Caloundra – Queensland 2024

@NP – Kuranda is in Barron River. Did you mean to say you wanted to move it into Cook?

Very interesting contributions and ideas so far. Here’s what I think:

Coomera only adjoins two other Gold Coast seats: Broadwater and Theodore. Any transfer of electors out of Coomera towards the other Gold Coast seats will require quite significant boundary changes, as adjacent seats are drawn further north. This may result in some seats being renamed if their namesake suburbs shift into neighbouring divisions. I expect, for example, that the suburb of Coomera itself will end up in Theodore.

I agree that Toohey will be abolished, with a new seat on the southside likely to be drawn from parts of Bundamba, Jordan, Logan, and Coomera.

Caloundra is likely to contract substantially due to significant new developments in the area. A new seat will almost certainly be created in this region, especially as the excess voters from the Moreton Bay area are transferred up the highway, as it were.

The areas outside of south-east Qld, currently home to 30 seats, currently have numbers for only 29 so there must be an abolition here to make up for the new Sunshine Coast seat. (The only other abolition – Toohey – allows for the new Ipswich-Logan-area seat)

Wide Bay will be particularly interesting. Hervey Bay must shed voters but only borders Maryborough, which is also expected to grow. Given Gympie has excess population and may soak up even more electors from Noosa, this may ultimately result in Burnett shifting further south to absorb numbers. This could then see Bargara join Bundaberg, eliminating the donut seat.

I’m not yet certain of how the numbers will balance overall, but the regional seat I’m abolishing is Callide. And I don’t think you can abolish Callide without also abolishing Mirani — let me explain.

Mirani would relinquish the Livingstone Shire to Keppel and the Rockhampton Regional Council area to Rockhampton. To compensate, it would swing west along the Peak Downs Highway to absorb the coalfield towns of Moranbah and Dysart from Burdekin. I imagine the seat might be renamed – Macmaster was proposed last time around.

Burdekin, in turn, could take the Charters Towers LGA from Traeger, which may bring it over 100,000 square kilometres — enough to qualify as a fifth large district. It could potentially give back areas west of Charters Towers itself to Traeger if the large district allowance is an issue.

Traeger would then compensate by expanding southward, taking all the councils west of Longreach from Gregory, more or less returning to the pre-2017 shape of the former Mount Isa. Gregory would complete the redistribution loop by taking Clermont from Mirani, and the Banana Shire and Monto area from the abolished Callide, gaining substantial enrolment and likely retaining its area allowance.

I’m not sure if the numbers will work out for Traeger in this scenario – they may have to gain Longreach LGA to make the numbers work with the large district allowance. This would be viable if Gregory ends up over quota, which I’m not completely ruling out giving what they are gaining and losing. I’ll have to work out the numbers.

The rest of Callide would be divided as follows:

1. Chinchilla and Miles to Warrego
2. Calliope to Gladstone
3. Gin Gin to Burnett
4. The remainder of the North Burnett LGA to Nanango, which in turn would lose the Somerset LGA to help address shortfalls in SEQ.

Beyond these changes, I would leave most seats unchanged. There’s no compelling reason to alter Cook, Barron River, Cairns, Hill, or Mulgrave. The three Townsville seats can be brought into quota with internal adjustments and small boundary swaps with Hinchinbrook and Burdekin. If Mundingburra loses its namesake suburb in the process, it may require a new name.

Whitsunday and Mackay should remain as they are. The inclusion of former Mirani electors into Rockhampton should comfortably bring that seat within quota, with only minor adjustments expected to accommodate a larger Keppel.

There might be a small exchange between Southern Downs and Condamine to even out the numbers.

Anyhow, this will be an interesting process and I’m looking forward to seeing others ideas.

But I ain’t spending any more time on it, not because an electorate in North Qld is being torn apart by a crocodile, but because Origin is about to kickoff.

@John thanks for your suggestions, I will add them to my proposal.

@Real Talk thanks for your suggestions as well. And up the Maroons!

