What do the Queensland redistribution submissions say?

By
Ben Raue
-
143

The first round of public submissions for the Queensland state redistribution were published last week – about three weeks after they were submitted to the Commission. So I thought it would be useful to examine what they say, with a particular focus on the major party submissions.

There are four rounds of submissions:

  • Suggestions
  • Comments on suggestions
  • Objections to the draft redistribution
  • Commons on objections

Just over one hundred suggestions were lodged. The major parties typically make detailed submissions covering the whole state, while many others focus on a particular element of the state, sometimes with a large number of submissions making the same case.

This time around, there was a number of others who made quite thorough suggestions, with Tally Room commenters well represented.

The Liberal National Party made a full statewide submission, with their own boundary maps. The QRC originally did not publish any shapefiles that had been submitted with suggestions, but thanks to Tally Room member Travis making a request, these were published later. The LNP submission did not include any statistics on the population numbers in each of their proposed seats, but with the shapefiles it is possible to make estimates on the number of voters moved, and the estimated margin in the new seats.

The Labor submission was unfortunately short on details. It does not include any maps, and the suggestions are vague and not specific. They will sometimes suggest a general direction a seat should move in, or that a particular seat need not be changed significantly. Labor did not provide maps, and did not even provide enough detail to draw my own maps. So I can’t calculate precise numbers for them.

Both submissions seemed to aim for minimal change. The Labor submission, for example, argues that the seats of northern Brisbane don’t require any changes beyond what can be done within the area, despite most seats in the area being overquota. The LNP submission leaves 17 seats in northern Brisbane collectively 41.3% of a seat over quota (an average of 2.4% over quota). While that deviation for one seat would be reasonable, I don’t think it’s acceptable for a region to be half a quota over and just draw every seat as a bit bigger than average.

The LNP submission moves 16.4% of voters. That does seem high but I don’t have a great comparison to a neutral map. The last redistribution in 2016 moved 21.8% for voters, but that redistribution added five seats to the parliament. This one doesn’t involve a change in seat numbers. Overall it appears that the LNP were willing to draw unusual boundaries without making bigger systemic shifts, while Labor tried to keep changes to a minimum.

The LNP submission abolishes two seats – KAP-held Hill in the far north, and Labor-held in Toohey. They replace them with Labor-held Greenbank in the outer south-west of Brisbane, and LNP-held Caboolture on the northern edge of Brisbane. Labor does not abolish or create any seats.

The LNP has proposed twelve seats be renamed. Most of these seem to be responses to names implemented in 2016. Five changes are directly reversing decisions to rename seats in 2016. In one other, an old name (Sunnybank) was imposed on Stretton while Sunnybank’s successor Toohey was abolished. In four other cases (Cooper, Bonney, Macalister, Bancroft), a renamed or new seat from 2016 has been given a fresh name. Labor makes no name changes.

Now the most interesting bit: the partisan impact. Unfortunately I can’t do these calculations for Labor, although I expect they are less dramatic. The LNP submission flips six Labor seats to be notional LNP seats – Aspley, Bundaberg, Gaven, Ipswich West, Pine Rivers and Springwood. In addition, the replacement of Hill with Caboolture flips KAP’s third seat to a seventh LNP gain. Overall it increases the LNP’s numbers from 52 seats to 59 – increasing an eleven-seat majority to a 25-seat majority.

The uniform swing needed for the LNP to lose their majority would increase from 1.9% to 3.0%, while the swing needed for Labor to gain a majority increases from 3.7% to 4.6%.

Amongst other suggestions, there are quite a few dealing with one specific part of the state. There was clearly a campaign to put in submissions dealing with the towns or suburbs of Calliope, Mount Cotton and Cooroy. It is hard to say what the impact of such suggestions would be without knowing the broader knock-on effects.

This map compares the 2017-24 boundaries to the LNP’s submission.

There are also a number of submissions which deal with matters outside of the powers of the Queensland Redistribution Commission. There are a number of submissions which call for more malapportionment to allow for less populous rural seats compared to denser areas. The KAP submission argues that the “ghost electors” allowance for large electors double from 2% of square kilometres to 4%.

Quite possibly the most astounding submission comes from Western Downs Regional Council, who argue the ghost electors should increase to 5%, that this rule should apply to electorates half as big as the current rule, but also argue for a minimum electorate size of 75 square kilometres. This would affect a huge number of electorates – 39 out of 93 seats in the current Legislative Assembly have an area of less than 75 square kilometres. To implement such a change would severely reduce the power of urban Queensland and force severe malapportionent.

