New numbers change Victorian federal redistribution equation

By
Ben Raue
-
287

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.

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287 COMMENTS

  2. That proposal would sure up Aston for Labor and Casey and Deakin for the Liberals. I imagine Menzies would be Labor on these boundaries, but hotly contested.

  3. @drKs the I’m considering isaccs as the future Dandenong seat and putting wayside in with Kingston isaccs can take in more of Dandenong, Hotham Monash and chisholm take in the remainder of whitehorse

  5. Even though @Angas abolished Hotham, his version of Chisholm is basically the same as my Hotham. And his Menzies is pretty similar to my Chisholm. Posted my maps on the final post of the previous page for anyone interested. Looking closer and we have pretty similar Macnamara/Higgins/Isaacs/Bruce/Dunkley/Holt so I think everyone is largely approaching this from the same page.

    Whatever happens I think the Libs will lose a seat. Either a Lib seat in the NE gets abolished or a Labor one does and that causes a Lib seat to become notionally Labor. I guess Higgins could become notionally Liberal to balance it out. I don’t think their are enough Liberal voters left in the NE for 4 seats (counting Aston as Lib)

  6. @drake agreed however I think with the loss of Menzies-or deakin the libs will regain aston and probably Higgins especially if they do the caulfiekd swap this would end up with a +1 to the libs +1 to the greens and -2 to Labor.

  7. I think mcewen will have more favourable boundaries for the libs to. It will lose Kilmore to Nicholas and mernda to scullin and yake in parts of nillumbuk from jagjaga this will make it a targeted for the libs.

  8. Jipppi think menzies & deakin should lose Whitehorse lga to kooyong chisholm and aston. This would reduce the number of division Whitehorse is in from 4 to 3.

  10. Make Corangamite a Geelong-based seat and abolish Aston. A new seat could be recreated from parts of McEwen which would allow Lalor to be abolished. More to come, but like my NSW proposal I’ll be looking at regional and rural areas first for my Victorian proposal too.

  11. @np I believe cori should be the southern seat since its name is after the bay and cprangamite be the northern and regional parts. Aston is nicely contained in the know lga so thats the only reason I do not support it’s abolition I have abolished Menzies and transferred the name to jagajaga since the name isn’t after any particular person or place rather 3 unspecified elders and is the only one of its kind anywhere. I dog believe it being aboriginal is justification enough to be retained. To be honest in my original proposal iwas able to abolish McEwen and split up the lgas to make it look better but the new numbers have thrown that put. I think McEwen should shed Macedon and Nicholls and be based in the eastern 2 lgas which I’m hoping I can fix up next redistribution

  12. @John actually it makes more sense to abolish Menzies and rename Jagajaga to Menzies. But yes a seat called Corangamite should contain Lake Corangamite itself so a Geelong-based seat would need a new name (maybe Corio as you suggested).

    McEwen needs to stay because John McEwen was a former Prime Minister.

  13. My proposal for western Victoria:

    * Corio becomes almost a new seat, based around Geelong. It would extend from the southern half of Lara down to the Bellarine Peninsula, and the seat would include the entire city of Geelong. This would be a safe Labor seat.
    * Corangamite, having lost Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula in the east, would extend west to Lake Corangamite, becoming a Surf Coast-based seats. I think this would be a notional Liberal seat but I’m not sure as Labor won booths in Torquay (currently in Corangamite) in 2022.
    * Wannon is an annoying seat because it’s so under quota. I’ve moved the northern border up to the town of Warracknabeal, so it now includes Horsham and the surrounding towns (which used to be in Mallee). Wannon would remain a Liberal seat and would be now safer for the Liberals.

    My proposal for northern Victoria:
    * Ballarat and Bendigo need very little change and they will still be Labor seats. All I’ve done is moved the town of Daylesford from Ballarat to Bendigo, plus I’ve moved Kyneton from Bendigo to McEwen.
    * Mallee has lost Horsham and the surrounding area to Wannon, and it’s under quota too, so it needs to expand into Nicholls. I’ve moved the eastern border out to Tatura (a town just west of Shepparton). Mallee would remain a very safe Nationals seat.
    * Nicholls has lost several towns west of Shepparton to Mallee and it’s now more under quota, so that needs to be fixed. However Nicholls is much easier to expand than Mallee and Wannon, since it borders a seat that’s over quota (that seat being McEwen). I’ve moved the southern border of Nicholls down to the town of Wandong. I’ve also moved the eastern border (i.e the one with Indi) to Benalla, meaning Nicholls will now include the towns of Alexandra, Benalla, Euroa, Violet Town and Yea (but not Eildon or Glenrowan). Nicholls would remain a safe Nationals seat.

