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.
@NP this is basically the ANC in South Africa. we’re black and we have been here since you were freed from apratheid vote for us even though we do nothing and you are still in poverty
@KT1 i agree they will probably be in govt again which is bad new for South Africans as they are effectively running like Apartheid is still happening anad Mandela the leader they have done nothing to help to poorest people as they still live in slums that have been there for 30 years
I have finalised my proposal for all Victorian seats. My proposal can also be seen as a prediction since I believe the Augumented Electoral Commission will draw a similar set of boundaries.
The map for Metro Melbourne divisions can be found here: https://ibb.co/7NXVDKy
The map for Regional Victorian divisions which can be found here: https://ibb.co/qxHqqPT
It’s almost certain that Hotham will be abolished. Not only because the seat of Hotham is located in Melbourne’s East where the population growth is slow and have many underquota seats, but also it is named after a British colonial-era Governor of Victoria and naming seats after colonial British men has become outdated. It is surrounded by five under quota seats that can each absorb part of its territory. What’s more, it lacks a cohesive community of interest that cobbles together parts of the four LGAs of Glen Eira, Monash, Kingston and Greater Dandenong.
Chisholm is also mentioned as a potential candidate for abolition due to its lack of clearly defined boundaries just like Hotham. However, since Chisholm is named after a woman and seats named after women are underrepresented, the name Chisholm will be preserved. Dividing the territory of Chisholm around surrounding seats will also be difficult, since only Hotham can absorb the southern part of Chisholm in the City of Monash. Aston cannot take in part of the City of Monash because the boundary between City of Monash and the City of Knox along Dandenong Creek is strong based on geography and community of interest and is highly unlikely to be crossed. Pushing Higgins east of Warrigal Road wouldn’t be appropriate based on community of interest. Bruce cannot move north due to the surplus in La Trobe.
There are three ways to abolish Hotham:
1 Dividing Hotham’s territory around surrounding seats
2 Doing a approximately 50:50 merge of Chisholm and Hotham (like what Angas has done)
3 Dividing Chisholm’s territory around surrounding seats, and rename Hotham to Chisholm
The first option seems to be the easiest to do and the one I think the Redistribution Committee will go for. Higgins can take in Hughesdale, Chisholm can take in the remainder of the Monash part of Hotham, Isaacs can take in most of the Kingston part of Hotham, Goldstein can take in the Glen Eira part of Hotham (Bentleigh East), and the Greater Dandenong part of Hotham can be divided between Isaacs and Bruce. The second option will push Chisholm’s northern boundary south of Highbury Road and make Menzies and Deakin north-south seats, which the Redistribution Committee will be reluctant to do. As discussed above, the third option is not feasible without cross strong boundaries and putting areas from different communities of interest together.
I chose Highbury Road as the northern boundary for Chisholm, and made Chisholm take in all of the City of Monash except the suburb of Hughesdale. I chose Highbury Road as the northern boundary for Chisholm because it is the boundary between the City of Monash and the City of Whitehorse, as well as the boundary between the suburbs of Burwood East and Mount Waverley, Vermont South and Glen Waverley. The northern boundary of Chisholm will be a key point of debate during the Objections and Comment on Objections phase.
If the northern boundary of Chisholm is south of Highbury Road, for example High Street Road, then Menzies will have to significantly move south to take in part of the City of Monash, causing it to lose the eastern part of the City of Manningham and become a north-south seat. The nearby seat of Deakin will also become a north-south seat as a result. In the 2021 redistribution, the Augmented Electoral Commission said it wouldn’t redraw Menzies and Deakin as north-south seats unless they absolutely had to. If Chisholm is more than 3.5% over projected quota, the Redistribution Committee will likely push Flinders, Dunkley and Isaacs north to get Chisholm within tolerance rather than trying to push Menzies and Deakin south, because the latter option requires more dramatic boundary changes than the former option. I don’t think the Redistribution Committee or the Augmented Electoral Commission will favour splitting the suburbs of Ashwood, Mount Waverley and Glen Waverley either. These are the reason why I will be advocating for Highbury Road to be used as the northern boundary of Chisholm.
