The final boundaries for next year’s ACT Legislative Assembly election have been announced. The committee reverted to the first draft, which was a minor change bringing Ginninderra and Molonglo into quota. The second draft had proposed radical changes to the boundaries, reducing Molonglo to a 5-member district and making Ginninderra a 7-member district, but these were rejected after vocal opposition. I have now posted the final version on the maps page.

In other news, the latest report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on population for each state and territory makes it clear that there will be no changes in the number of seats for each state and territory at the next federal election. In the next month the AEC will make a determination about seat numbers, and this data makes it clear they will remain the same. This will mean that no more federal redistributions will be held in time for the next federal election once the current South Australian redistribution is completed.

An ACT redistribution is due in 2013, but won’t be finished before the election. Antony Green has also blogged about the new update.

So with the NT and ACT territorial boundaries now completed, the only redistribution map I need to work on now is the draft boundaries for next year’s WA state election. Later this year we will be getting final boundaries for the WA state election and for SA federal boundaries. I’ll keep you posted.

Apart from those, I am also looking to update my ward maps for New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, as all three big states have council elections next year. Sorry Western Australia and South Australia, I just haven’t had time to cover those states.

Anyway, Victoria and Queensland’s state electoral commissions are doing a good job of covering the redistributions being held for council wards on their websites, but not in New South Wales, where it seems to be a job for the individual council.

So I’m calling on my readers to help me out by posting here any news about New South Wales council ward boundaries:

• A decision by a council to get rid of or implement ward boundaries.
• A clear decision to redistribute the boundaries, preferably with a link to the maps
• A clear indication that ward boundaries are not changing.

This will make it a lot easier to produce a state ward map well before the September council elections.

11:48pm – While we have 26-27,000 votes counted in each of the two northernmost wards, we only had 17,000 votes counted for Ward 3 at this time. We’re expecting this vote to go up and so these figures are not final. Labor leads with 2.09 quota, followed by Liberal on 1.31, and then independent Vicki Curran on 0.78. They are a long way ahead of other groups, with the next closest being Trevor Mott on 0.29. So despite the vote-count being slower it seems likely that the councillors will be Chris Connor (ALP), Ann Martin (ALP), Bede Crasnich (LIB) and Vicki Curran (IND).

11:44pm – A final update just came through for Ward 1, excepting special votes, Wollongong Town Hall and Tarrawanna. The Liberal Party leads with 1.46 quota, followed by ALP on 1.27, the Greens on 0.71, and independent Greg Petty on 0.51. Petty is under threat for his seat from a number of possible challengers – the second Liberal candidate is only trailing by 0.05 quota. Also, if you combine the second Labor candidate’s vote with the vote for Labor independent Sara Howson (who was permitted to run by the party and swapped preferences with the ALP), it adds up to 0.59 quota. So it seems clear that Leigh Colacino (LIB), Janice Kershaw (ALP) and Jill Merrin (GRN) will win, with the final seat a race between Greg Petty (IND), David McKenna (LIB), Ian Hunt (ALP) and Sara Hawson (ALP-IND).

11:4opm – Nearly all primary votes have been counted in Ward 2, except for Wollongong Town Hall and the special votes. The Liberal Party leads with 1.83 quota, followed by Labor on 1.16, the Greens on 0.74 and former councillor Andrew Anthony on 0.53. That’s a substantial gap between the final seat and the last candidate to be excluded, so barring anything dramatic the seats should go to John Dorahy (LIB), Michelle Blicavs (LIB), David Brown (ALP) and George Takacs (GRN).

11:39pm – I’m going to go to bed now, so here are my final summaries for each ward of Wollongong Council.

11:29pm – The final figures for the night are in for Shellharbour. After the first five seats go to Labor, Liberal and David Boyle, Moran is leading with 0.53 quota for the sixth spot followed by Cook on 0.48 for the final seat. Following them is Stewart on 0.41, Quinlin on 0.35 and four other groups with between 0.25 and 0.34 quota. So while Moran and Cook are the favourites to take the final seats it will depend on how preferences flow.

