Federal redistributions in Australia rely on two sets of numbers – the actual enrolment numbers at the time that the process commences, and an estimate of how many voters will be enrolled at a future point, about three and a half years after the conclusion of the process. While electorates need to be drawn within 10% of the average enrolment at the start of the process, the projected numbers are far more important, since seats need to be drawn within 3.5% of the average on those figures.
These projected numbers ensure that electorates are drawn so that faster-growing seats have smaller populations, and slower-growing seats have larger populations, and thus population change reduces malapportionment, rather than increasing it.
Unfortunately, if those projected numbers are no good, the whole thing is undermined.
The projected figures for the Victorian federal redistribution were released in October, and I posted about them here.
There have been a number of people raising concerns about those figures in the comments, and earlier this week the AEC acknowledged the issue, saying that “The AEC has been informed by the ABS that there was an error in the initial enrolment projections supplied for use in the redistribution of Victoria.” They have now released this corrected data, and it does change the distribution of population in a way that will favour outer suburban growth areas, which will be drawn with smaller electorates than if the original projections had been used.
I haven’t personally investigated the problem with the projected numbers, but as an example Zac Gross posted this graph, showing that almost all Victorian SA1s were assumed to have growth of almost exactly 10%, whereas in other redistributions the growth rates vary (as you’d expect).
First up, I’ve modified the following table that I posted in October which breaks down electorates in Melbourne into different parts of the city north and south of the Yarra River, and breaks rural Victoria into east and west.
The original projections had the 26 seats of Melbourne collectively about three-quarters of a seat under quota, but that deficit was spread out across the city. The 16 seats south of the Yarra were about half a seat under quota, while the 10 seats north of the Yarra were about a quarter of a seat under quota. It was particularly surprising that the six seats of western Melbourne, an outer suburban area where you’d expect fast growth, was projected to barely gain any population relative to other parts of the state. This looked very different to the trends in the NSW redistribution, where Western Sydney is set to gain a seat while the eastern half of the city loses two.
But this picture looks different with the new figures. The ten seats north of the Yarra are pretty much spot on quota, although the central city seats are under quota and will probably need to expand to take in surplus growth in the western suburbs. The 16 seats south of the Yarra are now 84% of a seat under quota, rather than 50%. Indeed the eight seats I defined as “eastern Melbourne” are almost half a quota under themselves.
This makes a huge difference to the implications for the redistribution. It’s now clear that the seat to be abolished will be in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
This doesn’t mean that other areas won’t be affected – overall the seats north of the Yarra (urban and rural) fall short of their quota by 17% of a seat. It’s possible this deficit could be spread out amongst the 19 seats on the north side and thus doesn’t require a seat to cross the Yarra, but there will definitely be a need to distribute population differently within that area.
Another way to look at the figures is via this map. It has two layers. The first shows the revised projected quotas for each seat, while the second shows how much each seat’s projected quota was changed by the revisions.
The first map now makes a lot more sense. Most seats in Victoria are under quota (as you would expect when a seat has been abolished), but the outer suburban fringe on the north-west and the south-east both tend to be over-quota. This was not the case on the original figures.
When you toggle to the second tab, it’s very clear that the new projections have favoured outer suburban areas.
La Trobe, Lalor and Calwell were all projected to be under quota but are now projected to be well over quota. The change in La Trobe was 13.2% of a seat’s population!
It’s quite unfortunate that this mistake was made after the first two rounds of submissions, which would have been made based on those projections being correct. The mapmakers will be able to use the correct figures, but will be relying on public submissions based on entirely different numbers. But I’m not sure the alternative of allowing further rounds of public submissions would have been viable. At least the problem has been identified and fixed. It would have been far worse to continue with incorrect numbers, that would have likely led to fast-growing outer suburban areas being under-represented.
Western Australia was also affected by this issue, and I’ve got a blog post coming up covering WA this afternoon.
@la Trobe should shed the high growth area of Clyde north and be a Cardinia based seat. Jagajaga will have to cross the Yarra there is no way to avoid it.
McEwen won extend into the Yarra ranges as they generally use this as a boundary.
My McEwen will most likely be notional liberal.
I have kept Hotham mainly because the division contains about 2/3 of Hothams voters
In my opinion jagajaga Menzies Deakin or Casey should go. And I’m personally of the view it should be jagajaga
I will make a map of the regional seats too but yes, McEwen crosses into parts of the Yarra Valley (gaining Kalkallo from over-quota Calwell also helped), Casey moves south, Indi also gains some turf to its south allowing Monash to take the Koo Wee Rup SA2. Those southern parts of the Pakenham SA2s that it takes had very little population at all but La Trobe was literally only a few hundred over at that point.