So what comes next?

The next round of submissions, making comments on the suggestions, closes in two weeks, on Monday 22 September. Anyone can make a comment. After comments are published the Commission will take its time to prepare the draft redistribution map. It is expected that the Commission will publish this map in early 2026.

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143 COMMENTS

  1. @John I summarised that in my comments together with my response. I didn’t name the authors though.

    Review of group geographic locality issues
    There were a number of group submissions arguing that certain areas should be put into particular electorates, generally using restatements of the same argument. While I am inclined to accommodate those requests I am also aware of the need to follow the Quota guidelines as well as the Additional Considerations outlined by both the QRC and the Electoral Act.

    Mulgrave/Hill S-087, S-102, S-103, S-111
    There were four submissions arguing that Babinda should return to Mulgrave and not remain in Hill. The difficulty is that the Cairns LGA currently has 2.313 quotas and is projected to fall to 2.279.The Cairns seats are Cairns, Barron River and Mulgrave. The argument that the Cairns LGA should be split amongst three electorates instead of four is a valid consideration. My submission left Babinda in Hill as the communities in the southern part of the electorate have large gaps between them. However it is certainly possible to share the Cairns LGA amongst the three electorates by incorporating parts of other adjoining electorates to fill three quotas; or more simply by stretching the tolerance for the existing electorate of Mulgrave.

    Toowomba South/Condamine S-013, S-023 Westbrook should stay in Condamine electorate and not get moved to Toowoomba South. This is a reasonable submission based on community of interest considerations and I avoided moving this area in my submission. Both North and South Toowoomba are reasonably balanced and simply require internal adjustments.

    Gladstone/Callide S-002, S-004, S-005, S-006, S-007, S-009, S-010, S-011, S-012, S-034, S-035, S-038, S-039
    Multiple submissions stated that “Calliope should be included in the Gladstone electorate, not Callide”. One submission argued against including Calliope in Gladstone (S-008) and specifically states “I have a good relationship with my MP”, a factor outside the allowable considerations.
    It is an easy adjustment and I made the choice to include Calliope within the electorate of Gladstone.

    Noosa/Ninderry/Nicklin S-050, S-073, S-088, S-044, S-045, S-046, S-047, S-051, S-053, S-054, S-055, S-058, S-059, S-063, S-064, S-066, S-067
    The majority of submissions argued for the inclusion of Cooroy within the electorate of Noosa. Additional submissions also included Peregian Springs and Peregian Beach; Eumundi; Doonan and Verrierdale. There was also a submission to exclude Rainbow Beach, not currently within the Noosa electorate. The estimated population of the Noosa Shire Council is 59,274 with an annual growth rate steady at 1.1 percent. Noosa’s planning decisions also mean that it will continue to grow at a slower rate than adjoining LGAs or Queensland as a whole. The entirety of the Noosa LGA cannot be contained within the State electorate, consequently the choice is centred around which bits to leave out. Eumundi, Doonan, Verrierdale and Peregian Springs are not within the Noosa LGA. I am in favour of continuing to use the Bruce Highway as a natural boundary and, if needed, removing Peregian Beach from Noosa and including it with Peregian Springs in Ninderry.

    Kawana/Caloundra S-083, S-082, S-084, S-098
    These submissions argued for the inclusion of Kawana Forest within the electorate of Kawana instead of Caloundra. With the extreme growth in Caloundra’s population this change will happen naturally and I’ve included that in my submission. It also means that all of the areas named Kawana will be within the Kawana electorate, reducing confusion.

    Redlands/Springwood S-104, S-024, S-025, S-026, S-027, S-028, S-029, S-031
    These submissions argue that the suburb of Mount Cotton should be in the Redlands electorate and not Springwood. The Springwood electorate stretches across the Logan and Redlands LGA while the Redlands LGA can quite comfortably contain the entirety of Capalaba, Oodgeroo and Redlands within its border. My original submission had Mount Cotton in Capalaba but I have amended the three Redlands electorates to move it into the Redlands electorate. Submission S-024 argued for Sheldon to be moved from Springwood and it is relatively easy to place it within Capalaba, a more suitable fit for both community-of-interest and transport benefits. Submission S-020 urged that the Bay Islands be included within Springwood; not only impossible within the numerical jump required to do so, but also disappointing to see coming from an elected Councillor.