10:50pm – Let’s take a look at Shellharbour. About half of the booths have reported. At the moment the ALP leads with 2.15 quotas, followed by the Liberal Party on 1.97 and David Boyle’s ticket on 0.91. The final two seats are very unclear at the moment, with Shane Cook on 0.52 and Peter Moran on 0.48, followed by a number of other candidates with a chance of gaining a seat on preferences.

10:44pm – The council race in Ward 3 is well under way, with 17,000 votes counted. Labor leads with 2.09 quotas, followed by the Liberal Party on 1.31 quotas, and then former Wollongong Council staff member Vicki Curran on 0.78 quota.

10:41pm – We have all of the votes for the night now in for the Mayoral race, and nothing much has changed. Bradbery is on 33.9%, Dorahy is on 23.4%, and Connor is on 19.7%. It is expected that Bradbery will extend his 10.5% lead over Dorahy on preferences and will win the race.

10:20pm – We’re beginning to get more council booths coming in for Wollongong. At the moment we have 8600 votes counted in Ward 1, 2800 in Ward 2 and 5300 in Ward 3. By comparison over 30,000 votes have been counted in Wards 1 and 2 for the Mayoral race. At the moment the Liberal Party is leading in Wards 1 and 2, while the ALP leads in Ward 3. If the current figures were final and preferences don’t change the order, Labor and Liberal would each win four seats, the Greens would win two, and the remaining seats would go to independents Greg Petty and Alice Curran.

8:25pm – We also have the council vote in from a single booth: Coalcliff in the far north of Wollongong. The Liberals polled 43 votes, the Greens 40, Petty 18 votes, and Labor 10 votes. I hope it doesn’t need to be said that this is far too early to make any predictions.

8:17pm - We now have over 27% of the vote counted in the Mayoral race and Bradbery is solidly in the lead, with 31.3% against 22.9% for Dorahy and 20.2% for Connor. It’s far too early to call it for him but it’s worth noting that, in a head-to-head race against Dorahy, he is getting preferences from Merrin, Organ, and Connor, and I believe he is getting preferences from most of the others. Those three polled over 30% between them. It will be very hard for the Liberals to recover an 8% deficit on preferences with Bradbery receiving such friendly preferencing.

7:44pm – The results diverge widely when broken down by ward. In Ward 1 (North), Dorahy is leading, while Labor’s Connor is being outpolled by independent Greg Petty, who is on 16%. Petty is almost outpolling Bradbery. The Greens’ Merrin is also on 12% in the ward. It’s a good sign for Petty and Merrin’s bids for seats on the council. In contrast, Petty is polling less than 1% in both the other wards. Bradbery’s vote varies from 36.5% to 17.2% between Ward 1 and Ward 2. Connor is leading in Ward 3.

7:41pm - We’ve got the first figures from the Wollongong lord mayoral race. With 11.9% counted, independent Gordon Bradbery is leading with 27.5% over Liberal candidate John Dorahy on 24.1% and Labor candidate Chris Connor on 20.3%. Overall the results are coming from all three wards, with slightly less votes coming from Ward 3 (South).

7:20pm – Polls closed in the Wollongong and Shellharbour council elections at 6pm tonight. So far no results are in but I look to be covering them tonight. We are looking at the election of the Lord Mayor of Wollongong, 12 Wollongong councillors across three wards, and 7 Shellharbour councillors elected across the entire council area.

Wollongong City Council and Shellharbour City Council were both sacked in 2008 after allegations of corruption on the councils, and have been run by unelected administrators since then. Both of those councils previously were elected using a system of “winner takes all” preferential voting. Each council had six wards of two councillors each, along with a directly elected mayor. Each ward used a system that meant that the group winning a majority of votes after preferences would almost certainly gain both seats.

