Redistribution Archive

Cameron cutting seat numbers in UK

By
Ben Raue
 – January 24, 2010

David Cameron, the leader of the Opposition in the United Kingdom, is planning to immediately cut the number of seats in the House of Commons following an election victory this year, according to reports.

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 Strong Labour areas like the inner cities tend to be depopulating, which means that boundaries drawn using out-of-date data will tend to mean that the number of voters in Labour seats is less than in Conservative seats.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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Northern Ireland maps finished

By
Ben Raue
 – October 25, 2009

I have today finished electoral maps for Northern Ireland. I have completed boundaries for the period 1997-2007 and the new boundaries for the 2010 general election. Northern Ireland uses the same 18 constituencies for both Westminster elections and Legislative Assembly elections. When electing the Legislative Assembly, each constituency elects six MLAs for a total of 108.

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)

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)

Results of the 1997 general election in Northern Ireland. 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)

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.

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Final boundaries determined for next federal election

By
Ben Raue
 – October 23, 2009

The AEC yesterday released the final electoral boundaries for New South Wales for the next federal election. While they are planning to commence a Victorian redistribution early in 2010, it won’t be done in time for the election, meaning that all seats in Australia have now had their final boundaries determined. I have now completed the new electoral boundaries for all states, although I plan to make some minor changes to the WA map which most people would not notice. You can download the 2010 New South Wales map here, and all maps can be downloaded from the maps page.

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:

australia2010

Click to enlarge.

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New Queensland federal boundaries finalised

By
Ben Raue
 – October 19, 2009

Last Friday the AEC released the final Queensland electoral boundaries for the next federal election. These boundaries include a small number of changes from the draft boundaries, and Antony Green has posted updated notional margins for each seat based on the 2007 election results. You can download the new boundaries as a Google Earth map here. I will also update the pendulum on the federal election guide tonight to include Queensland electorates.

brisbane2010

Click to enlarge and see seat names

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Could there be a Victorian redistribution in 2010?

By
Ben Raue
 – September 24, 2009

There’s been an assumption that the next federal redistribution for Victoria will be delayed until after the 2010 federal election. Victoria last had a redistribution in 2002, and every seven years a state must have a redistribution. However, redistributions cannot begin in the last year of a House of Representatives term.

I was examining the relevant dates for a possible Victorian redistribution tonight, and it appears that there will likely be a redistribution, although it probably won’t take effect for the 2010 election.

No redistribution can commence in the last year before the expiry of the House of Representative, which will take place on February 11 2011. So a new redistribution would need to commence by February 11 2010. Otherwise the redistribution would be postponed until after the federal election and would take effect at the next federal election in 2012 or 2013.

The last Victorian redistribution concluded in December 2002. So seven years later would be December 2009. Thus a redistribution could commence in December 2009 or January 2010.

However, while this would mean a redistribution would take place next year, it would be extremely unlikely that the changes would be implemented in time for the federal election. The Queensland and New South Wales redistributions are currently scheduled to take a full ten months from the beginning of the process to the conclusion. Earlier redistributions took a full twelve-month period to redraw boundaries. Even if you were able to compress a Victorian redistribution down to ten months, it would not conclude before November 2010. The process would need to conclude before an election would be called, which would mean the election would need to be held in December 2010 or in 2011. This isn’t going to happen.

You would also think that no political party, including the ALP, would want to be put in a position where a redistribution would only conclude weeks before an election is called, so you would assume Rudd would call the election at a time which would avoid using redistributed electoral boundaries in Victoria.

So what do you think? Is my logic right?

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Draft NSW boundaries map

By
Ben Raue
 – August 13, 2009

A week after the AEC released the electoral boundaries, I have finally produced my Google Earth map of the boundaries. This took a lot longer than in the case of Queensland, but that’s because I made a file that’s much smaller and easier to view. You can download it from the maps page. Enjoy.

sydney2010b

Sydney's draft federal electorates. Click to enlarge.

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NSW Redistribution Wrap

By
Ben Raue
 – August 7, 2009

After today’s announcement of the draft boundaries for New South Wales’ federal redistribution, I thought I would summarise the consequences of the election.

It appears that this result has clearly benefited the ALP in its attempts to increase the size of the majority, although, as Antony Green points, the uniform swings needed for the ALP to lose its majority or for the Coalition to gain a majority remains steady.

Assuming no significant changes in the final reports in New South Wales and Queensland, Labor will have gained five seats without increasing its vote: Swan in WA, Dickson and Herbert in Queensland and Macarthur and Gilmore in New South Wales. They also have notionally gained Greenway, but since Labor seat Reid was abolished, and Greenway was radically redrawn, I’m going to count Greenway as simply balancing out the loss of Reid. This gives Labor 88 notional seats. Counting the loss of Lyne to an independent, the Coalition’s seats fall from 65 to 59.

There are a lot more ultra-marginals on the new boundaries. At the last election, Labor held Robertson by 0.1% and the Liberals held Macarthur by 0.7%. On the new boundaries, Labor holds four seats on margins of 0.2% or less (Robertson, Macarthur, Gilmore and Macquarie, which was previously a relatively safe Labor seat, but lost all of it’s Central West NSW territory to be replaced by Hawkesbury territory). Paterson is now held by the Liberals by 0.4%.

Indeed, Labor would gain four more Coalition seats (for a total gain of 6) with a 1.3%. Ominously for the Nationals, those four seats include Cowper and Calare, half of the Nationals’ dwindling NSW delegation.

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NSW draft federal redistribution

By
Ben Raue
 – August 7, 2009

The draft federal redistribution boundaries for NSW will be announced this morning. Unfortunately I’ll be in work and won’t be able to break the story (although generally it’s best to wait until Antony Green crunches the numbers). I will hopefully be able to post something during my lunch break. I’ll also try and get the Google Earth map ASAP, but if it is a big file like in the case of Queensland, it may need to wait for the weekend.

Update: I have work, but I have a few thoughts I would share with you all:

  • Reid has been abolished, as has Lowe. Parts of both seats have created the new seat of McMahon, basically covering Canada Bay and Auburn, with a little bit of the other inner west LGAs.
  • Macarthur has moved further into Sydney. I’m guessing this will make it marginal Labor. It has gained a small amount of Campbelltown from Werriwa and lost parts of Wollondilly. It has also gained the western outreaches of Liverpool.
  • Cunningham has pushed as far north as Port Hacking, while Cook and Hughes have both become a lot more compact. Hughes has spilled over the Georges River into Bankstown.
  • Wentworth has had no change, while Rosebery, the only part of the City of Sydney in Kingsford Smith, has gone back to Sydney. No other change to those seats. Very little change to Grayndler.
  • Watson, Barton and Banks have been radically redrawn to cover the Canterbury-St George area, along with Burwood and parts of Bankstown.
  • Fowler is much more compact.
  • Mackellar, Warringah, Bradfield, North Sydney and Bennelong have all had relatively minor changes.
  • Parramatta has shifted to the east and south to be centred much more on Parramatta CBD.
  • Greenway has reverted from being a huge Hawkesbury seat to being a small Blacktown seat, while Hawkesbury has been returned to Macquarie.
  • Dobell, Robertson, Charlton, Shortland and Newcastle have remained largely intact.
  • Farrer has remained the same.
  • Eden-Monaro has lost most of the territory west of the ACT to Riverina while gaining Bateman’s Bay.
  • Calare has retracted back into the Central West, while Parkes has become the massive Far West seat.
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