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.
NP, the AEC website says all three redistributions (ACT, SA and Tasmania) will be open for suggestions/ideas until 7 November.
Interestingly, this is the first time the ACT is undergoing a federal redistribution whilst maintaining 3 seats. The only other time it had 3 seats was for 1 term between 1993 and 1996 (obviously requiring redistributions to create and then abolish the 3rd seat of Namadgi).
Sticking this here just because… I’m just finishing off my JSCEM submission because it may close next week.
One of my particular annoyances has been the issue of font sizes in authorisations and a fairly long battle to get the AEC and ECQ to acknowledge that the font size is not the same as the measurement of the text. i.e. 10 point Arial may not the same size as 10 point Garamond, especially if you tweak it with a font building tool like Fontographer.
I noticed the AEC has slipped in a proper Authorisation Calculator at https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/backgrounders/files/authorisation-calculator-diagonal.pdf, which fills me with a certain amount of joy.
@Mark Yore
Great ideas!
I’ve added a new Spotlight mode, keeping the current electorate in colour, but setting other SA1s as grey.
It’s not perfect just yet, but I like it!
You can also right-click any SA1 to select/deselect that electorate as your Current Electorate.
I’ve tweaked the zoom to allow a bit more finer zoom – though I’m still assessing it.
@JWood @Angas I’m really appreciative of these tools. One of my responses to the QRC was a comment that they should put together some collected tools to make it easier for people to participate in the redistribution.
There’s a lot of ad-hoc resources that are used to produce these submissions but the ability to go to a web page that contains everything useful would lift the standard.
Spotlight works perfectly! I tested the zoom changes on Whitsunday and it now fits exactly within the window, so I’m happy. I also noticed you’ve added the LGA boundaries, which would have been very handy trying to work out how to keep Babinda in Cairns LGA.
@nimlan my apologies it was half asleep…
@np 3 weeks
@nimalan where is the wa thread?
@Yoh An @John thanks!
How I expect the Tasmanian redistribution to turn out:
Braddon unchanged.
Bass gains Prospect Vale and Blackstone Heights (from Lyons).
Clark gains Kingston and Kingston Beach (from Franklin).
Franklin gains the riverside suburbs up to Gagebrook (from Lyons).
The suggestion that Clark and Franklin trade the Huon Valley for Glenorchy to make the latter more contiguous has plenty of merit. But I think it’s pretty unlikely that they’d rip Wilkie’s support base apart.
@david the aec doesn’t take that i to comsideration
Wilkie would be fine if Kingston and the Huon Valley were added and Glenorchy taken out of Clark. Glenorchy has always been his weakest area. Where is Peter George based? Eastern Shore or somewhere else?
“what happens if the projected growth for a Federal electorate is greater than 13.5%, making it impossible to satisfy both the inside -10% actual and the under +3.5% projected?”
You can’t do that. So if a district is drawn in such a way, you need to redraw it. You’ll often find in those high-growth outer suburban corridors, they try to match slow-growing areas with fast-growing areas to reduce the gap between the current quota and the projected quota.
John, there is no current WA state redistribution thread because the redistribution is still some point away but that’s not an excuse for posting in a completely different place. Save your thoughts for when it’s relevant.
The Act specifies the current electors *must* be within 10%, however, the projection is only “as far as practicable”, which I guess means there’s scope for movement in the projected numbers, if there really is no other way.
@Mark Yore, I think my position on federation divisions is established, but I’ll be adding it in my reports for SA, Tas and ACT, even though none of them have any federation divisions. I hate the romantic nostalgia around federation divisions. Seriously, they’re either geographic, which has all sorts of well-documented issues, or they’re named after ancient colonial-era Premiers or British military personnel who have no bearing on modern Australia. Seriously, who even knows who the NSW colonial premier Robertson was? And, usually those individuals have hundreds of other legacies in suburbs, rivers, mountains, islands, roads etc. etc. Get rid of the guideline to keep federation divisions. We did with Gwyder, Kalgoorlie, Melbourne Ports, and if you want to be pedantic Wakefield and Denison were original (but not federation) divisions too. Likewise with the attempt to get rid of Corangamite. Similarly Richmond doesn’t even include most of the Richmond River or Valley anymore, and lets not even talk about Werriwa.