My plan so far is:
– Move Boulia, Herberton and rest of Carpentaria into Traeger
– Move Isaacs (except Coastal areas) into Gregory
– Move Diamantina, Barcoo, Miles and Chinchilla into Warrego (but remove Dalby, presumably into Condamine)
– Merge Burdekin and Whitsunday into “Bowen” taking Burdekin and Whitsunday LGAs plus a bit more to get the numbers right
– Mirani shifts north significantly
– Keppel formed from Livingstone, Sarina and coastal Isaacs
The Carins/Townsville/in-betweens I will sort out later but it should work with my proposed “Bowen”.
Also still thinking how to deal with Gracemere.
Still thinking what to do with SEQ but I will try to avoid Gympie/Noosa crossing the LGA boundaries between due to heavily different demographics hence community interests.

There is a problem that was introduced in the last redistribution with the design of Waterford, particularly the northern part where the suburb of Underwood is. Instead of pushing Woodridge north the QRC pushed Waterford along Logan Road to the border with BCC. Originally it extended into Rochedale South, making a very odd seat.
It’s fairly easy to extend Springwood into that area and take it to the Logan/Brisbane boundary along Millers Road. That chunk on the western side of the Freeway is fairly permeable for road access and makes a lot more sense then the current boundary.

i tried to write an in depth analsis last night but it didnt post and im bummed because it was really good.
ive tried reposting but it says duplicate comment even though it hasnt posted… Raue?

@mark yore yes i intend to fix that Springwood will likely shed voters from redlands city to make up the defeciet there and springwood will move further into logan. and i agree with that analysis based on initial plans i wanted to move mount cotton and Sheldon (BAZINGA!) into redlands but will wait until i cant view the numbers. and maybe move underwood, slacks creek and aybe woodridge into sprinwood but il wait until i look at the official numbers.

@leon i dont think Bowen will get up due to a certain politician with the same name who wouldnt be very popular in those regions

@real talk i cant see Keppel fitting into Livingstone without shedding parts of Rockingham as its already over quota and Rockingham would not be able to accomodate the remainder of Rockingham from Mirani.

what i intend to do is one of two things, either way mirani is abolished.
1. move mundingburra to the river or closer to top up the other townsville seats and rename it Ross. Burdekin gains Miranis Mackay numbers afftr mackay top up its small defeceit in prjected numbers. Gregory gains Isaccs council from Burdekin and Mirani.Keppel takes in Lvingstone and sheds whatever numbers back to rockhampton to bring it back to quota and Rockhampton to quota. Callide gains Miranis Rockhampton numbers. I want to push Bundaberg back to south of the river then extend to the ocean as far as needed to make up the numbers. gladstone takes what it needs from Callide and the Burdekin gets what it needs from callide (if any). warrego takes Western Downs from Callide. harvey Bay -> MAryborough then they just push the numbers south to forma new sunshine caost seat.

coomera pushes its excess south into the other gold coast seats that are under quota.

Instead of a new logan seat as previously stated due to excess number sin ipswich (approx 60% prjected over quota across Scenic Rim, IW, Ipswich and Bundamba (not including the parts of Springfield in Jordan that i itend to move into Bundamba. to form a new seat in rural west and southern ipswich. Ipswich West to be renamed since its really no longer the further west. I was thinking bremer. Logan then pushes its excess north into the other logan seats. there is an excess south of the river of about 1.5 seats worthsin the logan -ipscwich area after topping up the other logan seats. and about a seats worth of defeciet in brisbane south of the river. so one of those seats has to go. and close to half a seats worht of defeciet in brisbane north of the river so some of that ipswich-logan excess is gonna have to cross the river and that will probaly be done in ipswich in the same way blair crosses the river there

my secnd idea for mirani is to put townsville from burderkin to the townsville seats and then transfer burdekin shire into traegar. this has flow affects pushing burdekin (name change required) in both mackay and issacs amd then similar after that

Interesting ideas John. I think your first idea for Mirani is the more feasible, although i think it would make more sense geographically and logistically for Burdekin to gain from Whitsunday, and Whitsunday then to take the rump of Mirani. This might see Whitsunday LGA leaving its namesake division, with a resulting name change.

Putting Burdekin LGA into Traeger is certainly something….almost like an electoral moat separating the north from the rest of the state.

I think the people of Queensland would be sophisticated enough to separate the concept of a Division of Bowen from any federal figures.

who is it named after?

either way namind a division after someone similar to a serving politician might cause problems

@ RT i did think about that with Whitsunday but i doubt the QEC will want to alter a seat thats already at quota and logistically its still touches the parts or mirani even with Isaacs and even if it did it would still be forced to take some parts of Mackay

I don’t speak for Leon, but clearly he intended for the division to named after the town of Bowen, which would have been the largest town in his proposed Burdekin/Whitsunday hybrid. I would have thought you would have realised that.