In contrast, most councils in NSW use some system of proportional representation, as is mandated for all wards electing at least three councils. Following the sacking of Wollongong and Shellharbour, the only councils still using the old system were Botany and Ku-ring-gai in Sydney and a number of small rural councils. There was an attempt to impose the system on a newly-created New England Regional Council last year, but the merger was scrapped and the electoral plan also went on the scrap-heap.

The new Coalition government has decided that the Illawarra councils will move away from the majority-rule system to the proportional system used in most NSW councils.

Firstly, they have decided that the two councils will face election this September, a year before all other councils in New South Wales are up for election. Secondly, they are making changes to councillor numbers and ward systems in both councils.

In Wollongong, the state government has decided that they will continue to have a directly-elected mayor and twelve more councillors, but they will be elected through three wards, each ward electing four councillors. This will mean that, rather than the majority winning all seats in each ward, a councillor will need to achieve a 20% quota to win a seat in any ward. This reflects many other councils in urban NSW, with 3-member or 4-member wards being the most common model.

In Shellharbour, the number of councillors will be cut to seven, with the mayor to be elected from amongst the councillors. No wards will be using, allowing candidates to win election with 12.5% of the vote in the council area. This is an extremely low number of councillors for a reasonably large council. Most urban councils in the Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra regions have between nine and fifteen councillors each. Kiama Council, immediately to the south of Shellharbour, has less than one third of Shellharbour’s population, but has nine councillors. The only councils in Sydney with less than nine councillors are Burwood (approximately 33,000 residents), Strathfield (approximately 35,000) and Hunter’s Hill (approximately 15,000). They each have seven councillors. Shellharbour, in contrast, has approximately 67,000 residents.

The Coalition government has made the argument that “Fewer councillors has shown that council can effectively focus on the bigger picture and seek whole of council outcomes”, but I don’t really see any evidence for that argument. Considering that councillors are paid very little money for their role, and considering the large size of Shellharbour Council, it seems like halving the size of their council brings little financial benefits while substantially reducing the link between the community and their representatives.

I have previously argued that councils in Sydney should be designed so that there are more councillors on each council, not less, and that bigger councils have more councillors. While the government’s decision makes these councils’ electoral systems far more democratic, the unnecessary reduction in councillor numbers in Shellharbour reduces democracy.

A note on my local government maps: New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland will all be holding local government elections in 2012. The ward maps I have on my maps page are for the 2008 council elections in those three states. At some point when I have time I will go through and identify which councils have redistributed their ward boundaries and produce new maps. Obviously I will have to produce a map of the new Wollongong City Council wards once they have been announced, which will be added to the 2012 ward map for New South Wales when it is produced. Sorry Western Australia and South Australia, I don’t think I’ll have time to do yours.

Last Tuesday, Keneally announced that she would be proposing campaign funding reform legislation before the impending state election. While the details were vague, they included a cap on donations of $5000 and a cap on spending of $100,000 per electorate. Pretty weak, but a step in the right direction.

Hidden in her plans was a vague reference to plans for a “tiered” funding system.

A Sydney  Morning Herald article on Saturday revealed that this plan is to fund a proportion of each’s candidate’s expenditure, with a greater proportion for candidates receiving a higher vote. This scheme would massively increase funding  to major parties, while slashing it for smaller parties, and forcing political parties, particularly smaller parties, to rely on even more donations to supplement the limited public funding.

In addition, it’s now been revealed that the Keneally government also plans to introduce a new scheme for funding of administrative party activities outside of election periods.

In New South Wales we currently have the “Political Education Fund”, which gives funding to all parliamentary parties for non-election work outside of election periods, based on the number of Legislative Assembly votes received at the last election. While it is meant to be spent on ‘political education’, all parties use much of their funding for general costs of running a party outside of campaigns.

The new administrative scheme would be based on the number of Members of Parliament each party has elected. It doesn’t need to be said that this would also massively assist the major parties, due to the current electoral system disadvantaging smaller parties by locking them out of the Legislative Assembly. It doesn’t seem clear to my why a party with more Members of Parliament, with all the extra resources that provides, needs a disproportionately greater amount of public funding to run their party.