Secondly, if Chisholm’s northern boundary is to be Highbury Road, then Isaacs needs to extend north of the Dingley Bypass and Kingston Road, Dunkley needs to go north of the Patterson River to include all of the suburb of Patterson Lakes and the suburb of Bonbeach, and Flinders has to take in part of Mount Eliza. In my proposal, I split the suburbs of Chelsea and Chelsea Heights between Isaac’s and Dunkley along Thames Parade – Nepean Highway – The Beachway. Alternatively Goldstein can take in the remainder of the suburb of Highett, and Isaacs can take in the reminder of the suburbs of Chelsea and Chelsea Heights. However, I personally think my proposal would be more appropriate because the part of Highett west of the Frankston railway line shares stronger links with the rest of the City of Bayside than suburbs east of the Frankston railway line.
Thirdly, in my opinion, Whitehorse Road would be the best choice for the boundary between Menzies and Deakin. It will also fix the mess around the Whitehorse LGA with its territory to be split between the divisions of Deakin and Menzies (instead of four divisions) along Whitehorse Road. If you move Menzies south, then Deakin would have to extend north to take in the eastern part of the City of Manningham, which will cause both Deakin and Menzies to become north-south oriented seats. An alternative is to move Menzies north so that it sheds all territory in the City of Whitehorse, then Deakin will have to take in the vast majority of the City of Whitehorse and shed the vast majority of its territory in the City of Maroondah to Casey. This will cause McEwen to take in part of the Yarra Valley from Casey, Casey extends much further south into the Shire of Cardinia, with major implications for La Trobe and Monash. Since the AEC tends to minimise the movement of electors between electoral divisions, it will likely keep Whitehorse Road as the boundary between Menzies and Deakin. Whether to keep Maroondah Highway/Whitehorse Road as the boundary between Menzies and Deakin will be another key point of debate during the Objections and Comment on Objections phase.
In the western fringe of Melbourne, unlike other proposals on this thread, I left the boundary between Hawke and McEwen as well as Hawke and Gorton unchanged. I don’t think there is a strong reason to make Hawke gain voters from McEwen or Gorton gain voters from Hawke unless you want McEwen to gain voters from Calwell or cross into part of the Yarra Valley.
The boundaries of Hawke and Ballarat could technically remain unchanged as both divisions are already within tolerance, however I couldn’t get Wannon more than 123,249 projected voters (-3.14% under projected quota) if I leave the boundaries of Hawke and Ballarat unchanged. Wannon is the second slowest growing electorate in the state, with the number of electors projected to grow just 2.5% during the projection period, compared to the statewide average of 9.03%. Therefore it’s not desirable to leave such a slow-growing electorate still so under projected quota. To boost Wannon’s elector numbers, I transferred most of Golden Plains – North SA2 from Ballarat to Wannon (2,437 projected electors transferred) and transferred Bacchus Marsh Surrounds SA2 from Hawke to Ballarat.
As for notional margins, I calculated Deakin’s notional margin to be ALP 3.0%, Menzies’ notional margin to be LIB 1.0% and Higgins’ notional margin to be ALP 1.1%. My new proposal greatly favours Labor in Deakin, but slightly favours the Liberals in Menzies and Higgins. Either Deakin or Menzies (although Deakin is more likely) will become notionally Labor after the redistribution. If Deakin and Menzies maintain their east-west orientation, Deakin will become notionally Labor. If Deakin and Menzies become north-south oriented seats, Menzies will become notionally Labor. This opens the door for the current MP for Chisholm Carina Garland to transfer into whichever Deakin or Menzies is more favourable for Labor, should Clare O’Neil opt to transfer to Chisholm after her seat of Hotham is abolished.
Any feedback on my proposed boundaries is welcome.