Bowen, incidentally was named after Queensland’s first governor. Not a present Labor minister, nor a former Labor deputy PM, nor a former Liberal attorney-general.

Personally, I think we shouldn’t be naming state seats after people, but I’m probably in the minority here.

ok didnt know that. doubtful thought bith Burdekin and Whitsunday are named after well known geographical locations and one of those would be the choice since both are in the seat. and the removal of the seats namesake is usually the only reason a rename would happen.

And, respectfully, your addition of the rump of Mirani – which I assume to be the Pioneer Valley towns of Mirani, Marian, Eungella Valley etc – onto the rest of Burdekin doesn’t make much sense. The transport links are virtually non-existent – I remember driving on a single laned dirt road from Collinsville to Eungella around twenty years ago. The road wouldn’t be any better today. Even Google Maps recommends driving through Bowen and Proserpine to get to the two towns.

I’m fairly sure it would get thrown out on community of interest criteria.

im of the same view when it comes to state seats. localities, geographic locations and suburbs the seats centre on are more appropriate. naming seats after people is better for federal seats in my opinion. as such im gonna suggest renaming at least 6 seats named after people
Theodore – due to major changes caused by Commeras excess shifting south. I am gonna suggest this seat be named Coomera.
Cook – due to an existing federal seat of the same name and namesake already in existence gonna suggest Cape york
Cooper – due to an existing federal seat of the same name existing. name pending
Jordan, Miller and OOdgeroo – due to significant changes in those seats. names pending

and will oppose any new seats named after people.

i hadnt had the chance to look into that sort of thing i was just outlining a basic plan tbh

so the only chocie would be plan B or what you said to do

No dramas, just pointing out that transport links matter, especially with the rural divisions.

@John – why would you oppose naming electorates after people?

i just dont think its necessary at a state level. location based names seem more suitable

@ RT i guees the whitsunday swap will have to do.

if i left the top part of isaacs in would that then be acceptable?

The Queensland process of naming electorates after people seems random and somewhat arbitrary – and with the exception of Nicklin and Theodore, the people are very unknown and in the case of Traeger a seat is named after someone who provided benefit to outback Queensland but never ever lived in the state. I had always imagined the seat of Cooper was named after former Labor Premier Frank Cooper but alas no, it is named after an early Queensland woman doctor who may have more prominence in Queensland than outside. I had thought that Toohey and Stretton were named after people but they are named after places (shows how much I know about outer Brisbane!). The advantage of naming electorates after people is that they can drift across the landscape as many have but that seems to be not such an issue at state level. If seats are to be named after people they need to be well known (which at federal level they generally are) rather than who? The latter being a problem with both proposals to rename Corangamite. Either go for all names (as is largely the case in South Australia) or all geographic as is the case in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia and is still largely the case in Queensland.

I put this on the Mundingburra thread yesterday and would be interested to get some feedback.

Can somebody please explain the projections for the Townsville area seats. All of the current seats are under quota and the combined projection is that Townsville should lose approximately half a seat. Were the projections last time over cooked? The current projection would suggest that Townsville population is flat or will even go backwards. Is there basis for this or has the ECQ made a mistake. The federal enrolments for Herbert always seem to be increasing roughly in line with Queensland as a whole.

While true the namesake of toohey is named after a person.

For those suggesting a seat named ‘Bowen’, this used to exist previously with three different incarnations, so naming this seat again is no issue. Considering last time ‘Bowen’ existed it was split into… Whitsunday and Burdekin, so it’ll be going full circle. The former Seat of Bowen in its first incarnation is a trivia question in itself…the only seat held by the Communist Party of Australia.

DV – So was Brisbane, Townsville and many others – but the place has become much more important than the people in these cases.

I’m watching from the sidelines here but am I correct in saying the general vibe/consensus(?) here is that a new seat will be created around the Sunshine Coast or Logan whilst a seat (most likely Toohey or maybe a rural seat) gets abolished?

@Lurking Westie, pretty much.