Agree Darren about the legacy of all the colonial era figures. Cunningham and Hume are used as names of two major interstate highways (Cunningham Hwy connecting Brisbane with NSW and Hume Hwy connecting Sydney and Melbourne).
What’s the poi j t in having history if we just erase the parts we don’t agree with
Kalgoorlie was renamed due to the seat expanding over about 1/3 of was landmass and gwyder was abolished due to seat loss. Melbourne ports over place names being phased out. The other 2 the same. Robertson Cunningham and Hume were all people
@richmond i regards to Richmond ive advocated for its change. However with a increase to parliament imminent in the next few cycles they could simply shift the name to seat that ends up containing it. Werriwa theres a double with an aboriginal word protecting it. If it were Lake George or George it would be history. Same with Corangamite which i advocated be changed to Connewarre. A lake named after the aboriginal name.
@JWood just a heads up for the Vic state map, there are multiple pairs of districts in the Melb metro area that have the same colours
-Berwick/Narre Warren North
-Brunswick/Northcote
-Greenvale/Thomastown
Eltham/Ringwood/Warrandyte are also essentially the same colour and almost impossible to tell apart
@Darth Vader, not advocating “erasing” anything.
Wakefield was a person. Denison was a person. Higgins was a person. Stirling was a person. They were all abolished. I just think there’s more worthy individuals to name current electoral divisions after. We shouldn’t get emotional over people who have been dead for more than 100 years.
Sir John Frankin:
– not Australian
– definitely would have called himself British
– made little real contributions here
– was dismissed from his tenure in controversial circumstances
– spent 5 years of his life here
– had an extensive career in the British Navy after leaving Australia
– is more famous for being an Arctic explorer
– died being an Arctic explorer
– only took the governor’s job because the Empire was at peace and he sought specific assurances that a civilian posting wouldn’t diminish his military standing.
Franklin already has multiple other legacies:
– statue in Westminster Abbey, London
– statue in Lincolnshire
– statue in central London
– statue in Hobart
– Franklin Island, Antarctica
– Franklin Island, Greenland
– Franklin Strait, Canada
– Franklin town, Quebec
– Franklin Sound, between Flinders and Cape Barren Islands, Bass Strait
– Franklin River, Tasmania
– Franklin town, Tasmania
– RV Franklin research vessel,
– CCGS Sir John Franklin, Canadian Coast Guard Ship
– Franklin Street (numerous)
– Sir John Franklin School, Calgary, Canada
– District of Franklin, electoral district in Canada,
– Franklin’s gull species
So why also an electoral division that he’s had attached to his name for 100 years. Give someone else a go. Especially if the division is changed enough that it loses all of the Huon section.
@ Darren
What about re-dedicated the seat of Franklin after Australian author Miles Franklin.
Agree Darren, electoral division names are hardly noteworthy in that only the hardcore election buffs will know about them. Unlike geographic features (both natural and manmade) which are seen to be more commonly known by the general public especially those who live or travel through a particular area.
@Darren etc. Unfortunately electorates were named in batches, either at Federation or when Parliament was expanded. Consequently the barriers to entry at those times were lower and were very much a reflection of those times. Keeping names because that’s what the names have always been is a bit of a circular argument, and the idea of permanently locking up a name just because it was chosen in 1901 instead of 1983 seems to be an odd restriction.
But it’s also important to have guidelines. There’s a justification for having the CBD seat named after the State capitals as long as it’s applied consistently. That means adding Hobart and Darwin. There is an argument that we should recognise deceased Prime Ministers, if only to provide a link to history, and that also means including people who may not be acceptable to modern sensibilities.
I’m inclined to recognise political trailblazers as well, so that’s Tangney, Lyons and Bonner covered. The merits of the rest should be up for discussion – artists, inventors, activists, writers and others who have shaped Australia.