McEwen definitely isn’t ideal, but I figure it already isn’t anyway. There’s always going to be some less than perfect boundaries to necessitate numbers just as there already is. Overall I think more seats improve while some already flawed seats remain flawed.
@trent I agree McEwen is just leftovers. I managed to fix it with the initial numbers but the new numbers it’s impossible. It won’t cross the Yarra ranges and Indi Gippsland Monash probably won’t get banged given they are at quota and have staeady growth so I think la Trobe can O ly go one way. Some of my places aren’t ideal in terms of shape but I had to do what I could with the numbers given. Im hoping next redistribution I can fix these
The only problem I see with that map is that no part of Endeavour Hills should go into Aston. Totally different community of interest. Better off bringing in the end of the Belgrave line, like Upwey, Tecoma, Belgrave. Don’t know how that would affect Casey and Bruce though.
https://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2023/vic/timetable.htm
“This is an indicative timetable and is subject to change. Dates will be updated as the redistribution progresses.”
Late May / early June 2024:
Proposed redistribution report released
Call for objections to the proposed redistribution
Mid June / late June 2024:
Objections period closes
Objections available for viewing
Comments on objections are able to be made
Late June / early July 2024:
Comments on objections period closes
Comments on objections available for viewing
Quarter 2 and Quarter 3 2024:
Augmented Electoral Commission meets to determine electoral divisions
Based on the surplus in holt and la Trobe and tr fact Hotham is the only divisions at quota the only real case for abolishing it is that people don’t like the name otherwise your effectively transferring every other divisions name south just to get rid of it and that would be unprecedented. For that reason I think Hotham should be retained and one of the four division names I mentioned abolished. It would be easier to transfer Deakin to Casey or Menzies to jagajaga then transferring 3 division names. And it wouldn’t be unprecedented to abolish a division named after a pm and then reincarnate it later
I was thinking that @Trent’s proposal to include the La Trobe University Campus within Cooper would help the Greens a lot, but the surrounding booths are only 3-4% better than most of the north. I guess most domestic students don’t live on/near campus or also just don’t bother changing their address.
@Adam, I agree about Endeavour Hills, especially only half of it too. The reason I did it wasn’t to boost Aston’s numbers (it was already over the minimum without it), but because Bruce was over and both Holt and La Trobe had no capacity left to take anything. I guess Dandenong South going back to Isaacs probably would have been a better alternative.
@John, both mine and Nimalan’s proposal to abolish Hotham isn’t just because of the name but because it has by far the least cohesive communities of interest, the southeast is where a seat needs to go, and abolishing Hotham as a starting point opens up opportunities to improve Isaacs, Chisholm, Higgins and Bruce, everything just falls into place in that surrounding area with Hotham gone.
Interesting proposal Trent. Didn’t think you would be able to get it to work. Abolishing Hotham makes sense for the inner/middle ring of seats but I don’t like what it does to the outer suburbs seats. I just can’t make the argument for stretching McEwen even further. I know Yarra Ranges used to be in McEwen, and does so for the state seat of Eildon, but those both had Murrindi council in them. Without it, the seat is just a very stretched east-west seat.
I fixed a few of my stuff and did my boundaries on the new toolkit that allows the coloured maps.
Only made a few very small changes: https://imgbox.com/uZ0u5421
– Now don’t have Monash having to change, and the Casey/La Trobe border stays the same as before.
– None of Broadmeadows goes into Maribrynong anymore
– Dandenong – South SA2, except the actual Dandenong part, going into Dunkley now. It’s such a small amount of voters and they seem to fit better with Dunkley than Bruce.
– Using Springvale Rd and Canterbury Rd as the south/western border for Menzies/Chisholm
– Putting all of Nillumbik council into McEwen now
Kind of feel that next redistribution in Vic is going to make a Sunbury/Macedon Ranges based seat. Which would help fix a lot of the issues I have with Maribrynong/Hawke/McEwen
I agree that Monash doesn’t need to change as it is already within tolerance. In fact, since regional seats in the state’s corner will be drawn first, Gippsland and Monash will likely remain unchanged as they are already within tolerance, therefore the Redistribution Committee is more likely to redraw La Trobe in the way that Angas has proposed, which is shedding all of Emerald-Cockatoo SA2 except Beaconsfield Upper and Pakenham Upper to Casey while gaining the area within Princes Highway – Princes Freeway – Clyde Road from Bruce. The boundary of Indi will likely remain unchanged for the same reason.
