NSW federal redistribution drafts released – live

@G
Looks like we’re thinking along similar lines!

I’ve found the ABS maps page to be invaluable while putting together my proposals. In particular, using the SA1/Mesh Block view really helped to reveal the areas of high and low density. To me, it makes sense to bring the high density areas into the centre of divisions and use the low density areas (often watercourses and roadways) as the boundaries. I remember that @Peter put forward some really good arguments for this strategy is his proposal.

To your point about SA3s and SA4s, I think that’s a really good idea. It looks like they do a pretty good job at approximating the local government area boundaries but smoothing off some of the more random edges using stronger physical boundaries. Kind of like the model for what the different council areas should actually be.

I didn’t really much attention to the SA3s/SA4s while I was developing my proposals, but looking at them know, it’s interesting to see how good they would have been as a solid foundation for building the divisions off.

I’ll plug my proposal again (but I’m mindful this is just one of many good community proposals). I’ve done my best to align divisions to hard physical boundaries and cohesive communities, and I feel like this would be a significantly better outcome than some of the divisions proposed by the committee.

https://ibb.co/RHYGk3p

@Drake
Happy to share these maps! I know they lose out on certain details compared to Ben and Kevin’s interactive maps, but this definitely helps to reveal a different viewpoint on things.

I agree, Hughes, Kingsford Smith and McMahon definitely stand out as the problem divisions here.

That adjustment sounds like it could work out. The part of Rosebery in Sydney would be fine in Kingsford Smith. Annandale or Newtown/Enmore would easily go into Sydney. And Earlwood would be fine to put into Grayndler.

“First, I agree that the Barton/Cook/Kingsford Smith corner is a huge mess, especially Kingsford Smith’s “tail” around the Botany Bay”. I was meant to address @Drake rather than @Adam with this comment. @Drake You can try having Sydney taking in the suburb of Annandale from Grayndler while Grayndler gaining the remainder of the suburb of Lilyfield from Sydney (similar to the boundary arrangement between 2009 and 2016) and also part of Canterbury and Campsie from Watson, Banks shedding all areas north of the South Western Motorway to Watson and gaining part of Barton south of the South Western Motorway, Barton taking in the “tail” area from Kingsford Smith, and Kingsford Smith taking in part of Sydney. You can try Grayndler taking in more of Barton, but I prefer Banks taking part of Barton instead.

@Angas

I like your map! You’ve found some really good boundaries.

I’m going to comment on a few things in Northern Sydney (where I live):
– I’m not thrilled to see Cherrybrook in the same division as Turramurra. But it’s not the worst.
– Bennelong and Parramatta have very pleasing boundaries!
– This is a real nitpick: I’ve seen many suggestions with a Mitchell similar or identical to yours – including my own! But all except mine have the southern boundary follow the LGA boundary that snips off the northern bit of North Rocks. It’s not as egregious as the disrespect the new LGA boundaries showed to North Epping. Nevertheless, that part of North Rocks should be with the rest of North Rocks. I’d encourage people if they have the opportunity to take a trip down Renown Road – colloquially known by locals as “the big dipper”!
– Box Hill in the same division as Katoomba is not ideal. If Macquarie retains its current form as hybridising the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains, it should expand to gain parts of Penrith LGA, such as the Emu Plains area or the Londonderry area. That being said, it does raise the question of where Box Hill should go. Not Berowra. Mitchell would be difficult. Greenway is best but it might be difficult too (especially with my next comment).
– It would be preferable for Marsden Park to be in Greenway rather than Chifley. It’s a bit of a misfit in Chifley.

I was very happy with my own suggestion for Northern Sydney. The only problem is it would have removed the Hawkesbury from Macquarie. And I understand now that that isn’t going to work.

The new Bennelong reminds me a lot of the new Chisholm. Half of the seat takes in a tealish, leafy, inner-city, wealthy area and the other half a middle-ring suburban, marginal Labor/Liberal area with a high Chinese Australian population.

Fowler is able to lose it’s share of Chipping Norton to Hughes, which than gives Hughes enough voters to prevent Cook from needing to cross Cooks River. After that you just need to find a way to rearrange Kingsford Smith, Sydney, Barton, Banks and maybe Watson.

@dan m the north sydey candidate will most likely move to warringah as scott is the candidate for beenlong

i like the inner city seats but as they go out parramatta, mcmahon, greenway, mitchell, berowra,hughes that when it starts to get weird

Quick question, both you and Antony Green was unsure of the Teal margin in Kooyong because there was no teal candidate in the new areas of toorak but in wentworth in those new areas there was no teal candidate but yet there seems to be a calculated margin for that. Are you assuming most of those voters would vote teal instead of lib?

@Drake
That’s a great improvement. Is that by transferring Bundeena to Cook? Kind of wacky that it’s connected with Ingleburn an hour’s drive away.

Hi Jayden, good question.

I did have a brief period of confusion about how best to deal with Kooyong and three other seats in Victoria that were Coalition vs Independent, but I worked out a method I’m happy with before the end of that day. If you go back to the Vic/WA liveblog from May 31 the last entry explains the method.

