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.
Oh dear… that Greenbank district is awful.
My submission outlined a consistent naming process rather then the randomised approach by the QRC at the last redistribution. After looking through each of the submissions I am going to change my approach for the Capalaba/Oodgeroo/Redlands area as an acceptance of the approach of other submissions. There’s a few other examples where I’ll be arguing for elements of other submissions over my own.
However moving Moreton Island from Redcliffe to Lytton is correct, as is moving Macalister to the other side of the Logan River. For that last one it’s just me and The Greens. 🙂
The abolition of Toohey had more supporters than the alternatives – abolishing Mansfield or Stretton or doing nothing.
There’s no such thing as a right submission, but there’s lots of examples of wrong submissions!
Of the major party submissions the KAP one was appalling; The Greens didn’t step outside the Greater Brisbane Area except to say that a Townsville seat should be abolished (without any data to support it); the ALP submission required a Delphic oracle to discern what they actually wanted to do; and the LNP submission was missing any actual data. From a quick look some of the proposed seats may not meet the quota requirements.
While it doesn’t form part of my response I’m also going to suggest a few changes for the QRC to consider before they go to the Estimates hearings next year. The first it to consider whether the time period for members of the public to lodge submissions is adequate given the increase in the number of seats and the complexity required to calculate the quota. I would also like to suggest that the QRC update the tools required to make it easier to generate submissions. I’m also going to suggest removing the weighting for Large Areas entirely and increasing the resources available to those Members. This will hopefully inform the QRC post-redistribution.
With the growth of AI it would be worthwhile for the QRC and Parliament to look at pre-qualifying submissions to determine their validity. The option to still submit, or the opportunity to amend, submissions that are incorrect should be preserved but where possible people should be made aware of why their submission way not be valid. The fact that three out of four Local Government submissions were non-compliant was concerning.
A 75 km2 area based on the Brisbane CBD would go from Ashgrove to Clayfield to Coorparoo and across to Indooroopilly. There were even worse suggestions though – S.95 suggested “Grossly unfair as there needs to be other considerations for issues other than the old process “one vote one value””. S.70 suggested that the Queensland Redistribution Commission review be halted until it can assure the Queensland public that the electoral roll is accurate. S.60 requested that “Boundaries not to be redrawn purely on population density.” and S.71 suggested to “Keep old boundaries held by non-major party candidates”.
If I were a ratepayer in the Western Downs, I would be severely questioning the collective wisdom of my civic leaders.
FYI, the first of the emails from elected Members on the redistribution – https://mailchi.mp/nikkiboyd/nikki-boyd?e=d759692339
Lnp rort