Any abolishment of Hotham would likely make Chisholm alignment between bit like Hotham 2019 boundaries albeit with having go a bit more north
@joseph i oppose the abolistion of hotham for the reason that it is currently one of the few division in the entire state that is at quota i personally dont care about colonial era names being used as they are apart of our history whether people like it or not, and chisholm while named after a woman she wasnt a saint or anyone of any reall significance. i agree with some but still believe jagajaga or menzies should go but am leaning towards jagajaga to preserve menzies. hothams voters are largely still in the division that ive made which is why i kept the name based on what i have done menzies would be the division whose voters are laregly divided up but i kept the name since its naed after a pm
*be. not between
Just proposal Joseph. Maybe my fav of the one’s so far on this site. Would be very happy if they did something similar to this. Did you end up working out the TPP for your Aston and Chisholm? I’d imagine your Aston would be notionally Labor from the general election.
Great proposal*
Interesting how basically everyone on here has almost identical Macnamara, Higgins, Kooyong and Goldstein.
@drake exactly on the second point is why i think thats going to happen the only people who i can see who want the status quo are the major parties who gerrymandered them for their own benfit
@ John your comment ” are the major parties who gerrymandered them for their own benfit” really is out of line. You well know that Australian parliaments / parties do not do the redistributions but an independent body does for each level.”
Parties and individuals submit proposals that try to influence the redistribution committees.
Comments like this really take away from your otherwise worthwhile contributions
@moonlight im talking about the parties suggestions
I dont think Party suggestions can be called Gerrymandering as they dont have the power to implement their suggestions.
@Joseph does your Chisholm fit into quota? I’m trying to replicate it and maybe I’m doing it wrong, but it’s over quota by a fair bit.
yea but they draw the boundaries of their suggestion for political adavantage and to eliminate their opponents
@Joseph
That’s a very well reasoned proposal and I think a pretty good prediction of how the committee will have drawn things.
Quite a few divisions where we’ve ended up with the same thing (Lalor, Goldstein, Holt, La Trobe), which I think is a good sign that these are solid boundaries.
I think you’re right in that Highbury Road is the most ideal northern boundary for Chisholm (or Hotham), as it aligns things to the LGA boundary and would keep the Waverley area intact. I believe such a division would be approximately 2/3 Chisholm and 1/3 Hotham. My version used High Street Road which always felt like a bit of a compromise.
Pushing Dunkley beyond the Patterson River is something that most proposals haven’t considered, but I think it’s something worth considering if it helps with the boundaries for Isaacs and Chisholm.
The boundaries of Menzies and Deakin are likely going to draw a lot of discussion in general, especially since the area is highly marginal. I still feel that realigning these divisions North-South along Springvale Road is better from a community of interest perspective, but I can see that it is simpler overall for the committee to just push Menzies into Croydon Hills – Warranwood and keep the current boundary along Whitehorse Road/Maroondah Highway. I think your version of Deakin works pretty well.
In the north, I like how you keep Eltham in McEwen. Personally, I’d prefer to keep Maribyrnong further south by putting Kalkallo into McEwen and Gowanbrae back into Wills.
Fair point about keeping Western Melbourne largely unchanged once Lalor and Gellibrand are accounted for. I think mostly everyone has settled on using the West Gate Freeway for Gellibrand’s northern boundary.
For the Geelong region, I think @Drake has covered this area well. Freshwater Creek into Corangamite and Moolap and Sutherlands Creek into Corio to align it with the state district of Geelong would be ideal I think.
It’s good to see the similarities and differences between all of our proposals. I hope the committee has done something broadly similar.
I’ll link everybody’s proposals here for reference.
Angas: https://ibb.co/3frDNbS
Drake: https://imgbox.com/uZ0u5421
John: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1W1v9WS-4QC5lUiCUQWy0UZAU97fYkzP0
Joseph: https://ibb.co/7NXVDKy (Metropolitan) https://ibb.co/qxHqqPT (Regional)
Trent: https://ibb.co/SPw8mQm
Have I missed anyone?