Basically I take the difference between the independent 2cp and 2PP in areas with an independent 2cp, then apply that to the 2PP in the other parts to get an estimated independent 2cp.

I then used that method for Wentworth and Fowler yesterday, but I didn’t need to comment on it as it went more smoothly. It wasn’t necessary for the north shore seats since they had usable 2CPs for the whole of each seat.

in relation to hughes there should be a counter clockwise territory swap. take in chipping norton from fowler which can take parst of farifield and liverpool from werriwa and that can take the parts of campbelltown from hughes

@Nicholas
I appreciate the feedback! I actually used your submission as a reference on a number of occasions because I liked how you handled the divisions in a sensible manner.

All of those compromises that you’ve touched on are areas which I was unsure about. My general philosophy for my map was “if a compromise has to be made, do so in a way that means you can maintain strong physical boundaries”.

I agree on Cherrybrook. It’s a bit of an outlier in a Hornsby-centred Berowra and would ideally be in Mitchell. That said, I prefer having Turramurra in Berowra than putting St Leonards in Bennelong.

I was always unsure about the part of North Rocks so I erred on the side of the M2/LGA boundary, but it’s good to have a local insight into that area. That’s an easy change to accomodate.

I agree on Box Hill going into Macquarie. My stance was that if we’re going to have to retain the awkward Blue Mountains-Hawkesbury pairing then any expansion of Macquarie is going to make the division even more ridiculous. Box Hill was chosen simply because it allowed for Lindsay and Chifley to seat neatly between the Blue Mountains and Richmond Road/Eastern Creek. Marsden Park was kept in Chifley for the same reason.

It’s a shame the numbers didn’t really allow for a realignment of the 2 halves of Macquarie in this redistribution. That said the committee seems pretty content on leaving divisions how they are unless absolutely necessary. We’ll have to wait for an expansion of the house I think.

Agree Angas and Nicholas, ideally suburbs should not be divided into two by LGA boundaries. This is a problem with North Rocks as well as suburbs like Beecroft which are now split by an LGA boundary that runs along a major arterial road. Even the Epping/North Epping boundary which splits Hornsby and Parramatta councils should not occur – ideally all of Beecroft would be in Hornsby Shire with North Epping combined with Epping under Parramatta council.

This is in contrast to Brisbane with its larger LGA’s having boundaries that also coincide with suburb boundaries.

i think the name Hume should replace the Riverina name and Hume can be made the new division. possibly Walton or Burragorang

I wonder if it’s a fair take to criticise the AEC for being risk averse?

Democracies are messy, and redistributions are an unwanted necessity to keep things fair between people across the country. So, given that any redistribution that involves a state gaining or losing a seat will be inherently disruptive to some extent, it would be nice if the AEC were to draw up drafts that tried to find an optimal outcome in the new format, rather than the least movement of electors between divisions. The AEC appear to have gone with the latter, and perhaps this is symptomatic of our frank and fearless public service now having become a hollow shell of its former self. That said, what is “optimal” is highly debatable, and at the very least we can still trust the AEC’s impartiality.

Is that a fair critique?

I’m raising this question because I think it’s clear that we need to expand parliament, and no matter how that is done, that event will be far more redistributively disruptive. We can’t shy away from that in the hope of avoiding controversy, have to be able to cope with those shifts. We also have to find a way to let those who are most affected – party MPs or preselected candidates, independent MPs or candidates, and the communities themselves who have lines drawn in their neighbourhoods – to work out amongst themselves how they respond.

@Angas, your redrafted version does indeed look a lot better than the AEC’s. May I offer some thoughts?

1. I thought a missed opportunity was that the AEC didn’t rethink the upper north shore and Hawkesbury area. I wonder whether Cowan Creek can be used as a boundary to help align more similar areas with one another? On the east side of the creek, a division could take in the Hornsby-Brooklyn ridgeline and push south towards Carlingford, which after all isn’t very well connected with Parramatta. On the west side of the creek, the sparse areas of Dural and Kenthust would push further west into the Hawkesbury. This would be a more significant change of course, and ideally it could enable Macquarie to be divided into its Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains halves?

2. Your version of southern Sydney looks pretty reasonable. However, I wonder if Kingsford Smith as a ‘northern Botany Bay’ seat has merit? It’s definitely a more significant change to span the airport, but don’t think it’s that outrageous. If so, Reid, Grayndler, Sydney, and Wentworth stay pretty much where they are now. Wentworth expands south, and Kingsford Smith expands west along the AEC’s proposed boundary along the green corridor (Muddy Creek – Scarborough Park) but then cuts further west to take in all of the Sans Souci peninsula from Cook. That option also starts a cascading series of shifts westward from there, which you may or may not want to pursue, but I thought it worked out quite nicely when I tried it. The boundaries could well be different now though due to the AEC’s draft shifts.