    My proposal for eastern Victoria:
    * Gippsland has a slight boundary adjustment, with the town of Moe near Traralgon and the towns of Foster and Port Welshpool near on the southern coastline have been moved into Monash. Gippsland remains a safe Nationals seat.
    * Indi (held by independent Helen Haines) has lost every town west of Benalla to Nicholls and is even more under quota, so this needs fixing. I’ve moved the far western end of Casey and the far northern end of Monash (down to Drouin and Warragul) into Indi. I don’t know how this would effect the margin of Indi but it would remain an independent seat.
    * Monash has lost Drouin and Warragul to Indi. I’ve moved Bunyip and Lang Lang from La Trobe into Monash. However, I’ve moved Foster, Moe and Port Welshpool from Monash to Gippsland. Monash remains a Liberal seat.

    Overall I don’t think any seats in regional Victoria have changed hands on my proposal, except maybe Corangamite. If Corangamite isn’t notionally a marginal Liberal seat then it would be a marginal Labor seat that would be a target for both major parties.

  14. @np the problem is cprangamite is unable to get back to cprangamite given the numbers and the reason they refuse to change the name is because like werriwa a name for lake George near the act when in fact it’s hundreds of KMs away now in Sydney hasn’t been changed since of both aboriginal origin and a federation name. If they won’t change werriwa they won’t change cprangamite. The other issue if the deficits in sw Vic continue they will have no choice but to abolish a federation name because wannon cprangamite Corio Ballarat are all federation names

  15. In regards to mcewen I did the same just transferred the name to jagajaga but after tf change in numbers I did the same but withenzies instead however the current configuration of McEwen is a bad shape and could have been fixed under the previous numbers

  16. I almost forgot the area surrounding Melbourne:

    * Calwell gains Somerton and Roxburgh Park from Scullin.
    * Casey gains Hurstbridge from McEwen and Kinglake from Indi. Casey remains a Liberal seat.
    * Dunkley loses Frankston South and Mount Eliza to Flinders. Dunkley therefore becomes safer for Labor.
    * Flinders gains Frankston South and Mount Eliza from Dunkley. Flinders remains a safe Liberal seat.
    * Hawke loses Ballan to Ballarat. Hawke remains a Labor seat.
    * Holt loses Cranbourne to Bruce.
    * La Trobe lost ground to other seats already. I’ve moved Phillip Island from Flinders to La Trobe.
    * McEwen has already lost some towns to other seats as I explained above. I don’t think any other adjustments need to be made.

  17. Overall my proposal for regional Victoria is much less dramatic than regional NSW. My proposal for regional NSW saw a new notionally Liberal seat called Kurrajong created in the Hawkesbury and the Central Coast Hinterland while the seats of Gilmore, Paterson and Whitlam notionally flipped from Labor to Liberal, meaning on my proposal the Coalition gained four seats and Labor lost three.

    Overall, this would mean my Sydney proposal would require two seats to be abolished and my Melbourne proposal would require one seat to be abolished.

  18. @np Flinders can’t take that many voters from Dunkley it will only take a portion of mt Eliza from Dunkley which will take Patterson lakes and Carrum from issacs this will probably slightly increased the Labor margin in Dunkley but it will remain marginal and wthin the grasps of the libs especially if Conroy runs again. All his bagged has already been dragged out by Labor in the by election so he should do better next attempt. That and Labor can no longer bank the sympathy vote for the deceased mebr and belyea will need to stand on er ownrecord

  19. @np Il agree on Gilmore and Paterson but I think Whitlam will stay Labor and possibly strengthen as it needs to shed SH

  20. @John good point about Dunkley. I kinda just did a speedrun of the outer suburbs of Melbourne.

  21. @given I only have access to sa2 data Ive left my map boundaries tr same but mention to the tribunal in the writtent submission to take the votes from there

  22. ive almost finished my maps. my stylus gave out and my good one is missing so just need to finish them. a few divisions are over (Gellibrand, calwell & deakin) slightly as the only data i have access to is sa2 so i stated the aec can ujst move the boundaries slightly to fix that up. and flinders is under but i noted for them to move it into mt eliza to fix it up.