Your proposal makes a lot of Joseph. Your reasoning for abolishing Hotham is very similar to what I submitted in my proposal too.
I completely disagree with john’s reasoning for it to not be abolished. Not so much because of the colonial name (also, whether or not it bothers you is lrrelevant to how the committee will factor it in), but because as Joseph states, it completely lacks a cohesive community of interest. So what if it’s within quota? That really doesn’t make much difference.
The reason it’s the best candidate for abolition is because, as Joseph states as well, it has no cohesive community of interest at all and its surrounding 5 seats are all under-quota, meaning the flow on effects beyond the seats immediately surrounding it are reduced. Not only that, but the 5 seats surrounding it are actually far more suitable communities of interest for most of the seat than Hotham itself is!
In its current state, Hotham is really cobbled together as overflows from those 5 seats that didn’t fit, and Victoria losing a seat and therefore having increased quotas per seats now means those seats can absorb those areas from Hotham that probably should have been in them to begin with if the previous quotas allowed.
It makes sense to put the Kingston parts (Clayton South, Clarinda) into Isaacs. It makes sense to put the Greater Dandenong parts (Noble Park, Springvale) into Bruce. It makes sense to put Hughesdale with Murrumbeena because Warrigal Rd is a much better boundary than Poath Rd (Hughesdale Station is even IN Murrumbeena).
In my proposal I split Bentleigh East at East Boundary Road, and put the west side into Goldstein with Bentleigh and east side into Isaacs. Not only did it make my own numbers work better, but I lived in Bentleigh East for a while growing up and found that East Boundary Rd was really the main divider in the suburb. I always identified the section west of that more with Bentleigh even though it was Bentleigh East, whereas the section east of it was always more like Oakleigh South so I united them that way.
But either way, Bentleigh East could easily fit into Goldstein, Isaacs or a mix of both like I proposed, better than it fit with Noble Park and Springvale.
@trent and ive fixed that by moving glen eira into goldstein and kingston in issacs and making hotham a Monash/Dandenong seat
@Drake
I’ll be interested to see if the comittee follows the same logic as us in regards to the Inner South.
I did find a couple of ways to maintain the current Macnamara-Higgins arrangement, but it generally seemed like it was avoiding making the most obvious change.
If one accepts that Goldstein will have to gain Bentleigh East from Hotham, then it seems natural that Goldstein shifts southward to North Road (which on its own is way more sensible than Glen Huntly Road). That then implies a more dramatic change to occur to Macnamara and Higgins, especially since Kooyong will also have to expand into Higgins.
I really shouldn’t bring up Israel-Palestine, but I do wonder if it has had any affect on the committe’s decisions given the current sensitivities around anti-Semitism. The only real argument to keep Caulfield in Macnamara is that of keeping the Jewish community unified, but as @Trent carefully explained in his original submission, this would actually be better achieved by the change we have all proposed.
@John @Trent
On Hotham, I agree with what @Trent has said. Even if it retains roughly 50% of its current electors, Hotham is still going to get carved up by the other divisions. And in a head-to-head choice between Chisholm and Hotham, then Chisholm will win out due to diversity considerations.
I agree that Jagajaga is not a particularly impressive name, but I wouldn’t abolish it in this instance, as it would mean Menzies would potentially lose its longstanding association with City of Manningham as it would likely be shifted northward across the Yarra at the next redistribution.
With a potential expansion of the House, any seat names abolished in this round have the potential to be brought back again. Interestingly, if the Senate is expanded to 14 senators per state, then Victoria would be entitled to 44 divisions, exactly half of its 88 state districts. So you could see how the 44 federal divisions might be formed by pairing up state districts. There’ll be room for a new or resurrected division roughly where Hotham currently is.
https://ibb.co/hm5tBvR
One thing I’ve realised recently is that the projected enrolment figures are likely to still be underestimating the North & West of Melbourne by a signficant amount.
At the start of the redistribution, the divisions North & West of the Yarra were at 20.52 quotas.
The recent April enrolment figures have the North & West at 20.62 quotas.