@Ben Raue @Darren McSweeney In that case we are likely to have trouble on the Sunshine Coast, Ipswich and Moreton Bay. I think the solution is going to be creating lateral seats that start on the coast and end up deep in the hinterland, and in the case of Ipswich start in the urban areas and then head bush. This will effectively ignore community of interest, but that’s been the case for northern Queensland electorates for a while. 🙂
The accuracy of population projections is an area that has been raised by Jeff Waddell. Since 19 of Queensland’s 30 seats are now outside that 3.5% mark I’m really not sure how good a job the AEC (and particularly the ABS) did last time.
Some seats for example Fowler were names after the fact she was merely a woman to be first elected to be parliament. No other achievement.
Bit harsh. What’s your achievement?
The division names I’d like to see eliminated over time are the geographic ones, whether or not they date from federation. These names (like Werriwa) become absurd when they no longer cover the relevant geographic feature. Why perpetuate the name Moreton when it no longer encompasses the whole bay area as it did in 1901?
Hang on to the capital city names maybe but gradually replace the others with the names of former PMs and other notable contributors to public life. And I wouldn’t despise Lillian Fowler, as a pioneering female mayor she has as much right to commemoration as second-rank explorers like Blaxland or Cunningham.
In 1948 to its credit the Chifley government insisted on the adoption of the names of elected politicians – Curtin, Ryan and Kingston – in place of the blander names suggested in the initial redistribution plan (in the era when redistributions were debated and approved by Parliament).
In Western Australia we have a good balance with State districts having geographic names but 13 of 16 federal divisions named after outstanding individuals. One day there should be a division of Wyatt!
@Jeremy Buxton I would really like to see Wide Bay renamed before I die.
@Darth Vader “merely a woman”? Okay… There’s a great description of exactly how difficult it was for a woman to be elected in Patricia Fallon’s thesis “So Hard The Conquering”, a biography of Irene Longman. https://www120.secure.griffith.edu.au/rch/file/a974076d-3222-92b2-e5ca-b9a3f5a81507/1/02Whole.pdf
I will point out that one of the reasons given to not elect her in 1929 was that there were no suitable toilets in Parliament House for women. When the second woman, Vi Jordan, was elected in 1966 there were still no facilities for women in Parliament House. Despite being an elected Member, she was not permitted to enter the Parliamentary Library or the Members Dining Room, so she ate her meals on the steps outside.
@Lachi good spotting – I’ve fixed those up, along with a couple others that seemed too close
Jeremy, where did you read about the 1948 redistribution? I’d like to read more about it.
@real talk. Jedi. Dark Lord. Killed the emperor and saved the galaxy. Fulfilled the prophecy of bringing balance to the force. You?
Angas
I had a great time yesterday with your redistribution tool. Excellent work and really good for testing scenarios – tested four for tasmania in almost no time at all. They confirmed what I had thought, the split Frankin has to go – it does disrupt lots of voters – but it would only happen once.
Ben I recall leafing through a book chronicling the Curtin/Chifley years where it was mentioned that the ALP government insisted on the commemoration of Curtin, Ryan, Kingston and Higgins as names for new seats: either Labor or radical liberal MPs. Sorry I can’t remember the title or author. Trove indicated that initially Curtin was recommended to be named Stirling – characteristic of the then ‘play safe’ approach using colonial identities. (Stirling of course was used in 1955 when WA gained its 9th seat). The Hansard of 1948 might prove informative.
Jwood as helpful as spotlight is changing colours might be more helpful ive found when doing maps never use the same colour or similar within 2 seats just in case. Also the ability to rename seats.
@Jeremy @Ben
I have found on Trove an article in the Lismore Northern Star on Friday October 29 1948, page 5.
In part, it reads:
“CANBERRA, Thursday. — The Labour Caucus to-day approved the redistribution of electorates in N.S.W. and Queensland. ‘ It also changed the names of a number of proposed electorates. In N.S.W. Evans is changed to Parkes, Kingsford to Watson, Watson to Kingsford Smith, Lane Cove to Benelong, McGowan to Cook, Cook to Grayndler, ..Nelson to.Phillip, Parkes to Evans, Rawson to Warringha, Strathfield to Lowe, Sydney to West Sydney, Warringham to MacKellar, Bligh to Lawson, Cunningham to Werriwa, Werriwa to Cunningham, Farrar to Hume, Hume to Farrar, and Kendall to Lyne.”