  23. NP
    Hell would freeze over before a community of interest could be found between Drouin/ Warragul and the seat of Indi.
    Why would you bother when both Gippsland and Monash can be left unchanged on the projected enrolments.

  32. I’ve been playing around with the numbers south and east of the Yarra. and I can only see two scenarios.

    1. Higgins, Hotham and Chisholm are amalgamated into two seats

    2. Deakin is abolished

    Presuming the commission starts drawing boundaries at the mouth of the Yarra and Port Phillip Bay, they will have to make a decision after they draw the bay and riverside seats (Macnamara, Dunkley, Goldstein, Kooyong and Higgins), as to whether they will abolish one of Higgins, Hotham and Chisholm, or push out and heavily restructure these seats to abolish Deakin.

    Aston’s borders would make it a nightmare to divide up amongst the neighbouring seats if it was abolished, and Casey being abolished wouldn’t change that a seat would need to centre around Lilydale.

    To abolish Deakin, the commission would have to move in the opposite direction to the last redistribution (2021), where it decided Menzies was better suited to Box Hill than Ringwood, and that Chisholm was a Monash LGA centred seat.

    I think abolishing Deakin would also create more chaos in other seats than scenario 1. In the first scenario, you can solve the shortfalls in the outer east by moving Aston into Belgrave and Upwey-Tecoma, Casey in to Emerald-Cockatoo, and Deakin further into Whitehorse as Chisholm moves south, in following with last redistribution.

    The question is, does McEwen satisfy both quotas without moving into Nillumbik? Because if it moves in, Jagajaga can only really move over the Yarra and then that makes things interesting.

  33. The way I see it:

    Macnamara, Higgins, Kooyong are projected to be 2.83 quotas. You add Hughesdale and the Caulfield part of Goldstein and you get another .16 quotas. 2.83+.16=2.99 quotas. So I struggle to see one of them being abolished. Goldstein/Isaacs are coastal seats so you can’t really abolish them. Goldstein (Bayside Council + all of Bentleigh is basically a quota).

    Hotham without Hughesdale and Bentleigh East is .78 quotas. Isaacs without Carrum/Patterson Lakes is .88 quotas. So either you abolish Hotham (and have Chisholm move south), or both of these seats are going to have to move north. The big 3 questions to me are:

    1. How much of a seat gets transferred to north/west of the Yarra and which area it is. I think Menzies to Jagajaga makes the most sense. You need around .25 quota
    2. Whether Menzies should go south into Box Hill or east into Ringwood. If it goes into Ringwood it kind of doesn’t really leave much of Deakin left, and if it goes into Box Hill than one of Chisholm/Hotham gets abolished.
    3. What to do with Dandenong Council. Do you try and fit it into 2 seats or keep it in the current 3.

  34. @ drake I’ve transferred templestowe templestowe lower and baleen to jagajagaga then put Warrandyte north into mcewen

  36. @Drake 100% agree with that now – Higgins would also be too difficult to divide between neighbouring electorates if abolished.

    Re your point 1, I think North Warrandyte is the prime candidate to be transferred from Menzies to Jagajaga at the very least, but how much of a quota is that? I would guess that it wouldn’t be more than 0.1 quota at most. Then maybe Jagajaga takes Warrandyte and Warrandyte South to make up the rest of that 0.25?

    I live in Jagajaga and just can’t see it moving into Bulleen or Templestowe/Templestowe Lower. There was a lot of opposition to Menzies moving over the Yarra in 2018, and making a crossing of the Yarra closer to the city in Bulleen would bring about a lot of opposition I think.

    Re your point 2, I think this the previous redistribution in 2021 is a HUGE indicator here. The commission judged Menzies to be better suited North-South to Box Hill than Deakin is, when they were forced to decide which electorate would take in Box Hill north. In fact, the only reason Menzies didn’t move further south to Canterbury Rd was that the numbers worked without doing this.

    They thereby also acknowledged this part of Melbourne to be better connected North-South than East-West, so moving Menzies into Ringwood would completely contradict the last redistribution and the commission’s conception of a community of interest here.

