:

Results of the 2005 House of Commons election in Scotland.

Constituencies for the 2010 UK House of Commons election.

I have completed two sets of maps. The first set of maps covers the 1997, 2001 and 2005 general elections and all three elections for the Legislative Assembly in 1998, 2003 and 2007. The new boundaries will be used at the next UK and Northern Irish elections, due in 2010 and 2011 respectively. These maps posted below show how much Northern Irish politics has changed since 1997, with the first map showing the results of the 1997 election, while the second map shows the notional 2005 results using the 2010 boundaries. It shows how the Democratic Unionist Party (dark orange) and Sinn Fein (dark green) have come to dominate Northern Irish politics at the expense of the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party.

Results of the 1997 general election in Northern Ireland. Parties shown are the Ulster Unionist Party (blue), Social Democratic and Labour Party (light green), Democratic Unionist Party (orange), Sinn Fein (dark green) and the UK Unionist Party (purple)

Notional results of the 2005 general election in Northern Ireland using redistributed boundaries. Parties shown are the Democratic Unionist Party (orange), Sinn Fein (dark green), Social Democratic and Labour Party (light green) and the Ulster Unionist Party (blue)

Most boundary changes have been relatively minor, with all eighteen constituencies keeping their existing names and no seats changing hands on a notional basis following the redistribution.

From 1997 until 2005 there was a complete reversal in Northern Ireland political fortunes. In 1997 unionists won 13 seats while nationalists won 5 seats, and the UUP won ten seats all in their own right. Sinn Fein and the DUP each held only two seats while one seat was held by the anti-home rule UK Unionist Party, who won a seat in the 1996 North Down by-election and retained it in 1997. In 2001, following the Good Friday accord and the establishment of the Legislative Assembly, the UUP won back North Down but lost five other seats: three to the DUP and two to Sinn Fein. The UUP remained the largest party with six seats, but were closely followed by the DUP, who held five seats.

In 2005, the UUP was almost wiped out, losing five of its remaining seats. They lost four seats on the outskirts of Belfast to the DUP. In a shock result, the SDLP won Belfast South, despite unionist parties winning a majority of the vote, due to an unexpectedly high DUP vote lowering the UUP’s vote. Sinn Fein also won a fifth seat off the SDLP.

You can download both the 1997-2007 and 2010-2011 maps from the maps page and from right here. As a policy, I colour in maps with the most recent election results, but you can download the 1997 maps and change colours to see the changes over the last decade.

MDMConnell in comments summarised the changes:

A few fairly minor nips and tucks to several seats, but no radical re-invention.

* Exchange of Forbes/Parkes for Wellington/Midwestern between Parkes and Calare (Nat objection- assume it benefits them in Calare).

* Re-uniting a few thousand electors in some rural shires (Tenterfield, Gwydir, Lachlan, Central Darling)

* Very minor touch ups to a handful of rural and urban seats.

* Most significant change is the proposed ‘McMahon’ being re-named ‘Reid’, with the existing division of Prospect being given the new name of ‘McMahon’.

Antony Green has also posted a completed pendulum, and I will complete the pendulum on the 2010 federal election guide when I get a chance. Finally, I’ve posted below an image of the electorates for the next federal election:

Click to enlarge.

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