As I have said, after shedding voters to Scullin, Bendigo and Nicholls, McEwen will be well below quota and need to gain voters elsewhere. In order to fill the shortfall, McEwen has to take voters from either Jagajaga (as Angas and Drake have proposed) or Casey (as Trent has proposed). If Monash remains unchanged and La Trobe is drawn in the way as described above, Casey will not be able to gain enough voters from La Trobe to be able to afford to shed voters to McEwen. Therefore, I think McEwen taking some voters from Jagajaga and Jagajaga taking some voters from Menzies south of the Yarra is more likely.
@vandon la trobe is already in cooper.
@trent i disagree i think mcewen would fit that which is why i tried to abolish it but the new number smake that hard. you can easily strengthen coomunities of iterest as it would have to shed some territory to hep divisions in the west but given its at quota t makes no sense to abolish it which is why i didnt. they usualy abolish divisions that are heavily under quota. see hunter in 2016 which they simply transferred the nae i think with the surplus in holt and la trobe needin to be moved west/north west and defeicieit in the ne arund aston they will probably go with one of those divisions instead. aston would normally make sensebeing the most under quota on projection but given its based around knox lga it probably wont be cared up so i reckon it will be aroun the deakin/chislhom/menzies area. ive fixed aston by adding vermont and vermont south from deakin then adding the rest of whitehorse to chisholm expect box hill north from menzies which i put into kooyong.
this is my maps https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1W1v9WS-4QC5lUiCUQWy0UZAU97fYkzP0?usp=drive_link
@drake ive put a tiny bit of broadmeadows into maribyrnong from calwell after giving it the rest of gladstone park as well because calwell is then only slightly over quota. dunkley is better off expanding to the patterson river as that gives a a clear boundary and better communities of interest. ive put all of nillumbuk lga in mcewen as well expect for eltham. agree on the macedone ranges sbased seat as mcewen need to shed that part and have better communities of interest
@joseph mcewen only need to shed votes to nicholls and scullin bendigo can take lockington – gonbower from nicholls. casey can move into deakin as there is communities of interest there and
@Trent I broadly agree with your reasoning, especially the case for abolishing Hotham, but I don’t think it will happen in the way you have done it.
Essentially sliding Deakin under Menzies into Box Hill while moving Menzies into Ringwood would contradict the 2021 redistribution which judged Menzies to be better suited in character to Box Hill, while pulling Menzies out of Ringwood North and Croydon Hills to create a clearer distinction between the activity centres of Manningham and Maroondah. Further to that, there were a lot of suggestions then and now to reorient Menzies and Deakin as north-south seats rather than east-west.
Also, as @Joseph said, I believe the commission is unlikely to draw Casey in a way that would allow it to shed voters to McEwen. Beyond that, the commission said in the 2018 redistribution that they did not cross the upper reaches of the Yarra due to the lack of transport links. They also said in that report that the northern suburbs of Menzies and northeastern parts of Jagajaga are of similar character, meaning that I think McEwen will address its eventual shortfall by eating into Jagajaga and Jagajaga then eating into Menzies, rather than by having McEwen eat into Casey.
In that scenario you would still have Hotham abolished, but Menzies and Deakin would be representing Manningham to Whitehorse and Maroondah to Whitehorse communities of interest res[ectively, reflecting north-south transport links and preserving the current McEwen-Casey border.
@Joseph where do you see Deakin and Menzies moving?
@heny Hotham in my opinion should be preserved due to the fact the majority of Hothams voters would be in whatever division is called and they want to shift 2-3 names instead of abolishing one of those if you look at where the current deficit it’s in Higgins and Aston on projected. And if you use the method of transferring from both sides of the Yarra that squeezes Menzies out. Hotham is on of the few divisions at quota and literally the only one in Melbourne that is
And I f the govt goes before the redistribution is completed we will get merged Higgins/Chisholm this preserving Hotham so this shows Hotham shouldn’t b on the chopping block if any thing Chisholm should be
After you move la Trobe and Holt’s surplus west due to the excess there and Monash Gippsland and Indi are at quota and won’t be changed Hotham then needs to push north. My Hotham however does shed Kingston lga to isaccs and Glen eira to Goldstein becoming a Dandenong/Monash based seat.
https://ibb.co/qnhK7r6
I’ve spent some time refining my proposal and I think I’m pretty happy with the results.