Probably due to Carlingford/Epping and it’s nearby messed up urban layout, it was always going to have messy boundary lines and lack of community of interest for both Councils and Electorates for example most of Carlingford for example is in both the federal seat of Parramatta and the City of Parramatta despite they having more in common with Bennelong and City of Ryde

In terms of Kingsford Smith, the biggest issue is that the Committee hasn’t done a very good job of creating a northern-Botany Bay seat. I have no issue with the seat being arranged as such if the committee could have found a way to do so in a logical and reasonable way, but their proposal is not logical or reasonable.

The three-way split of the former Rockdale section of Bayside council is a very poor outcome. Bayside council should be spilt between Barton and Kingsford Smith, with no section in Cook. This is similar to how the Committee successfully removed Georges River council from Cook. Cook can and should be pushed fully south of the Georges River, which would allow Dolls Point, Sandringham and Sans Souci to be included in one of two Bayside council based seats.

I also don’t believe that you can draw any community of interest between the northern half of the Randwick LGA, which is in the state seat of Coogee and look to Randwick and Bondi Junction as their main centres, and Ramsgate and Monterey, which are in the state seat of Rockdale and look to Kogarah and Hurstville as their main centres. Travel between different parts of the electorate aren’t particularly easy either. I understand this usually gets brought up for regional seats, but in this part of Sydney where the Airport acts as a large fixed boundary, it is also an issue. In fact, the most logical way to travel between Coogee and Ramsgate is to catch the bus to Bondi Junction, get the train via the City to Kogarah and then the bus to Ramsgate. That would see you pass through Wentworth, Sydney, Grayndler and Barton before returning to Kingsford Smith.

I also don’t understand why the Committee seems to be celebrating the use of the Cooks River as a boundary between Grayndler and Barton, when travel and cultural links across the river are far stronger in that area than they are at the Airport where they plan for Kingsford Smith to cross the Cooks. I think you could almost argue that including Undercliff and Earlwood in Grayndler (particularly one that does not include any of the Balmain Peninsula) would be a better outcome than Ramsgate and Monterey in Kingsford Smith, but again, i’m not sure if that works numbers wise.

Numbers are not my forte, but I will have to try and draw up a better solution for my objection. You’d almost have to move all the surrounding seats in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction to get a better outcome, probably trying to fix the lack of land link between the two parts of Sydney at the same time.

I am currently working on fixing the boundaries but I think the desire for AEC to not abolish any more electorates than 1 caused these issues. Let’s hope this is rectified. I immediately started working on fixing Kingsford Smith, McMahon and Hughes, which necessitated a redraw of Werriwa and Fowler. I kept Macarthur intact and Hume with very minor changes to prevent too many edits. For now, I have these:

Werriwa and Fowler:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ye97Iah6jh5UR-0I1qedXSbgVHoc0N9Y/view?usp=sharing
Inset at Green Valley:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_s7BXIVaVcR2HOShQDnt-c8uXxcOGwxY/view?usp=sharing

@Conor @Peter
I’ll reply in more detail later today, but here’s a map I drew up a few months ago after reading through @Peter’s submission.

https://ibb.co/TtgHbxF

Something like this would address many of concerns that both of you and other commenters have raised:
– Reid/Watson/Grayndler/Sydney align almost perfectly with their respective council areas after very minimalist changes
– Wentworth becomes a purely “Eastern Suburbs” division and takes in the majority of Randwick/Coogee which are more similar to Bondi than to Maroubra
– Kingsford Smith properly commits to being a “Botany Bay” division by including Wolli Creek, more of Rockdale, and Sans Souci (Princes Highway isn’t a great boundary here but at least it’s consistent)
– Barton (or Banks) can retain a sensible arrangement centred on Hurstville
– Cook can stay south of Georges River and also include Bundeena

I think the committee just needs to acknowledge that it’s no longer realistic to retain all 4 of Banks/Barton/Cook/Hughes. But they seem unwilling to merge Banks into Barton and Hughes.

Anyone familiar with the area know if the inclusion of Punchbowl and Roselands in Banks/Barton is sensible? Does the M5 act as a strong cultural divider here or is it relatively similar on both sides?

Angas, I think the aec need to be like the state electoral commissions and when doing redistributions it is perfectly normal to abolish more than one seat and then create a new one to resolve any issues with geographic or community interests.

This nsw one shows that for efficiency you need to abolish 2 seats at a minimum, one north and one south of the harbour with a new seat created in the rapidly growing outer suburban parts of Sydney

@Angas

Thanks, yeah, that’s the kind of thing I had in mind, accepting variations of the concept so that it fits into the rest of what the AEC has drafted for NSW.

It looks like much of the inner and mid-southern areas of Sydney fall into place nicely, so that’s why it seems to me that a bold compromise with Kingsford-Smith as a Botany Bay might be tolerable in order to produce that. In the scheme of things, I reckon the AEC’s compromised version of Hughes was worse!

The problem with Kingsford Smith is that looks clumsy. If the area south of President Avenue in Monterey was swapped with Arncliffe it would just look better and the community of interest would also be better.

