The Australian Electoral Commission yesterday published the official statistics that will be used for federal redistributions in South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT. This gives us a bit more insight into what is likely to happen in those redistributions.
Electorates must be drawn so each seat is within 10% of average enrolment at the start of the process (in this case, August 2025), but also so that seats are within 3.5% of the average for a projected enrolment three-and-a-half years after the end of the process (in this case, April 2030). That second rule is much stricter, and thus ends up being more important in the drawing of new seats.
In a previous post, I looked at the population patterns based on June enrolment data. But we didn’t have projected data until yesterday afternoon. So for this post I will look at that second set of datapoints.
Not one seat deviates from the first quota by more than 10%. Nine seats deviate from the projected quota by more than 3.5%: Barker, Bass, Bean, Canberra, Clark, Lyons, Makin, Mayo and Spence.
Firstly, South Australia.
The biggest deviations are in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. Spence is projected to be 12% over quota, while the neighbouring seat of Makin is almost 8% under quota. Mayo is also about 8% over, while Barker is almost 4% under quota. Pretty much every other seat is slightly under quota.
It seems most likely that Spence will shrink, and the surplus voters will mostly go into Makin. Mayo will also need to shrink, likely giving some of those surplus voters to Barker.
In Tasmania, the Hobart-area seat of Clark is projected to be 10% under quota. So Clark will need to grow. Franklin is 3.2% over quota, so can absorb some of that growth, but it will be necessary for Clark to expand north into parts of northern Hobart that are currently contained in Lyons. That central seat is almost 10% over the projected quota. Bass is also 4.4% under quota, so will also need to take more voters from Lyons.
Right now Lyons includes outer suburban areas in both the Hobart and Launceston areas, and they will be the first to be cut, making Lyons more of a rural seat. It’s hard to see any scenario that doesn’t make Lyons more favourable for the Liberal Party.
There just aren’t that many different ways to shift populations in these small jurisdictions with a small number of electorates, and that is particularly true of the ACT. The growth in the ACT has been fastest in the south, with the southern electorate of Bean 7.6% over quota. While the northern seat of Fenner is slightly under quota, it’s the central seat of Canberra which is most under. So I expect we’ll see Canberra expand south, probably taking in parts of Woden or Weston Creek. Fenner can be mostly left alone, but it could gain some more of the Belconnen area to produce more equal numbers.
@CJ I was referring to the fact that from now until at least 2030 there will be at least 1 redistribution going on at either state or federal level currently we have qld state. Ta’s act and say federal redistributions. By the time those wrap up the qld federal redistribution will have started. By the time that’s finished the wa NT and act will have started. By the time those have finished the sa state will have started then shortly after the Vic state redistribution. Then the nsw state. In 2029. That will finish in early 2030. 2029 will likely see qld and probably wa get an additional seat. Which will be finished mid 2030.
So there’s the possibility that people in WA and qld will have been in 3 different seats in 3 elections in a row
That’s true. I think that Keilor bit north of the M79 has been switching seats for the last few elections.
Anyone got any idea of approx when we can expect a draft of the federal and state redistributions
Given how long it took the federal one last time, I’m guessing sometime mid-to-late next year.
yea id say mid -l ate march -april. sa tas and act are alot smaller and have less work to do then some of the bigger states
id say we will get a proposal on qld state around the same time based off previous timeline
ACT should be pretty straight-forward, so too SA. Tasmania will depend on if the AEC wants to fix up Franklin.
yes based on the last redistributions in all 3 id say late march – early april for those 3. id say mid april fo the queensland state redistribution
@CJ regrading qld yes if it was to gain another seat they could remain as is but i dont think it will this time around i think it will fall short and get its 31st seat in 2029
@jwood you might was to add in a remove seat option because at the moment if add an addition seat elsewhere and reduce an under quota seat to 0 it still thinks there are the same seats. i.e if you add 2 new seats to qlds state redistribution and abolish 2 others. those 2 abolished seats still count and the quota think there are now 95 eats.
If I may add another request to an already excellent program – would it be possible in the ‘highlight’ feature to place a bold border (perhaps in red?) around the exterior of the selected division, and perhaps the colour of the highlighted division changed to a default colour (e.g. “Rankin gold”) for highlighting which is clearly different from the default map. I’ve found it difficult to distinguish the boundaries of Capricornia and Bonner in the Qld 2026 page due to the greys and greens being practically the same colours as the map features (e.g. national parks). If the highlighted divisions were the same colour when selected, that would assist in the quality of map-making and submissions.
in regards to the curent leichardt redistributio i think it can gain all of mareeba from kennedy and then kennedy can move up to anderson road in cairns. and then move up to the alice and Black rivers in herbert. ive also put palm island into kennedy since there is a transport route from lucinda. also gains winton and diamantina from maranoa. herbert can then take the rest of alice river suburb from kennedy along with the part of bohle plains north of little bohle river. and annandale from dawson. Dawson can push further into Mackay down to the Aliigator River. Cparicornia then gains all of Rocky Regional and Central Highlands from Flynn. Flynn can encircle hinkler which is already at quota down to the outskirts of gympie . ive made flynn the new wide bay to preserve the federation name.
once qld gets its next seat kennedy could possibly regain marreba shire and lose townsville and ravenswood making it alot smaller
@real talk you can right click and change the colour
@John Thanks so much! I didn’t realise that was a feature. Hats off again to the wonderful creators.