The April 2028 projected enrolment figures used for this redistribution have the North & West at 20.72 quotas (before any transfers).
However, the North & West has gained approximately 0.08 of a quota from the South & East every year for the last decade, even throughout the COVID pandemic.
So 4 years from now, the North & West is more likely to be at something around 20.95 quotas, and there will actually have been no need to cross the Yarra River.
My guess is that the ABS just can’t account for new estates that aren’t already in the development pipeline, so will always tend to underestimate high growth areas.
Unlikely that the committee went with this strategy, but I wanted to see if decent boundaries could be drawn without crossing the Yarra or into the Yarra Valley.
There’s less range of tolerance available for each side of the Yarra so some of the boundaries are a bit clunky, but I think it works pretty well overall.
Not shown on the map are a handful of key changes which actually make the whole thing work:
1. Nicholls has to take in Heathcote and everything east of the Campaspe River from Bendigo instead of Kilmore from McEwen, so that McEwen can maintain enough electors
2. McEwen gains Kalkallo and Mickleham north of Donnybrook Road, which is something I’ve done in most of my attempts
3. Flinders gains all of Mount Eliza from Dunkley but has to give Baxter in exchange, so that Dunkley and Isaacs can push further north than otherwise, similar to @Joseph’s proposal
Menzies and Isaacs are the weak links in this proposal, but generally no worse than my original version. I probably should have put Belgrave into Aston, but I do like having Casey kept as all of the Yarra Ranges plus the north of Cardinia.
Curious to see what people think of this one. Are there any parts which I should try to change?
I’ve wondered the same about whether the current Haza conflict might make the committee more hesitant to draft a proposal the Jewish community has long opposed.
But at the same time, it could add to the arguments to change it:
– The objections around the different types of Jewish communities, eg. That Caulfield North is better with Balaclava than with Caulfield South despite Caulfield South being far more Jewish than Balaclava based on the different subsets within the broader community, would probably be outweighed by simply uniting more of the broader community for whom this is a hot issue, and our proposal does unite more of the broader community;
– Higgins (minus the part that would be transferred to Macnamara) is likely to be a lot more sympathetic to the Israel cause than anywhere west of Chapel St in Macnamara;
– Finally, and probably most importantly even though the committe are not meant to consider political implications, retaining the current boundaries would mean the most highly concentrated and pro-Zionist community in all of Australia will have a high prob of being represented by a Greens MP, moving them would ensure they aren’t
Whether the commission are familiar enough with all that to consider it is unlikely though.
@Joseph I agree with basically all of your proposal, but I think the committee will pull both Menzies and Deakin south further into Whitehorse to keep Box Hill wholly in one division (Menzies) and avoid having to cross Menzies’ North Eastern border across LGA boundaries.
@Angas It’s interesting how similar your proposal is in north/west Melbourne with and without a river crossing. It’s only really McEwen and Jagajaga that change. Actually most of it’s pretty similar except for the Dunkey/Isaacs/Chisholm/Bruce area. The only thing I don’t like is the weird shape Menzies has, other than that it all works out well.
I think next time Vic goes to a redistribution, a new seat will be based around the Sunbury area.
Kooyong/Macnamara/Higgins are 2.83 quotas. You give Hughesdale to Higgins and you get to 2.87 quotas. Unless you want to move Kooyong east into Box Hill, or Higgins east into Oakleigh, your only option is to move Macnamara or Higgins into Caulfield South. Unless you want to put parts of Bentleigh East into Higgins but that would make the seat even more elongated.
Once you realise you have to put Caulfield South into a seat, you can’t put it all into Macnamara, so is it better to split Caulfield east/west between Macnamara/Higgins or put it all in Higgins? Higgins is slow growing, you can’t keep dragging the seat further seat, eventually you are going to have to put Caulfield into it.
Are they coming out today?
@Up the Dragons, yes the VIC and WA draft redistributions are being released today between 12:30pm and 2:30pm on the AEC website 😀
Vic & WA draft redistributions are being released sometime after 12:30 today, yeah
Surprised they haven’t updated the Victorian webpage with the new dates, yet they have done so for WA.