@Angas, I grew up in Narwee and my family still lives in Lugarno. There’s a huge gap between the area culturally north and south of the M5….actually north and south of the East Hills train line. I don’t think Punchbowl and Heathcote being in the same divison makes sense. Hell, even Riverwood and Heathcote is silly.

My take on some of the more interesting changes:
Sydney North – Not surprised about the changes at all. There are two big implications from this. For Mackellar, the shift of Forestville and Killarney Heights means that Tony Abbott’s personal branch is now in Mackellar for sure. This could tilt numbers within that seat. It also means that Kylea Tink is now out of a seat. There have been strong rumours of her running in Bradfield if this happens, but this would put her at odds with Nicolette Boele, who is SHaC’s preferred candidate. The other option would be Bennelong, but given that this seat is now virtually back to what it used to be under John Howard (when he first started), I daresay that the Liberal Party will be winning this.

Sydney North-West – Another significant brand shifts around Mitchell. With Mitchell gaining West Pennant Hills, this means that Dom Perrottet’s branch will likely be in Mitchell. On top of that, Hawke will lose some very friendly branches in the north to Greenway. It would strengthen his influence in Greenway, but now puts him at risk in Mitchell. Greenway becomes ultra-marginal again. For Macquarie, the pick-up of Emu Plains makes that seat Marginal again, but at the expense of Lindsay.

Sydney South-West – Werriwa could be a sleeper seat now, given the rapidly changing demographics in the area, along with Hughes. Banks becomes safer now, with Milperra and Blakehurst added to the seat, despite the addition of Punchbowl. Macarthur is now virtually out of reach for the Liberal Party.

Others – I think Eden-Monaro now becomes a seat that the Liberal Party only wins when they are definitely forming government

Just submitted my objection for the North Coast!

Seats covered and their main urban centres:
* Cowper: Coffs Harbour, Kempsey, Nambucca Heads and Port Macquarie
* Hunter: Cessnock, Kurri Kurri, Maitland, Morisset (Central Coast), Muswellbrook, Singleton and Toronto (Newcastle)
* Lyne: Forster-Tuncurry, Port Macquarie, Taree and Wauchope
* Page: Casino, Grafton, Lismore and Yamba
* Paterson: Maitland, Medowie (Newcastle), Nelson Bay (Newcastle), Raymond Terrace (Newcastle)
* Richmond: Ballina, Byron Bay, Murwillumbah and Tweed Heads

My final proposals for the North Coast:
* Cowper: gains Woolgoolga from Page and loses Telegraph Point and most outer suburbs of Port Macquarie to Lyne
* Hunter: gains more territory west of Maitland from Paterson
* Lyne: loses Bulahdelah, Karuah and Seals Rocks to Paterson, gains Telegraph Point and most of Port Macquarie’s outer suburbs from Cowper
* Page: loses Woolgoolga to Cowper
* Paterson: gains Bulahdelah and Seals Rocks from Lyne, loses most territory west of Maitland West to Hunter
* Richmond: unchanged

* Port Macquarie suburbs that remained in Cowper: Emerald Downs, Flynns Beach, North Shore, Port Macquarie, Port Macquarie East, Port Macquarie South, Port Macquarie West, Riverside
* Port Macquarie suburbs that remained in Lyne: Sancrox
* Port Macquarie suburbs that I moved from Cowper to Lyne: Blackmans Point, Fernbank Creek, Hibbard, Lake Innes, Tacking Point, The Hatch and Thrumster

New margins (estimate):
* Cowper: 1% NAT v IND
* Hunter: 7% ALP v NAT
* Lyne: 15% NAT v ALP
* Page: 11% NAT v ALP
* Paterson: 1% LIB v ALP
* Richmond: 8% ALP v NAT

Current predictions (winner and swing; estimate):
* Cowper: National hold (+2.2%)
* Hunter: Labor hold (–4.0%)
* Lyne: National hold (+2.4%)
* Page: National hold (+2.5%)
* Paterson: Liberal notional hold (+2.6%)
* Richmond: Labor hold (+0.2%)

@Angas

Yep putting Bundeenda in Cook. You’d just have to play around a bit for the numbers to work. I’ve got to say I actually really like your map with Kingsford Smith actually fully going into Botany Bay. Yes Kingsford Smith is still two seperate parts, but it actually commits to the idea. Nothing worse than two seperate communities but it’s just a tiny bit that is seperate (which is something the Vic redistribution loved to do).

If you are going to do that, at least commit to the idea so the seperate communities are still part of the same seat, instead of the weird 3 way Cook, Barton and Kingsford Smith mess they’ve come up with.

Wentworth, Grayndler, Sydney and Reid pretty much have perfectly boundaries so maybe it’s worth just having one seat that has then ideal boundaries in order to fix everything else up.

On Hughes, Sutherland Shire and the part of Liverpool LGA up to Chipping Norton have 1.7 quotas. Then where do you get the other .3 of a quota? There isn’t really a good alternative. Maybe you could do the part of Banks west of Salt Pan Creek. That gets you to perfectly 2 quotas. Problem is then you have to abolish an inner seat which they clearly don’t want to do.