John
The passenger ferries and air services link Palm Island with Townsville. Lucinda is a freight barge. PI has much stronger community of interest with Herbert than anywhere else.
Kennedy was a Cloncurry/Mt Isa electorate, now based on Innisfail, 1,000 kms away by road.
Instead of continually enlarging Kennedy in a search for electors, why not abolish it and take up the slack between the other 6 seats partially or wholly north of the Tropic of Capricorn?
@John I’ve got Leichhardt gaining Bentley Park and parts of Edmonton from Kennedy, but also losing Kuranda to Kennedy. I’m not seeing much of a point to keep such a big split of Cairns, so I’m looking to reunite the city in the seat.
Kennedy can then crawl further into Townsville, and Dawson can lose the remainder of Townsville.
Yep and you can also change the name now too. The highlight feature is already there also. In the bottom left I think of the map. You can also show lga boundaries.
@rediatributed there is still a transport link and Kennedy is in much more need of voters that doesn’t increase its territory much.
@gympie because it’s not that under quota its barely under if at all and abolishing it would just see another seat take its. Place. That’s just like saying I’ve got a jug that’s 95% full but I’m gonna tip it into 6 jugs that are also 90%+ full. My plan would see it increase voters while staying the same size or actually decreasing.
Also I now will not be renaming flynn to wide bay.
Wide bay would still retain a small part of the wide bay area. And when qld gains it’s 31st seat probably in 2029. It would move back north as the other seats retract to accommodate the new seat given that only 3 years have elapsed.
This means only Fairfax would warrant a renaming due to major changes. Given it’s named after a woman I will research other women it can be changed too. Irwin will remain on reserve list. For the 31st seat. If the qld state redistribution releases Oodgeroo that could be an option for Fairfax.
Cj unless your willing to merge what is basically cook and read her cairns will never be in just 1 seat. I’d rather keep the split and remove Kennedy from townsville altogether. Which may yet be possible once parliament expands. My Is a and those large expansive parts which are most of Kennedy has more in common with cairns then townsville. As does cape york share some Co I.
I’m not trying to put Cairns in the one seat, I’m still keeping Cape York in Leichhardt.
I’m just saying the easiest way to expand Leichhardt is to do what I mentioned above. Not going west into Mareeba.
In the future there may be potential (in an expanded parliament) to fix a single seat onto Cairns.
The possible way to try to get Herbert, Kennedy and Leichhardt to work better is to pump them up so they are close to the projection. This might enough electors to get Dawson out of Townsville and some of Kennedy in. The problem with Kennedy is that some parts naturally orient themselves to Townsville and some to Cairns with little or no overlap. It is hard to see in any scenario how Kennedy is not reaching into both Cairns and Townsville – a bit like Lyons – but oh so much bigger and more complex.
Mareeba has better coi with cape York in my opinion. It also is in the same seat at a state level in cook. And anderson road makes a good boundary for Kennedy. It also allows Kennedy to push up to the black, alice and little bohle rivers in Townsville which serve as a natural boundary. And then herbert can take in Annandale from Dawson. Putting palm island into Kennedy allows it to increase voters by around 2-3k without increasing territory by much. If Queensland were to expand to 31 seats. Kennedy would need to shed it’s parts of Townsville. This would push Dawson back in. Tasmania would be solvable if it had 6 seats but alas it does not.
also this means leichardt is basically Cook, Barron River and Cairns. and Kennedy is Traegar, Hill, Mulgrave and Hinchinbrook.
If qld was too theoretical gain another seat I have trouble working out wear it would be
Wolfbow
Definitely in the South East. My first inclination would be Moreton Bay / Sunny Coast somewhere. There is a cluster of way over quota seats – Longman, Fisher, Fairfax, Petrie – that would be even more over. And Wide Bay and Hinkler could push north as well. Logan / Gold Coast would be a possibility but the under quota Southside seats might put paid to that.
Based on what I can see and have experimented with it would be somewhere between moreton bay and the sunshine coast
@John agreed. My 31st seat would be fixed around Somerset and the Sunshine Coast hinterlands.
The result is likely a new safe-ish LNP seat, but knock on effects could see Longman become notionally Labor held, Blair significantly shored up for Labor, and Forde becoming notionally LNP held (though I think that’ll happen regardless, as I want to consolidate Rankin in Logan LGA and the only way to do that is push Forde out into the Gold Coast).
Using the march numbers qld is entitled to 30.362 seats
Well short of the 30.50 seats needed. Though it makes sense why they held off on starting the redistribution.
yes there was the posibility and it still may barring some major change but the needle has barely moved in months
Jwood when can we expect data on the sa nt and vic redistributions