But back to the election funding model.

At the moment, all candidates and parties who receive  over 4% in an electoral district are entitled to public funding. The formula allocates how much each candidate is entitled to based on how many votes they receive. A candidate with 10% of the vote would be entitled to half of what a candidate with 20% would be entitled to.

This is all very similar to the federal system. The difference is that federally you receive all money you are entitled to without needing to demonstrate that you actually spent that money. In the NSW system, you need to show receipts. If you could receive $10,000, but only spent $7800, the remaining $2200 stays in the pool.

Under the Keneally plan, this is all thrown out the window. If you poll between 4% and 8%, you will be entitled to 25% of your spending being paid back. If you poll between 8% and 20%, this will increase to 50%. Candidates with over 20% of the vote will be paid 75% of their expenditure.

There does not appear to be any limit on how much expenditure could be funded. Under the Keneally plan, parties are entitled to spend $100,000 per electorate in which they stand, and another $9.3 million in the Legislative Council, adding up to $18.6 million, even more than the obscene $16 million spent by the ALP in 2007.

If a party spends $100,000 in an electorate, and poll over 20%, they would receive $75,000 in public funding, much more than would be currently allocated.

This system would seriously damage small parties. Analysis by the Greens shows that, in the Legislative Council at the last election, the ALP was entitled to $3.4 million, the Coalition $3 million, the Greens $800,000, the CDP $387,000, and the Shooters $244,000.

Under the new model, the ALP would have been entitled to almost $7 million, with the Coalition also increasing substantially their funding. The Greens would get less than a third of what they were previously entitled, as would the CDP. The Shooters would get nothing. A similar situation would take place in the 93 lower house races.

It’s obvious enough that a system where the ALP and Coalition gain millions of dollars each in extra funding while slashing funding to smaller parties is clearly to their partisan advantage, but it’s worse than that.

The previous system encourages fiscal restraint. If you’re a small party without the ability to rake in massive amounts of donations, the previous system encouraged you to limit your spending to whatever you would be entitled to. If you spend under the cap, then you can get every single dollar refunded. Under Keneally’s model, if you conserve two dollars in spending, you lose a dollar in public funding. The more you spend, the more you get back, right up to $100,000 per seat.

It also makes it impossible to run campaigns without massive amounts of donations. Much of the discussion around campaign finance reform has focused on the need to allow parties to run campaigns almost entirely reliant on public funding. Morris Iemma and Nathan Rees both discussed designing a system that would result in campaigns being 100% publicly funded.

The Keneally model means that all parties, regardless of how fiscally conservative they may behave, would require a large proportion of their funding to come from donations. For smaller parties that generally conserve their spending in order to fund most of their campaigns from public funding, they would run at huge deficits that would quickly bankrupt them.

It’s difficult to avoid the impression that this is a system cynically designed by Sussex Street backroom boys to cripple smaller parties, particularly the Greens, while not seriously impacting on spending levels by major parties.

We’re yet to see whether Barry O’Farrell’s Liberals will go along with Keneally’s ploy.

The vote split 46 to 44, passing with the narrowest of margins. The bill will progress to the Legislative Council this week, where it is expected to pass.

The current make-up of the NSW Legislative Assembly includes 50 Labor MPs, 24 Liberals, 13 Nationals and six independents. Despite the numbers being similar, the vote did not break down at all along party lines, with many Labor MPs voting no and many Liberal MPs voting yes.

Three members did not vote: independent Speaker Richard Torbay from the northern electorate of Northern Tablelands, NSW minister Kevin Greene and Leader of the House John Aquilina.

On the ALP side, 29 voted yes, 19 voted no and two did not vote. Out of Kristina Keneally’s rapidly-shrinking thirteen-member cabinet, only two, Virginia Judge and Phil Costa, voted no, with Kevin Greene not voting. For what it’s worth, former minister Paul McLeay voted yes. Excluding these votes, the remainder of the Labor Caucus was much more evenly divided, 19-17.