    Mount Ommaney/Miller/Inala S-043, S-052, S-056, S-057
    Mount Ommaney’s population, much like Moggill on the other side of the river, has continued to shrink relative to the rest of Queensland. S-052 and S-057 argue that the expansion should grow further into Sherwood, while submissions S-43 and S-056 argue that it should incorporate Wacol. My view is that neither of these submissions go far enough. I have argued that the electorate should include the entirety of Graceville, Chelmer and Sherwood, contained within the Oxley SA2 and bounded by the Walter-Taylor Bridge crossing. Adding Wacol and the remainder of Darra breaks the existing community of interest as well as historical links for Inala and the history of “Servicetown” – https://eprints.qut.edu.au/4995/ .

  2. “My submission left Babinda in Hill as the communities in the southern part of the electorate have large gaps between them.”

    I’m not entirely following your logic here. Can you elaborate?

  3. @mark yore

    i moved all of cairns out of hill into mulgrave and did a boundary adjustment with cairns. barron river ive left as is.

    i solved Toowoomba South by reuniting Kearneys Springs and Darling Heights back into Toowomba South. i also reunited Newtown into Toowoomba South. I also added the remainder of Toowoomba Regional plus everything south of Taromeo into Condamine. i then removed the Clifton-Greenmount SA1s into southern downs alonf with the localities of Grassdale and the remainder of Cecil Plains. Given toowoomba covers 4 different setas now instead of 5 i renamed then Toowoomba North is just Toowoomba. Toowoomba South is Harristown. Condamine is now Oakey due to the fact the Condamine river is basically now in Southern Downs.

    i placed cooran in to noosa and cooroy up to the freeway.

    i left kawana untouched. but moved all of landsborough and beerwah from caloundra to glass house. next redistribution once caloundras numbers have settled kawana will probably move to Bowman Road meaning Caloundra will need to be renamed. Kawana will probably lose all of Meridian Plains to a new seat. changing it into a North/South seat

    i agree that redlands city can be containted within Redlands, Capalaba and Oodgeroo whichi ive renmed Cleveland. i put sheldon and mount cotton into Redlands, Thornlands into Oodgeroo/Cleveland and Birkdale along with everything west of mains road and south of Birkdale Road into Capalaba.

    ive move everthing west of the Oxley Creek into Mount Omaneny and then moved everything south of the railway line up to englefield road and logan avenue into Inala to balance it out. but now that i think about it i should have moved inala up to Sumners Road instead

  5. @Real Talk There’s a problem with Babinda, and in much of regional Queensland. There are population centres that are entirely surrounded by very large low population areas, but to get to that pocket you have to add the entire area. That’s not a problem in the middle of electorates but it does extend seats significantly at the edges, mostly because the SA1s are not as granular as they need to be and I really, really hate splitting SA1s. The other problem with Cairns is that there’s not much you can do with the surrounding seats – Cook is really well balanced and Traegar is … well Traegar.

    However I acknowledge that your suggestion as previously noted is a good way to put Babinda into the Cairns seats.

    So first of all for those areas I looked at whether it was possible to achieve what the submitters wanted and whether it made sense. In most cases it was. Then I looked at the trade-offs and where other people would be potentially affected. In a few cases I looked at whether the changes would cascade or whether they could be self-contained.The Redlands LGA is a great example of being able to move internal boundaries without creating a mess elsewhere.

    For some seats I’ve been reluctant to tinker with them because they’re working fine now – Whitsunday and the two Toowoomba seats come to mind. Some of the proposals for Whitsunday in particular are bizarre.

    At the next redistribution I have allowed for the other areas of Traegar, Cook and Gregory to potentially merge into two seats to allow further expansion of the Cairns seats north into the urban coastal area. However that needs the Large Area weighting to be removed and additional resources to be put into those over-sized areas, both of which are out of the scope of the QRC.

    I was agnostic on the Large Area Weighting going into this process, but the profoundly stupid arguments in favour of expanding it convinced me the best option would be to remove it entirely.

  9. @Real Talk Unfortunately I didn’t have time to recalculate the impact on the rest of my submission, otherwise I would have done it. My guess is that Babinda will just be moved into Mulgrave and there will be a general acceptance that good enough is good enough. The problem in the regional areas is that the population density just isn’t there.

    @john Almost all of those submissions are reasonable. It’s going to be interesting to see how many organised campaigns are going to object to them. The changes to the Large Area weighting have to start sometime so it might as well be now. Once you start getting electorates where the vote is almost twice that of people in other areas it needs to be addressed.