    Further, a lot of people this time around suggested realigning Deakin North-South to reflect this connectivity. So perhaps a scenario where Menzies moves south taking in more inner-metro-like territory could be matched by the Warrandytes and Wonga Park being split between Deakin and Jagajaga? Would be interested to know how close Deakin and Jagajaga would be to at quota if this happened, without accounting for any whitehorse territory Deakin may gain.

    Box Hill is also the fastest growing part of Menzies by far, so to get Menzies up to quota without it, it would have to take in a massive part of Deakin, radically altering the character of the electorate. The commission would then probably think that they could create a lot less chaos in Menzies by abolishing Hotham and moving it south.

    I guess the question here is which of these Menzies scenarios (that leads to a different seat being abolished) allows for less electors changing electorates and more continuity in boundaries and communities of interests overall? That will decide it I think.

  37. So I guess my sense is similar to that of @Angas’s proposal, which has Menzies moving south and Deakin taking everything east of Springvale. If Deakin isn’t abolished, it’s going to have to either move into the east of Menzies or keep moving into Whitehorse.

  38. @Drake it then seems like the two scenarios are essentially you and @Angas’s proposals.

    @Angas the links to the maps of your proposals don’t seem to work. Would love to see them!

  39. North Warrandyte is .02 of a quota. If you transfer Warrandyte + Wonga Park as well it’s .075 of a quota. Even if you do up to all of Donvale that is east of Springvale Rd you still only get to .13 of a quota. It’s why I think you need to put parts of Bulleen/Templestowe into Jagajaga it’s just the best of the worst options.

  40. is there any feasible way Jagajaga can get up to quota without taking more than Warrandyte? if it can’t take it from McEwen than there is no other option than to go over as you say.

    Or does that .25 quota have to go over the river from south/east of the Yarra to north/west anyway?

  41. @henry if jagjaga doesn’t move into menzies menizes will move into jagajgaga there is no other way. See my map above for what I’ve done. Mcewen will probably take in more part of jagajgag too since either Bendigo or Nicholas or both will take parts off mcewen and scullin will probably take the rest of ,ernda north so it will need into nillumbak and take Kangaroo ground north Warrandyte to make up the differeence

  42. I looked at crossing into Warrandyte instead but the shape of the division of deakin would be deformed and would not get up. I don’t like crossing there either . Next redistribution would be able to solve this but for now it has to be done.

  43. @Henry

    There is projected to be 20.72 quotas worth for north/west seats (there are currently 21 seats). So unless you want to abolish a seat there you’ll need to gain a bit from south/east of the Yarra.

    There is projected to be 17.27 quotas worth for south/east seats (there are currently 18). So it makes sense to abolish one.

    Unless you try and just make all the south/east seats a little over quota/and the north/west ones a little under quota, you’ll need to transfer around .25 worth of a seat from east/south of the yarra to a north/west yarra seat.

  44. @drake exactly. i think the only practical way to do it is what ive done yes its not perfect but hopefully the numbers next time will allow it go back to the riverbank

  46. @Up the dragons I believe mid-May based on the timeline of previous distributions will be when the proposal comes out, but they have it listed as ‘quarter 2’ on the website, so the error in projected enrolments could push the release of the proposal back to the end of June.

  47. labor are going to have 2 problems mainly caused by the israel-palestine crisis labors position of sitting on the fence to appease both muslim and jewish voters at the same time is gonna cost them votes in both directions. jewish voters feeling there too pro alestine will go to the coalition and muslim voters felling there not doing enough to support the palestinians will go to the greens

  48. @ John
    From Higgins thread, if La Trobe losses Clyde North or parts of Casey LGA i am not sure how that will make Holt or Bruce more winnable for the Libs given what i mentioned about the increased diversity of Casey LGA.

  49. Muslim voters may go Green/Socialists but apart from Wills i dont see which other seats this will help the Greens win in terms of Muslim vote. In Outer Suburbs it may actually help Labor get a 2PP swing and help them forget about lockdowns as they are focused on Gaza.

  50. @nimalan how would it help them get a 2pp swing?
    in holt and bruce if you look at the 2019 redistribution for bruce shedding half of dandenong increaded the liberal vote by 7%, and the strongest areas of bruce are in the dandenong lga. if you look at holt the strongest areas are in the north for labor which would be shed to bruce
    as well as the map of la torbe in la trobe thread you see the lberal vote higher 2pp in the casey lga.

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