@Yoh An
I agree. That’s a good point. If the state electoral commissions can manage to abolish and create divisions every 8 or so years, then the federal redistribution committes surely can do the same.

@Redistributed
I agree. Both Victoria and New South Wales have far too many proposed boundaries with rough edges or that rely on SA1s (which the public don’t care about). The random jagged edges undermine the quality of the redistribution. They’ve got to rely more on major roads and creeks, and if that’s not possible suburb boundaries are occasionally a reasonable fallback.

@Chaisa
That’s good to know. Thank you for the insight. So the boundary should really be shifting southwards instead of northwards.

@Drake @Peter
Yeah I think there’s nothing wrong with making the occasional 50-50 (or even 40-60) hybrid division if it leads to better outcomes elsewhere. That’s why something like Macquarie, while not ideal, is maintainable, as it combines two equally balanced areas with at least some connection. A Kingsford Smith that straddles the airport but has a reasonable balance of either side would be acceptable in my eyes.

I found another old map I drew which is the same as the one I posted earlier, but with Hughes shifted westward to retain its Liverpool portion. So basically everything south of the M5 and between Georges River (the western part) and Salt Pan Creek, plus Western Sutherland. Broadly consistent I think. The part east of Salt Pan Creek goes into both Barton and Watson (which takes in that Narwee/Riverwood portion that Chaisa mentioned). I don’t know if it causes issues for Watson however.

I think you’re right @Drake in that the main problem is convincing the committee that there’s a better way. I’m going to do my best to hammer the proposals for Hughes and McMahon but there’s not really a way to fix them without large scale changes.

In terms of just getting the job done, the proposal is pretty ingenious really. By holding Fowler in place, they’ve completely funnelled 0.5 quota surplus in Greater Northern Sydney into Blaxland/Watson and likewise have done the same for the surplus in Southwestern Sydney via Hughes/Cook.

They’ve managed to bring the underquota inner-city divisions from 10.15 quotas up to 10.87 quotas by doing so. Maybe that’s point that can be argued on. Even with a huge influx of electors from McMahon/Parramatta/Macarthur/Werriwa they still struggled to bring those 11 divisions up to a full quota.

You can tell by some of these cleaner arrangements around the south and eastern Sydney that others have suggested how literally the Redistribution Committee took its’ remit – “NSW has to lose one seat” and so it did and they had to force everything to work. Just like Higgins – “We have to take away one seat and then we adjust to make it work.” It makes theoretical sense but there’s clearly no intent or interest to actually look at the slightly bigger picture.

And we still have Werriwa “which was located in the electoral division when it was first established in 1901”. What a missed opportunity. Again.

People should absolutely put in further ideas using the current draft as the new baseline and then playing with those boundaries. Again, similar to WA and VIC, there is an additonal “further objection period (if required)” right at the end of the process.

Angas/G, I wonder if one of the AEC’s criteria (Electoral names must not be moved to other locations without strong reasons) prevents them from doing the ‘abolish a seat and create a new one elsewhere’ method that state electoral commissions readily use.

Maybe that criteria should be removed so important electoral names like Barton/Hughes for NSW and Deakin for Victoria can be readily removed from the map and moved to a different location to preserve the name.

After all these names are generic in nature and with online updates, people can easily figure out what the new name of their district will be after a redistribution.

@Peter
To your earlier point, I think it is a reasonable to critique the AEC for being risk averse.

My argument would be that the Section 66 requirements do not instruct them to maintain the current boundaries and minimise changes. It instructs them to adhere to the numerical constraints first and foremost, and then asks them to give “due consideration” to to more subjective community of interest, transport and physical features, and then finally to the boundaries of existing divisions as a subordinate goal.

Obviously the “due consideration” bit gives them a fair bit of room to effectively ignore everything other than the hard numerical constraints, but I think the spirit of the legislation is that they should seek to optimise boundaries given those subjective features, using the numerical bounds as a constraint not just as the primary goal.

It seems reasonable for them to add in extra principles if they like as long as they don’t prioritise them over what’s mandated in Section 66. There’s really nothing wrong with seeking to avoid changes. It makes a lot of sense to minimise disruption if there’s no case for change. But once they put the goal of minimising changes in front of community of interest concerns, then they’re not really adhering to Section 66, at least in spirit if not technically.

Particularly with divisions like McMahon and Hughes, where they’ve had these awkward and lacklustre configurations for decades, the commitee seems hesitant to change. Ensuring continuity of longstanding divisions is another thing they are not instructed to do. In fact, the whole point of redistributions is to account for the fact that communities change over time. The communities that make the most sense for X numbers of divisions shouldn’t just be assumed to be the same for Y numbers of divisions.

In short, preserving a division just because it has always been that way or just because it has the name of a prime minister isn’t the point of the process. If a division no longer makes sense it should be abolished or properly reconfigured. As @Yoh An mentioned, the state boundary commissions seem to understand this, so it shouldn’t be impossible for the federal body to do the same.

I do think the state elections using suburb and location names means they are much more willing to abolish seats than federally. The last Vic election abolished/changed names of 9 seats.