Furthermore, an article in the Bundaberg News-Mail from Thursday September 2 1948, page 1:
New Electorates Honour Famous Names
BRISBANE, Wednesday;— In suggesting the names – for eight new electorates, the Commissioners have drawn on names famous in Queensland history. Dalrymple Is recommended to honour George Elphinstone Dalrymple, early explorer of far northern Queensland, who later became Government Resident at Somerset
Cape York Peninsula; Dawson has been chosen to commemorate Anderson Dawson, who was one of the original Senators for Queensland and Minister for Defence for Watson in 1904. He also formed in Queensland in 1899, the first Labour ministry in Australian development. Fisher is named after Andrew Fisher, who became Prime Minister of Australia. Gympie, which it includes, is the State seat by which he entered politics in 1893.McPherson originated with the name of Lieut, E. C. McPherson, formerly in charge of detachment of an early colonial regiment. The McPherson Range, which’ runs ‘through the electorate, was called after him by early explorers Logan and Cunnlngham. Mowbray honours Rev. Thomas Mowbray, pioneer Presbyterian
Church man, who ministered in the Moreton Bay settlement in the infant State of Queensland be
tween 1847 and 1867. Petrie is suggested because of Andrew Petrie, who built most of early Brisbane and explored the north coast to .the headquarters of the Mary River. Somerset perpetuates the name of a family of pioneers whose name is linked with early Queensland, and was settled in this case because Somerset Dam comes within the new electorate. Wilson is proposed as a compliment to Sir Leslie Wilson, whose residence as State Governor for several years, was in the heart of the district enclosed by the new boundaries.
===
It would seem to me from the descriptions that Wilson subsequently became Ryan, Dalrymple became Leichhardt, Somerset became Oxley, and Mowbray became Bowman.
@Real Talk Of those Queensland names still in existence only Fisher and Petrie should be locked in. Dawson and McPherson could be replaced.
@John – Thanks for the feedback!
@Angas and I are discussing how we’ll combine our efforts to create a unified tool, and Renaming Electorates and Changing Colours are both on the top of the list for the feature roadmap.
In the mean time, we’ve been hardcoding the colour of each electorate, and just manually verifying to avoid confusing boundaries.
@Mark Eh, I’d keep Dawson. He’s the only figure from northern Queensland to have a federal seat named after him.
Leichhardt – German, arguably more lucky than skillful as an explorer, never actually went close to the current Leichhardt electorate.
Kennedy – British, in Australia for less than 10 years, notably racist even for the temper of the time, bordering on genocidal towards indigenous, richly ironic considering his end.
Herbert – British, boy premier of Queensland, George Bowen’s right hand man who is appointed days after arriving in Australia. Leaves after seven years, never to return.
Capricornia – Named for a line on a map.
Yeah, Dawson was only premier for five days – the first Labor premier in world history (which according to some in this community would be an immediate disqualifying factor). He was an impotent defence minister, in a largely impotent government. Yeah, his own party demoted him to fourth on the Senate ticket at the next election, an unwinnable proposition at a time when only three senators were elected each election. Yeah, he drank himself to an early grave and not even his wife and kids (allegedly) attended his funeral.
But, as a wise soul once said: “What’s the poi j t in having history if we just erase the parts we don’t agree with”
@Real Talk, thanks for that interesting background and yes I agree that the name of Dawson should be preserved (unlike McPherson a geographic/minor explorer name from an anti-political era). The renaming of NSW seats in 1948 in part reflects the interests of incumbent ALP MPs for Parkes and Hume, ensuring that the continuing names were given to the most winnable seat in the carve-up. The pre-1949 Parkes was a Liberal-leaning seat: the strongest Liberal areas went into the seats ultimately named Evans and Lowe and Leslie Haylen was able to survive in the new smaller Parkes until 1963. But in general we can be thankful that Labor used its power to spare Parliament from such insignificant names as Mowbray and Wilson.
Herbert however has considerable historical significance not just as a Premier but as a subsequent policy maker shaping events in Australia.