Differently to some of the other proposals, I’ve opted to keep Casey’s western boundary fixed and have it gain the northern Cardinia townships from La Trobe, which I think leads to neat boundaries for Aston, Casey, Deakin and Menzies.
Another key change is to transfer the locality of Maribyrnong from Fraser to Maribyrnong. This makes sense from a community of interest viewpoint and would reduce confusion. I also think this is a better option than Maribyrnong creeping further northward into Calwell, and it allows for Gorton to gain the balance of Hillside from Hawke and for Hawke to gain Gisborne from from McEwen.
McEwen loses the western half of Macedon Ranges along the Calder Freeway which is a small improvement, although it has to split Mickleham with Calwell, South Morang with Scullin, and Greensborough and Eltham with Jagajaga to assist with neat boundaries elsewhere. I would have liked to have Jagajaga shifted slightly more northward but I couldn’t find a better solution to McEwen’s shortfall.
Changes not shown:
– Ballarat gains Bacchus Marsh Surrounds SA2 from Hawke
– Hawke gains Gisborne SA2 from McEwen
– Bendigo gains Woodend SA2 and Macedon SA2 from McEwen
– Nicholls gains the balance of Kilmore – Broadford SA2 from McEwen
– Flinders gains Pearcedale – Tooradin SA2 from Holt
That seems like a very sensible proposal. I am guessing Menzies would be Labor on these boundaries and Deakin shored up for the Liberals.
I think Casey is winnable for Labor on these boundaries, Northern Cardinia is generally slightly more favourable to Labor, though the current voting pattern inflates the Liberal vote as Wood has a strong personal vote here. Violi will get a sophomore surge though.
Would Higgins be Liberal on those boundaries?
@angas I doubt Flinders will move into holt since Mt Elizabeth has stronger communities of interest and is apart of the same lga pluss the shape wouldn’t be acceptable
That same part of Holt has been in Flinders for pretty much 1984-2018, it fits perfectly well in Flinders. And it’s an easy way to fix both Holt/Flinders.
@ Angas, Do you have a map for regional Victoria seats?
@Angas my gut feel is that the aec won’t go quite as far as you have (probably Menzies and Jagajaga staying further north), the direction you’ve gone in moving menzzies and jagajaga southward and reorienting deakin into a north-south seat is exactly the direction the AEC should and will go in.
I really don’t think they will change the Casey/McEwen border as the 2018 committee decided not do this due to the lack of transport links in the yarra’s upper reaches. They could change the Casey/Deakin border, however I think they will reason that pushing Deakin further into whitehorse while amalgamating Chisholm/Hotham is better for communinities of interest than pushing Deakin into Casey
I agree with your jagajaga and aston though. Casey can be solved by taking in kilsyth south from deakin
Thanks all for the feedback!
@Adam
My Higgins happens to be the same as @Drake’s so would be approximately ALP 51% as calculated. I agree that Casey would come pretty close if it contains Northern Cardinia. However, Labor would probably prefer for Aston to gain the Belgrave area to help solidify that seat for them. Overall I think there’s going to be quite a few very finely balanced seats in Melbourne’s East after this redistribution.
@John
I agree that putting Mount Eliza into Flinders is ideal, but I don’t think it’s a great result to split it down the middle. Also, if Flinders takes in half of Mount Eliza, then Dunkley would need to go further than the Patterson Canal to take in Bonbeach. On the other hand, Pearcedale and Tooradin would better fit Flinder’s rural nature than suburban Holt, and would neatly balance those two divisions without any further changes required.
@Nimalan
I still need to solve the shortfall in Wannon which I can’t find a neat solution for, but I’ll upload a map once that is complete. Most likely Gippsland, Indi, Mallee and Monash will remain unchanged, but I am thinking about putting Stawell back into Wannon so that it doesn’t have to move even closer to Geelong.
@Henry
That’s a good point. My split between North/South of the Yarra is at 21.02:16.98, so I could probably shift another 5,000 or 10,000 electors back into Menzies. It probably shouldn’t extend all the way to Mount Waverley and High Street Road, so I might see what happens if I put more of Doncaster back in. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the Springvale Road boundary which has been advocated for a number of times, so I hope that the committee pursues that option.
Just taking a look at @Drake, @John and @Trent’s proposals.