It’s a bit of a problem the naming of prominent figures has. There’s certain figures who deserve an electorate named after them and if you abolish their seat it’s hard to rename another seat that name without confusing people.

If they don’t expand parliament and we have to deal with them eventually not abolishing the seats of Keating, Abbott, Howard and Rudd. They are eventually going to run out of obvious seat names to abolish.

@G @Yoh An
Good observations.

I agree that its seems like they don’t really look at the bigger picture when making changes. The process they use seems very linear from my point of view.

I’d really love to see how the committee process plays out in reality. How long are the meetings? Do they sit around a spreadsheet testing changes, or do they have some kind of software where they draw boundaries and see what the numbers are? Or does the AEC just come up with a solution first and then give it to the committee to review and rubber-stamp it?

This is just speculation, but they way the AEC orders the report might reveal how they approach things:
– First they discuss which division is abolished
– Then they discuss division names
– Finally they discuss the actual boundary changes

On the other hand, I think most of us here would start with the boundaries first and then work out the names at the end. That seems like a less biased process.

If the names are influencing the drawing of boundaries I think that’s definitely a problem. It should always be communities first and labels afterwards. So perhaps a return to location names (as almost everywhere does) is actually a more robust strategy.

Something the AEC seems to hate doing is having seats trade voters with one another. They prefer for the movement to be only one way. A seat either loser voters to one seats or gains. They don’t like situations where it’s seat A gives this suburb to seat B, but takes this suburb from seat B. This leaves situations like Macnamara where they refuse to do a very sensible trade. No one who was tasked with drawing 38 seats in Victoria would come up with a configuration similar to how Macnamara/Melbourne Ports has been for so long.

I get that there are some seats like McEwen, which are realistically always going to have bad boundaries because they are the bits and pieces that don’t fit elsewhere. But a lot of the time a seat has had boundaries for so long and there is an easy fix and they just don’t seem interested. A seat maintaining its current boundaries shouldn’t matter if its current boundaries suck.

I feel like it’s going to take an arm and a leg to convince the AEC to consider swapping Scullin’s share of Mernda for McEwen’s share of Wollert. Despite the fact this would massive reduce the growth in McEwen and unite two suburbs.

@Yoh An – The names would be kept in the similar places to maintain consistency and expectation for the voter experience. eg. if you move Werriwa to actually Werriwa, then you get an ongoing flow of enquires with every variation of “why is my district somewhere else now” or” why am I voting in Werriwa, it’s 3 seats away”. It’s a bit (a large bit) of self preservation for the organisation. Unfortunately, it does means that changes that have some reasonably sound logic to them and that people would manage to work through with a little notice, education and time, for the most part don’t get very far.

For a name to change / go, it seems most likely that there has to be a very significant border change to justify it and then it either disappears completely or something brand new is used. Or if it’s a combining, then one of the combination is chosen.

Many of these names – Kooyong, Werriwa, Jagajaga, etc. are also words of Indigenous background, which is a stated reason of keeping them.

This is where we need a consistent division naming guideline approach but that may be for another time.

The more I look at this proposal, the more I think they might have actually done a better job with Victoria.

Victoria had a lot more obviously bizarre changes, but most of those can be fixed with small scale amendments. The overall strategy used was fine.

New South Wales on the other hand, it seems a lot more difficult to undo some of the less reasonable parts without significantly reworking a number of divisions. The decision to leave Fowler basically unchanged kind of forces both McMahon and Hughes to take on really awkward configurations.

It’s probably an impossible sell, but moving Fairfield into Fowler and Liverpool out would give a lot more room to improve the situation around Blacktown and Georges River.

On a lighter note, I’m not quite sure why the committee decided that Parramatta needed to gain that part of Seven Hills in Blacktown Council containing only 11 electors. Looks a bit like a teapot spout.

@Angas
I managed to draw a Werriwa Fowler and McMahon in a way that:
– McMahon is still based on Fairfield and lost most of northwestern sydney (blacktown, minchinbury, st clair, erskine park)
– Hughes does NOT have any of Campbelltown LGA, instead expanding it into Revesby
My and McMahon is extremely close to the edge of both permissible ranges though – both are more than 9.5% under and 3% over the actual and projected quota respectively.

I will upload McMahon later today. Fowler and Werriwa should be in the comments already.

This assumes an abolition of an Inner or Southern Sydney seat (Grayndler or Blaxland I assume) and the creation of something in Northwestern sydney because I felt like AEC not abolishing another seat (on top of Nsyd) messed things up in the draft.

@Leon
Didn’t see those maps originally. Must have been in the moderation queue.

That’s a decent approach! By keeping the core parts of McMahon/Fowler/Werriwa intact, it’s something that could be more appealing to the committee. Shifting Hughes into Revesby is a significant improvement over the proposal to move into Campbelltown. That probably makes Banks a good one to abolish.

I agree that we really need to hammer them on not abolishing a 2nd division. When the 11 divisions of Inner Sydney and Southern Sydney start at only 10.15 quotas it really makes no sense to not abolish one.