  10. Marke still they won’t change it and we are talking about 2 seats in the entire state Gregory and traegar as warrego and cook are less reliant on them. And they are afforded it because these are seats used to provide the wealth and food for the state and you have to remember there are a lot of temporary residents in these seats namely FIFO who spend a bit of time in these seats while probly not have their registration there. No govt is going to change it to its detriment certainly not the lnp govt anyway.

  13. While we wait for the comments to be published, I want to shoutout the amazing Angas for making the Queensland State Redistribution Tool!

    You’re an absolute legend for making the tool for us nerds!!!

  14. @RB:P Angas is an absolute hero. I sent through a few suggested changes but hopefully we’ll have a new improved tool for the Federal redistribution next year.

    @John, yes they won’t change it and it’s outside the scope of the QRC. However the QRC has the ability to address these issues in their final report and also at Estimates. The contribution or otherwise of an area has absolutely no influence on how the boundaries are drawn. FIFO workers mostly aren’t part of the population counts (sort of – it depends on exactly when the Census happens and how people interpret the term “ordinarily resident”).

    Now, some history. Up to 1949 seats were designed on a one-vote, one-value system with a variance of 30%. In those days the population was nowhere near as concentrated in SEQ as it is now. In 1949 the ALP introduced a zonal system that provided a weighting for seats based on their size and their distance from Brisbane. This had the net effect of increasing the number of ALP seats at a time when they were very strong in regional areas and had the wide support of rural workers, particularly shearers. When the ALP split in 1957 the net impact favoured the Country Party in regional seats.

    Changing demographics has altered the vote across the board and it’s probably too long to go into here. But of the four Large Area seats, the LNP currently holds 3 and KAP holds 1. However Cook is traditionally a marginal Labor seat and Traegar is a solid KAP seat, so any changes to the Large Area electorates would be neutral at best. Changing it to two electorates would result in Gregory continuing to be LNP and Traegar/Cook being a three way race.

  16. The nakedly partisan calls for malapportionment yet again make me glad for our impartial system and not having the US system where such suggestions would actually be implemented.

  17. Cook and Warrego aren’t as reliant on ghost voters as Gregory and traegar and according to raue the ghost voters only add up to .70 of a seat. So you’d get 3 seats not 4. But the problem is it creates very large seats. These seats are so vast and low on population because they aren’t used to support populations as they are to house the economic and food engines of the state. This is why they are so under populated and removing the lda would only serve to reduce regional representation. It was Labor who introduced the lda when they removed the bjeke gerrymander era. There is no political will to remove the lda and I doubt it will happen. Cook would be unwinnable for Labor under your rules. The way Cook is trending I reckon it will eventually be a KAP seat at last election the 3cp was very close. KAP have the luxury of never going to be in government so there won’t be any reason for people to vote against them however the major parties will continue to lose their vote shares. And eventually KAP will make the 2cp when that happens both the lnp and lab will preference them ahead of each other thereby guaranteeing their win. Although OPV may shake that up. Also I’d wager the only thing making traegar solidly KAP is Robbie being in that seat. Bob Katter is probably in his last term. So if Robbie takes over Kennedy at the next election and the LnP can maintain their honeymoon they would have a go at it.

    Qld is not the only state with this LDA as it also occurs in WA although the problem in WA is not as bad due to the lower overall population of the state and a few population centre in the middle of them such as Kalgoorlie instead of like in tragar where the population centre is on the edge the same in Warrego and gregory

  18. I just checked the legislation on the requirements for the ECQ to publish the comments. The latest we can expect to see them is the 13th of October 🙂

    [Electoral Act 1992, Division 3, Section 43(3)]
    “As soon as practicable after the 21 days, the commission must make available for public inspection, without fee, copies of all comments given to it within the 21 days”

  19. I asked the QRC on their Facebook page and they said “next month” a few days ago. When I asked for specifics they said a date hasn’t been determined

  20. anyway im looking forward to te federal redistributions starting next week. i im gonna focus on the tas and sa ones first and then the act last if i have time. the act may not even require any changes.

  21. I’ll look forward to reviewing the “Johnmander” in SA about the only way you’ll be able to get the Libs out of the ditch there.

    The only thing interesting in the ACT is if Jessie Smith runs again in Bean.