It’s interesting to see that we’ve all settled on effectively the same configuration for many of the seats, Macnamara and Higgins in particular. The main point of difference is how to best rotate Menzies/Deakin/Casey/La Trobe/Bruce/Hotham/Chisholm around Aston.
@Trent
It’d be great to see a map of your Casey and McEwen if you have time. I like the idea of not having to cross the Yarra and keeping Jagajaga and Menzies in position.
At one stage I made an attempt at drawing boundaries without crossing the North/South divide but couldn’t get McEwen to work. If Jagajaga moves northward, McEwen can’t gain enough electors from Calwell and Scullin and still fit within both enrolment tolerances.
As @John has mentioned it does seem to be hard to abolish Hotham at this stage, even if it does have parts that can be easily shared between its neighbours. My version of Chisholm/Hotham is approximately 50% Hotham, 48% Chisholm, and 3% Bruce. So it’s probably Chisholm that is on target to be abolished at this point in time, or a merger of Menzies/Chisholm/Hotham.
Thinking forward to the next redistribution, we might expect Bruce to shift eastward out of Dandenong, but Isaacs will continue to be squeezed northward by Goldstein and Dunkley, and might end up becoming the Greater Dandenong seat. Maybe the name Isaacs should be abolished instead?
@Angas
Really like your proposal. Menzies is really a seat that I just don’t like either way, you either have to decide whether to extend it very east or very south. Neither of which are ideal to me. I do agree a lot of things fall into place for a lot of seats leaving only a few decisions in the eastern suburbs. Mainly if Menzies should be north/south or east/west and should Casey move into La Trobe or Aston/Deakin being the two main questions.
I do agree with both you and John, that as much as I tried I couldn’t find a way to abolish Hotham. It is a bit of a mess of a seat, but if you abolish it, you just create a mess elsewhere. The Dandenong area right now is just in an awkward spot where it has to be divided quite awkwardly between a few seats.
On the north side the main questions are how much of Nilumbik should McEwen move into, and should McEwen go into Calwell and absorb some of the growth suburbs (which then affects how you draw Maribrynong).
You asked before about Wannon and as someone from that area, I think if you conclude that Bannockburn has to go into Corio, than the obvious way to top up Wannon is just to give it Corangamite’s share of Golden Plain’s council and Winchelsea SA2 (except the Freshwater Creek SA1 as it’s well connected by Anglesea Rd). After Corangamite loses Bannockburn, the inland areas are pretty cut off from the rest of the seat geography and character wise. Wannon already includes Anglesea/Birregurra/Winchelsea so pushing it a little further east is fine.
You can argue those areas are better suited to a Geelong based seat, and yeah, but the same could be said for the bits of Golden Plains that are in Ballarat being better suited for a Ballarat seat. And the same can be said for the bits of Wannon already in Wannon. At the next redistribution Wannon will just get whatever it doesn’t take this retribution anyway. If Golden Plains has to be split between 3 seats, you might as well just put the Corangamite bit into Wannon as it saves changing Ballarat unnecessarily and Corangamite’s growth means it’ll have to happen eventually.
I’m assuming you mean Avoca instead of Stawell? If you put Stawell into Wannon then Mallee ends up being way underquota. I originally thought you couldn’t put Avoca into Wannon without Mallee falling under quota, but split SA1’s mean it actually does fit. Not a horrible idea as it would unite Pyreenees council into one seat, and it’s currently the only council in west Vic that is divided. You’d still need to move Wannon further into Surf Coast or Golden Plains though.
Wannon can gain into Corangamite all the way up until Torquay. That’s fine. Any further is when it becomes a problem. At the next redistribution we could have Geelong + Torquay being >2 quotas and at that point you might have to consider putting Lara into Lalor.