We’ve had 3 elections on the current boundaries and the population has shifted significantly since then. Now’s the perfect time for them to insert a new division into the Southeast or Northwest, particularly given they’ve already made large changes to Blacktown.

@Drake
I suppose that kind of scenario doesn’t come up too often, as a one-way transfer is often enough to get the job done. The only two-way trade I can think of would be between Lalor and Gellibrand at the last redistribution, but there’s probably a few more.

I agree that a Mernda/Wollert trade will be a difficult sell though, but I think it is worth a shot. There at least a few lines of argument for it.

Given that they seem determined to minimise elector transfers I’m trying as hard as possible to suggest amendments that transfer even fewer electors than proposed. Doesn’t work in every situation, but it might be the only thing they’re receptive to.

Here is McMahon:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nKxbcWSzR_OGTIyCZcdffXKbr0dgytKr/view?usp=sharing

I will probably just submit my objection that only actually specifies McMahon, Fowler and Werriwa but explain the general approach including the fact we NEED to abolish another seat, the location of a new seat, the general direction of Hughes and Kingsford Smith, and make references to S18 and CS14 (both by myself) as a one possible arrangement and to show it is mathematically possible to arrange the state like this.

As long as no Sydney electorate looks extremely terrible, I am happy. The worst that could possibly happen is something that looks like my Barton in S18 but this is still better than what AEC did with Hughes, McMahon or Kingsford Smith.

Side note, I hope the state government seriously reviews council boundaries after what was about to happen to Kingsford Smith – it literally reminded Ben Raue of the borders between Bosnia/Croatia.

It’s a tragedy that that the AEC even takes notice of most Council boundaries with Sydney, given the debacle some of the amalgamation were.

What if the AEC is messing with us?

What if they’re putting up messy boundaries around Sans Souci, Epping, Blacktown, and other places just to give us something to complain about? If they fixed everything properly, like they did Eden-Monaro, then we might have simply left them to it, and then they wouldn’t get as much feedback… and we know how much governments and corporations like feedback these days!

What if the halfhearted attempt for Kingsford-Smith to span the airport is so that when some of us say, “you should have gone further”, the AEC can use this critique and be more frank and fearless next time around? We can only hope…

—

On the point about minimising elector transfers, my take is that it’s ok to have higher transfers as long as the outcome can be justified. The bigger the shift, the better the reason needs to be to sell it. So I don’t think we should necessarily shy away from elector transfers, just sensible about it, and tell them why.

Looking at the NSW redistribution proposals, it’s got me both satisfied with some aspects, but disappointed in others.

1. I like the idea of abolishing a North Shore seat, but not the idea to abolish a federation seat in North Sydney and the way it’s been redistributed (unless if the AEC wants to abolish the guideline that Federation seat names should be preserved wherever possible). Surely the more logical solution would be to abolish Bradfield and pull North Sydney into Roseville, Lindfield and Killara whilst distributing the remainder of Hornsby (which they have done, points for that) and Turramurra into Berowra and have St Ives, East Killara, East Lindfield, Roseville Chase etc move into Mackellar. Making North Sydney a North-South oriented seat and splitting Lower and Upper North shore would make much more sense than the hodge-podge they have proposed.

2. Following on from the point above, whilst it makes sense for Kylea Tink to transfer to Bradfield and pit herself against Paul Fletcher, given Nicolette Boele has been making a profile for herself in the electorate since the last election she’d have just as a good chance of being elected as Tink. In any cases Paul Fletcher should be very worried given that his seat was the only Liberal seat that voted Yes in the Voice referendum despite it being soundly defeated everywhere else. Bradfield certainly gives a very Teal vibe and it’s now absolutely within reach.

3. Bennelong looks like it’s been redistributed back into the John Howard days by being pulled eastwards to take up Lane Cove and the western parts of North Sydney. On paper it’s looking much better for the Liberals to hold onto demographic-wise but given that the part that are being redistributed did quite well from a Teal perspective, it’s also possible that Kylea Tink could run here instead and give Scott Yung and Jerome Laxale a run for their money and she would be well-positioned to win given that the demos in this area are becoming younger and more tealish. Of course Labor having an incumbent would also help despite the addition of very unfriendly territory for them. But if Jerome Laxale campaigns hard and works the personal connection with the electorate like John Alexander did he could hold on.

3. South of the harbour is just an absolute mess, but more on the messier parts later. Wentworth doesn’t look too bad with the added areas from Sydney and it kind of aligns well-ish in some ways with the state seat of Sydney which includes the Labor friendly inner-eastern suburbs combined with the affluent eastern bayside suburbs. Not sure if the addition of Randwick and Coogee are necessary but that’s a small issue. The biggest issue is Kingsford Smith looking like a dog’s breakfast. What is the meaning of having Brighton-Le-Sands and Monterey in the same electorate as the airport? Just seems to be an addition for the sake of adding electors. Barton as a result looks like it’s done the same thing with suburbs added in from Watson added for the sake of adding without considering the areas of community interests. Banks looks alright, but I don’t see the connection of adding Punchbowl when that community is much more mutual in connections with Watson than the ever-increasingly affluent Banks.