  22. funny. i dont have access or the time to look at booths and do that. il leav that to the state liberals. it a bit difficult to d when there are only 10 seats. the main issues are in spence makin and mayo. which are ironically the 3 seats i want to work on. i want to unti the city of salibury into a single seat and push mayo to the Onkaparinga river. and remove the city of mitcham will likely reslut in the adelaide hill being removed as well. this will help labor in mayo and boothby

  24. Hill won’t be getting abolished. Forget it’s at quota it would be impractical to divide u p the parts of it. The suggestion to abolish a regional is a partisan one. But the LNP have to try because it makes no sense to abolish your own seats. As labor did not either. The LNP hold almost all the regional.seats and it would be I.possible to abolish any of the labor ones. Hill should remain but some minor adjustments maybe necessary. For example removing cairns and putting in the cassowary coast. Which is more convenient for those residents then going to Townsville.

  27. @John
    Was just about to share that link funnily enough!

    @RP @Mark
    Many thanks for the support and suggestions!

  28. Like the federal redistribution/s, it appears the comments have a few recurring themes to them:

    1. Avoid abolishing Hill district
    2. Keep Strathpine and surrounding suburbs in Pine Rivers
    3. Keep Highfields in Toowoomba North and don’t transfer it to Condamine.

  29. Most are just people botching about Hill, Toowoomba North and Pine rivers. I did rate a me tion in one comments about my solutions for north Queensland.

  32. Damn, I didn’t get to be the last submission. 🙂

    I’m going to start filtering the documents. I’ve looked at a random sample of about 20 comments so far and realise we need to start teaching people about how government works…

    @Angas You made this redistribution a lot easier. I also have a few more suggestions now that I’ve had a chance to look at the code.

  35. @mark i just flicked through the major parities. And several of the important ones. I browed a few pine rivers Toowoomba and hill just to be sure but it’s just like the wa state redistribution people just using the opportunity to have a whinge

  38. Yep sub 114. I got the paperwork finished and the % and quotas all done but had no time for the maps. Though I went into great detail on the written report so it would be easy to extrapolate maps from that. Apologies agin I’m a busy man. Waiting at sd airport for my flight to nyc. Expect some odd hours posts

  39. Without having forward projection data to 2039 i was able to use the tool to extrapolate close to 0 seats for the next redistribution. Based on my own submissions I estimate another new seat in the Sunshine Coast. At the expense of a seat in near regional Queensland. In this case nanango or Gympie. I also abolished Burdekin in exchange for another regional seat in nearby Keppel. Pushing closer into Rockhampton then the current seat and pushing Rockhampton in to the regional council. I also experiment with pushing Mackay onto the north side of the pioneer river as opposed to the current arrangement where it is split. Inala would spill over into greenbank or w/e as mount omnanet would need to spread south to avoid crossing the oxley creek. And given its eastern border is a creek also it makes sense that any brisbane/Logan crossing be done there. It would also probly result ina Logan gold coast crossover as the surplus demands it need more then 11 seats but not quite enough for 12. Ipswich would cross the Brisbane river into moggill or vice versa. And a new hybrid Moreton bay/ Sunshine Coast come back in a reduced sized glass house. The changes I’ve done put traegar gregory and cook into close enough to level however Warrego would need to move further into western Downs. These changes would push callide into nanango resulting in its or Gympie abolition. Of course these numbers are not drawn against any future numbers that do not exist. Just something I did in my spare time to see where qld was going.

  40. @John What I did propose, specifically for matters outside the scope of the redistribution, was to extend the time available to make submissions as well as providing access to tools that help make those submissions. I’m a bit terrified reading some of these responses now who don’t have a clear idea of what this part of the process entails.

    Maybe the QRC should be more explicit on what the redistribution submissions can and can’t cover. Even if there was a checklist for people to complete before lodgement.

  41. Some people rightly use it a means to have their opinions heard. Whether it conforms of not. I mean 100 submissions and ealr y 500 comments. Most of which are people complaining about what they see is partisan suggestions at the request of the local member no doubt.

  42. @John I’m not overly concerned about comments based on the lodged submissions. The QRC will make their own mind up about that. However I’m interested in how the QRC treats a couple of submissions that took the opportunity to lodge their entire submission now. I suggest that making updates to your own submission is fine, however lodging a new submission at this point of the process removes the opportunity for other people to challenge the basic reasoning behind it. eg. CS-491

    But yeah, if they want well-argued submissions we need more time to be able to work on it.

  43. Mel i dont mind some people obviously didnt know or have time during the original period. I read that submission too. Actually it’s the first thing I read. Started with Z.

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