I wo t be changing any names outside of major changes. Top of my list wide Bay, Flynn and Fairfax. Fisher although undergoing major change is a PM so il leave that.
For sa ive just done a simple redistribution which is what the aec is likely to do. Boothby gets Mitcham. Kingston gets Onkaparinga north of the river. From Mayo. Barker gets Barossa Valley, Grey gets Light. Makin extens to the Creek from Spence. Everything else remains as is. SOLVED.
Only needed to move 28,183 or 2 .15% of electors
For the ACT redistribution I’ve already submitted, I’ve removed the Whitlam locality, as well as the little lumpy bit of Philip, from Bean into Canberra (bringing this part of the boundary to just be Hindmarsh Drive), and moved Lawson and Girawang from Canberra into Fenner. This means there’s now just the one Molonglo River crossing; Canberra, as well as just under 3% of total electors moved. The Fenner-Canberra boundary isn’t wonderfully ideal, but when the ACT is just a consolidated city-territory it doesn’t leave much room for natural features as boundaries.
Jervis Bay and Norfolk Island are also put into Canberra due to better air connections (even though there’s no commercial airport in Jervis Bay Territory).
Massive thanks to @Angas and @JWood for the redistribution tool! I look forward to using it to tackle the inevitable chaos of the Queensland redistribution.
@JWood @Angas One of the other advantages of being able to select colours for the maps is that it allows you to produce a party representation map fairly easily (or an under/over quota) map – or any other demographic factor.
@CJ, sorry to tell you, but Jervis Bay and Norfolk Island are required to be in different divisions.
Subsection 56AA(2):
Until the Electoral Commissioner … determines that a member of the House of Representatives be chosen in Norfolk Island at a general election, …
(a) the whole of Norfolk Island is included in one Electoral Division; and
(b) if there is more than one Electoral Division — Norfolk Island and the Jervis Bay Territory are included in different Electoral Divisions.
@mark yore not true I’ve gone and done a basic redistribution of qlds federal divisions provided by jwolf and had no issue whatsoever drawing seats in those 3 areas. Federal seats are aloteasier to draw then state seats as they often cover more area and can be drawn at the lower end of current enrollment in order to achieve the desired outcome on projections. If it becomes difficult they will just have to get creative and pair lower growth areas with higher growth areas in order to draw the seat. Fortunately CoI is not a legal requirement merely a guideline.
@cj i found act to be very simple just draw Canberra to the zmolongo River and Hindmarsh Drive with Bean and then leave Fenner alone since its within tolerance. That took me about 5 seconds.
If franklin were to remove all of the non contigous parts then yes it could be renamed but removing just the Huon Valley not so much as that part of franklin is very little in terms of actual numbers of electors.
@Darren McSweeney oh well, there goes that idea. I wasn’t aware of that rule.
@John I agree, Franklin does need to be fixed, it’s one of the very few disgraces of our politics. Even though the US has all of its wacky electoral boundaries, at least those congressional districts are contiguous. Franklin is not.
From looking at the Parliamentary Library Handbook, Franklin has been non-contiguous since 1993. The AEC/redistribution committees have basically allowed the population disparity to get so severe that there’s more electors on the Eastern side of the Derwent than the West, despite southwestern Tasmania basically being where Franklin has been anchored since it was created.
Wolf. In regards to sa. I’d switch the colours of spence and grey. And mayo and barker around.
Also the next vic fed redistribution isn’t slated until at least 2031.
Re the non-contiguous nature of Franklin it has always been like that and indeed up to about 1969 (from at least 1916 onwards) it was in three parts not two surrounding the then Denison, including Glenorchy as well as Clarence and Kingborough/Huon. Not to say it necessarily should stay like that as all the solutions to the Clark problem are bad.
If the AEC wants to leave Franklin in its current state, Clark would have to move into the Derwent Valley. If they wanted to fix it up, Clark would move south into the Huon Valley and lose all of Glenorchy.
It would have to move a lot of electors, something the AEC has been unwilling to do, but there are more benefits of having contiguous seats, such as a stable COI. If they are to fix it, they should do it all in one go.