@angas my dunkley goes to the payterson River and while I have been able to split Mt Elizabeth due to not having the sa1 data it is more then plausible to take in enough to sure up Flinders while keeping dunkley within quota. I’ve pushed wannon into golden Plains north sa2 from Ballarat which can then take Bacchus marsh surrounds from hawke which would still be in tolerance as I have demonstrated if Hotham and chisholm push north menzies and deakin can be mostly amalgamated with the remainder going to jagajaga as you have also done. And then transfer menzies name to jagajaga as I have mentioned the unique nature of the name not being anywhere else and the fact that cooper was recently created and abolishing batman
I also agree that the future of issacs will be the greater Dandenong seat
The reason I’m advocating for its retention is the excess from la trove and holt will put Bruce slightly over and in turn boost Hothams already at quota numbers and while It should shed Glen eira and Kingston and be a monash/Dandenong seat the numbers just are gonna be low enough for it to lose >50% of its current voters. The numbers will be neutral as either alabor seat willbe cut and force a liberal seat into Labor areas or a liberal seat will be abolished and boost the numbers in the other neighbouring division and push some liberal voters into a Labor division making it marginal. I think the liberals would prefer to Hold deakin and sacrifice menzies
@drake really Casey should move in deakin as it has greater communities of interest and the remainder of cardinia go to la trove. And yes Bruce and holt should be Casey based seats
@Angas and @Drake, I think the most likely scenario is a Chisholm/Hotham amalgamation where the new seat is roughly 50% of of the two, but is called Chisholm due to it being a seat named after a woman, especially in comparison to Hotham. You then have Menzies, Deakin and possibly Aston taking in the ‘old’ Chisholm parts of the seat imo
@Henry I’m imagining the same scenario but with a slight variation. Hotham is split into 2 and is divided between Chisholm and Isaacs. Chisholm takes in Oakleigh, Huntingdale, the rest of Clayton and Mulgrave whilst keeping Glen Waverley, Wheelers Hill and Notting Hill, with Monash Freeway serving as the Northern boundary. Isaacs will take in the south including Clarinda, Bentleigh East, Springvale, Keysborough and possibly Noble Park. Based on 2022 margins this should firm up both seats for Labor.
Then you’d have Mt Waverley, Chadstone, Burwood, Ashwood, Box Hill absorbed into Deakin which will lose some of its northern and eastern portions to Menzies and Aston which moves south and west respectively, and although the results are a bit more complicated than Hotham, I’d imagine it would improve Labor’s prospects at getting Deakin and Menzies and consolidating Aston’s margin. Then Jagajaga moves down south but becomes more marginal as it takes in some of the stronger Liberal areas like Bulleen and Doncaster.
If this comes to fruition I’d imagine Clare O’Neil will contest the new Chisholm (which is technically half Hotham), while Carina Garland takes on Michael Sukkar in Deakin etc.
@Henry In my proposal, Deakin will move west to take in all of the City of Whitehorse south of Marrondah Highway, while Menzies takes in the rest of the City of Whitehorse, as well as Croydon Hills – Warranwood SA2 and part of Ringwood North from Deakin. If Hotham is abolished, then Chisholm has to move south to absorb a large part of its territory, which means Deakin has to move west to take in the northern part of Chisholm.
I also agree with @Henry that McEwen is unlikely to take voters from Casey due to the lack of transport links in Yarra’s upper reaches.
A point I would like to raise is that I think Dandenong – South SA2 should be in Bruce rather than Dunkley. There’s not much connection between the Dandenong South industrial area and the City of Frankston. According to ABS occupation statistics, people who work in the Dandenong South industrial area, many of whom are technicians, trades workers, labourers, machinery operators and drivers, are more likely to live in Dandenong than Carrum Downs.
I also think that the Redistribution Committee will likely retain the east-west orientation of the divisions of Deakin and Menzies rather than reorient them as north-south seats as some have proposed. The augmented Electoral Commission’s report for the 2021 VIC redistribution said it did not consider the significant realignment of Deakin and Menzies was necessary to meet the requirements of the Electoral Act at that time. In fact, I can’t find a strong argument to reorient Deakin and Menzies as north-south seats. It is not necessary to bring the two divisions within tolerance either.
@tommo they can get deak or menzies but not both. Aston will probably return to the libs
@Joseph and @Tommo9, I agree that a significant realignment of Menzies and Deakin as north-south seats rather than east-west seats (such as by moving everything east of Springvale Rd or Mullum Mullum Creek to Deakin) is unlikely, simply because they won’t do it unless they absolutely have to. As you mention Joseph, the 2021 report is evidence of this.
In saying that, I do believe both seats moving south is the likely outcome, just as a byproduct of the Chisholm/Hotham/Isaacs amalgamation, rather than a concerted effort to reorient them. I find it hard to believe that Menzies would take in any of the now-Deakin territory they lost last redistribution (Croydon Hills, Warranwood) though. I think the committee will decide that Menzies needs to either go south or east, but not both.
@henry i agree either it will go Chisholm -> Deakin -> Menzies – Jagajaga or jagajaga -> Menzies -> Deakin – Chisholm