4. Now, the absolute elephant in the room that is Sydney’s South Western suburbs. McMahon looks like they’ve stitched up a combination of neighbouring electorates with Prospect Reservoir as the centre of the circle. Just looks absolutely atrocious. Hughes is also quite messy with it now stretching across Sutherland to Liverpool area which is two communities of completely different interests and commonalities (e.g. what would Engaldine and Macquarie Fields have in common?). Who on earth thought that was a good idea? Werriwa loses its southern end but the western parts that are fast-growing remains.

5. Regionally, Hume moving to a Camden/Wollondilly-based seat makes sense, but maybe not for Goulburn-based Angus Taylor. Whitlam taking the south-eastern part of Hume makes sense in expanding the rural territory and likes it up with Bowral and Moss Vale quite effectively, though it would not surprise me if Whitlam soon moves out of Wollongong/Shellharbour permanently in the near future. Riverina and Eden-Monaro seems to have resolved the issues that were previously associated in terms of territory and alignment. Western Snowy mountains into Riverina and Goulburn into Eden-Monaro. Good to see Parkes back in, you know, Parkes.

5. North of the state, I reckon Barnabus will be happy to see coal territory Muswellbrook and the Upper Hunter transferred into New England. Labor will be glad that Hunter will eat into some of the safer lower Hunter area, but Paterson now becomes risky as it’s now solely based on Maitland, Port Stephens and Raymond Terrace, and given that votes in this electorate fluctuates, this could be a luck of the draw come election night. Still not impressed that only half of Port Macquarie is in Lyne with the other half in Cowper (which already has Coffs Harbour). How hard is it for them to include at least one major centre in each seat on the North Coast (e.g. Coffs Harbour is the base for Cowper, Pt Macquarie for Lyne, I know Taree is technically a ‘big’ centre but it’s nowhere in the same scale as Pt Macquarie).

Just my two cents overall. Some good things, but plenty to improve upon for the AEC to consider before final maps are done later this year.

@Leon
That’s a much better version of McMahon than the current and the proposed boundaries. Maintains a good, cohesive identity that way.

Along the lines of your proposal, I’ve been playing around with inner-Sydney divisions where Hughes moves no further west than it already is. I’ve abolished Banks and split it between Hughes, Watson and Barton, and done the full transfer of Kingsford Smith up to Princes Highway. Every division works quite nicely, generally along LGA boundaries, with the exception of Blaxland which ends up with an extra 0.15 of a quota that probably needs to go to McMahon or Parramatta. Do you still think the transfer of Silverwater/Olympic Park/Wentworth Point is the best way to handle the small surplus in inner Sydney?

@High Street
Even worse is that they tend to ignore the actually decent LGA boundaries, but adhere to all the rest.

I’d be interested to know your thoughts on how they handled the North Shore if you have time. I believe you were hoping for something a bit more bold, as I was.

@Peter
That’s an interesting thought. Could well be the case. It’s often a good way to get one’s preferred proposal past the “gatekeepers”. Add a few really bizarre details that people will inevitably focus most of their attention on, so that your actual desired ideas get less pushback.

@Tommo9
Good summary of things. Do you have any ideas of how they should resolve the issues with McMahon and Hughes?

@Tommo9 I very much agree with you. I’ve proposed that Lyne gets most of Port Macquarie from Cowper while Cowper gets Woolgoolga from Page.

Map coming soon.

NP Tommo
Putting Woolgoolga and the areas between it and Coffs Harbour is a nice idea BUT the numbers don’t work. It is taking so many electors out of Page that it either doesn’t or is very close to being at the minimum end. There is really no choice but for Port Macquarie to be split in some way between Lyne and Cowper. In the submission process, I looked at how to get Port Macquarie into Cowper – the only way was for Cowper to almost wrap around and for Port Macquarie to be connected by a long thin (a few hundred metres wide) strip. The other issue is (except for Cowper) the numbers pressure is further south in Hunter and Paterson so pushing Lyne northwards creates a problem further south. For the foreseeable future, everywhere north of the Hawkesbury is stuck with having to accommodate a half seat.

@Angas
I haven’t checked the numbers since I finished McMahon but maybe it is possible to put Olympic Park and Wentworth Point (connected to Homebush/Rhodes) into Reid while putting Silverwater and Newington into Parramatta (given its proximity to at least Rydalmere and Ermington which are both now in Parramatta).
I think the new Parra LGA boundaries have a few weird aspects to it but it definitely is something you can work with unlike the straight-up insanity of Bayside LGA.

Btw I was thinking Grayndler could go because it is based on Inner West LGA, which used to be 3 councils.
I move Ashfield and Haberfield to Reid to unite ethnic groups (noting there ain’t much Italians living in Leichhardt now),
Move former Leichhardt LGA into Sydney because that is what they used to do
And move Summer Hill and former Marrickville LGA into someting else (I did Barton in S18 though maybe Watson is possible too)
And then I make Banks fully St George