@Trent
Great summary of the key strategic considerations there. Jewish communities living in Caulfield can no longer rely on Macnamara to stay with a sympathetic Labor member, and from a perspective of self-interest would fare much better in a Liberal-leaning classic seat.
@Drake
That’s a good point. I thought this was interesting too. I’ve found that he obvious transfers for the seats in the North & West leave many of them in the -2% to -1% range. That is consistent with a -1.24% average needed across the region. The exception is with Lalor/Gellibrand which both sit close to the upper end of tolerance to ensure that Fraser doesn’t need to expand over the West Gate Freeway into Hobsons Bay.
I thnk McEwen acts as something of a buffer division since it can trade electors with any of Bendigo/Nicholls/Jagajaga/Scullin/Calwell/Hawke as needed, even Indi/Casey in some situations. Any scenario that nibbles at either the Macedon Ranges end or the Nillumbik end seems to work well.
I agree on Menzies. Finding a suitable home for Burwood was difficult. It doesn’t really fit with Bulleen/Templestowe in Menzies, nor does it fit with Ringwood/Croydon in Deakin. If anything, it probably does belong in Chisholm paired with City of Monash, but I think that would leave too many electors in the outer South-East. Maybe it could be possible if Casey and Monash were expanded further into La Trobe.
That’s an interesting point regarding Caulfield. I’ve always approached it from the perspective of Goldstein needing to lose electors. Two sides of the same coin, and leading to the same conclusion!
In preparation for the release – I’ve finally got round to doing that SA1 version of the map for Victoria. Link is here https://kevinchen870.shinyapps.io/redistributiontoolSA1/
Map will take a bit longer to load due to the SA1s. Mine is probably best used for a specific area and to take screenshots for your comments about a specific division. I’ll do my best to update with the proposed boundaries if they release a geopackage.
drum roll please
@angas no they wont there will be a yarra crossing as they act on the numbers they were given and they wont use the strategy of drawing one high and the other side low either. they are compelled to comply with the law which states that every division as near as posible must be drawn as close to the quota as practicle
I do not agree AEC should be completely bounded to not cross the Yarra given that Southbank shares a better community of interest with the Hoddle Grid than Caulfied and most areas in Port Phillip Council
@marh historically they have never crossed the yarra there and always cross it at the higher end and i see no reason they will change that now
If the Yarra were to be crossed in the inner city, the first place I’d cross is moving the small section of Docklands that’s south of the river into Melbourne.
– It would unite the suburb;
– Currently even the SA2 is split so it would unite the SA2 as well;
– That part of Docklands is actually almost completely cut off from everything else in Macnamara by Wurundjeri Way, West Gate Fwy and Bolte Bridge, but there’s a footbridge connecting it to the remainder of the Docklands, so it’s actually more connected to the northside of the river than it is to Southbank or Port Melbourne
It’s a rare spot where 3 main roads with little to no pedestrian accessing hemming it in actually form a stronger boundary than the river itself does.
@trent it wont so i choose not to speculate. it will be somewhere around menzies/jagajaga/mcewen
the one thing i do want is for whitehorse to be consolidated into less divisions then it currently is as its currently split between 4 divisions when it can easily fit into 2
Higgins proposed to be abolished. Wow
Great to see how my proposal has been well received.
@Drake My Chisholm has 118,529 (+1.40%) voters on current enrolment and 129,348 (+1.66%) voters on projected enrolment.
@Angas I kept Eltham in Jagajaga, not McEwen.
I am surprised that the Redistribution Committe has decided to abolish Higgins rather than Hotham. I will still attach my proposal that abolishes Hotham in my objection, but I will submit another version with Higgins abolished. The boundaries of some of the proposed electorates really doesn’t make sense. If the Electoral Commission want to abolish Higgins, they’ve got to do it properly. I will talk about my objections in the relevant article.
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