Amongst Liberal MPs, the vote was very even. Eleven MPs voted yes, with thirteen voting no. Liberal leader Barry O’Farrell and his deputy Jillian Skinner both voted yes, but out of the ten Liberal shadow ministers, only four voted yes, with six voting no. Both Victor Dominello and Stuart Ayres, who have won seats off the ALP in by-elections since 2008, voted yes.

The Nationals skewed very strongly in the no camp. Only Nationals deputy leader Adrian Piccoli and Member for Orange Richard Turner voted yes. Eleven other Nationals voted no.

Four of the six independents voted yes: Dawn Fardell in Dubbo, Greg Piper in Lake Macquarie, Peter Besseling in Port Macquarie and of course Clover Moore in Sydney. Member for Tamworth Peter Draper voted no, with Torbay in his role as Speaker not voting.

There weren’t particularly strong trends in terms of geography. Members in metropolitan seats favoured yes 33-28, with two abstentions. Regional members favoured no 16-13, with one abstention. Within Sydney, a solid block of members for seats in central Sydney voted yes, including Labor MPs for Balmain, Marrickville, Canterbury, Rockdale, Heffron, Maroubra and Coogee, along with the Liberal member for Vaucluse and Clover Moore in Sydney.

Across Western Sydney, there were 13 no votes and 11 yes votes. All four Central Coast MPs voted no, while most MPs in the Hunter voted yes. Coalition MPs in the north of the state, from Upper Hunter to Tweed, all voted no. But in the south of the state, Coalition MPs in seats such as South Coast, Goulburn, Murrumbidgee, Wagga Wagga and Orange.

All three members for the Central West seats of Orange, Bathurst and Dubbo voted yes.

I’ve also produced a number of maps showing which way MPs voted, with each seat coloured green for yes, red for no, or orange for did not vote.

New South Wales.

Sydney.

Newcastle and surrounds.

Yet despite these seats’ recent record of electing Liberals, the party has only preselected for Lindsay this week, with preselections to come on Saturday in Greenway and Parramatta.

It appears some light has been shed on the delays today when Barry O’Farrell, state Liberal leader, appears to have accidentally sent a message out publicly on Twitter when it was only intended to be seen by Fairfax Radio’s Latika Bourke.

The tweet appears to be in reference to the timetable for preselection in those seats and the struggle to find candidates – which would explain the low profile of all of those announced as contenders.

But it is still very unclear what the ‘internal poll’ could be telling them. It would be no surprise that the ALP would be favourites to win those seats, despite the ALP’s recent bed-wetting over the possibility of losing Lindsay. Yet how bad could it be that the party couldn’t find a candidate willing to take a punt on getting a federal seat, or so bad that they wouldn’t bother finding a candidate with enough time to win the seat?

The tweet has now been deleted, but it is sure to be highly embarrassing, and does suggest that the Liberals are struggling to compete federally in Western Sydney after their 2007 defeat.

Update: GhostWhoVotes in comments has pointed out that the original tweet still exists, even though it has disappeared from O’Farrell’s Twitter feed. It seems it isn’t so easy to delete tweets that have been retweeted.

Mackellar is held by senior Liberal Bronwyn Bishop, who has held the seat since 1994 and had previously served as a Senator for New South Wales. Bishop was once considered a leadership contender, but her chances quickly faded, and she served only as a junior minister in the first two terms of the Howard government. The seat is very strongly Liberal and she should have no trouble winning re-election in 2010.

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Bradfield was previously held by former Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson, prior to his 2009 resignation. The seat was won by Liberal candidate Paul Fletcher at a 2009 by-election, winning comfortably in a race without a Labor candidate, despite a strong Greens campaign.

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The seat has always been held by the Liberal Party, and has been held by Philip Ruddock since 1993. Ruddock had previously held other seats since winning the 1973 Parramatta by-election, making him the longest-serving current member of the Australian Parliament by a decade, and the fifth longest-serving member of Parliament ever. Ruddock should easily win election in 2010.

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