Yes, pretty much. I would reckon they’ll put a new seat in the Logan area, taking large parts of new residential estates in the electorate of Logan (which is well over quota). I’ve also heard people talking about a new seat around Caboolture, taking in the northern part of Morayfield electorate & western part of Pumicestone electorate. I think they’ll merge Toohey and Stretton, abolishing one of them.

@lurking both. There’s enough defrceit in both nth qld and south Brisbane and surplus in logan/Ipswich and sunshine coast that both seats will be created/abolished. Although this will result in a neutral shift it slightly benefits the LNP as they don’t have to compete with onp and kap on the sunshine coast.

@aa a more likely outcome will be the abolition of one to shore all the Brisbane seats. To obey would make more sense given Stratton hugs the Brisbane/Logan border and To obey is more can’t re ak47 to everything it can just be spread around

I’m probably leaning more into adding a seat at the Ipswich/Logan border. Abolishing Toohey makes a lot more sense because it can be divided into the gaps east and west and minimise population disruption.

The problem with naming seats after people (and not geography) was introduced in the last redistribution by the QRC at the second stage of the process, which is something I wasn’t particularly happy with. A lot of the changes that occurred then were initiated by the QRC and not by the public submissions. I’m VERY tempted to make a note to rename them back to geographical regions in my submission.

@John The AEC originally had Oodgeroo on their list of potential seat names and were a bit miffed when the QRC pinched it, because it would have added another female AND indigenous name to the Federal seats.

Also the other seat will probably be created by shrinking Caloundra, because there’s another 10,000 new people going into the new housing development south of Aura. That also means the area west of the Bruce Highway can move into Glasshouse. For that reason the 10 percent variance requirement for seats will probably be ignored, especially because the ECQ is basing it off the 2022 figures and guessing. And yes, the 2017 projected growth figures in some cases were plucked out of thin air.

For those doing a submission, there’s a few areas where neighbouring seats can balance each other out so I’m probably going to start with those to minimise disruption.

Ok but which mps get left without a chair. In north qld the ideal abolition area is just LNP seat after LNP seat after their victory in north qld. The closest seat is probably Gladstone to find a labor member and the nearest one with any sort of chance of losing is Bundaberg.. In se qld the difference is alot smaller and a shuffle might be in order given it’s highly safe labor territory and a parachute arrangement won’t effect the result. No labor mp has been around longer then 2015 with the exception of Dick. So retirement deal is probably off the cards.

@mark yore I agree with your reasoning and I’m hoping the 3 commissioners appointed don’t also go down that road. I’m gonna make suggestions on those 6 but I’m not gonna bother with the others this time because without any good reasons such as significant changes I don’t think they will. In regards to the Sunshine coast seat while caloundra will shrink it’s not the only seat with growth forecast on the sunshine coast as it seems to be concentrated in bother North and South of the council. Hence why I think splitting glass house in two will be the best option as it bridges both sides of the council. I’m also leaning towards the Ipswich Logan border however I think they can fix up the crossing with Logan and both Redlands and Brisbane city.

Also note that the act is scheduled to start with 30 days of this Sunday July 13th. Sa from July 20th and tas and qld federal from the first day of the new parliament July 22nd.

Tas will be particular ly interesting to see and compare the redistribution to the election results and if the result would be different had the election occured afterwards

I’m gonna start with the GC. Then Brisbane south of the river. Then Redlands. Then Logan. Probably gonna leave the sunshine coast til last.

Assuming Toohey gets abolished, how might this affect the margins of other seats? (e.g, Algestar becomes safer for Labor) Also, would a new Logan City seat would be a nominal Labor seat (from a cursory glance at 2024 QLD state election results)?

@Mark Yore July 10, 2025 at 9:30 pm
I thought electorate names are usually the last names of significant Australians, why would the QRC use “Oodgeroo” rather than “Noonuccal”? Is her naming convention for her name similar to East Asian languages; last name first, first name second.

While yes it would be safer for labor in the seat which almost a guarantee. It might effect the more far reaching seats like Ipswich and Ipswich west which were on much lower margins. Labor barely recovered Ipswich west from the by election loss

@redistributed there are 2 exceptions to the all geographic names 1 was and 1 in nsw. Oxley in nsw the same namesake as the one in qld federally and roe in wa

Does anyone have tools for QLD redistribution?

I would be interested in that too, @Up The Dragons

The map feature on the ECQ redistribution website would be so much more useful if we were able to click and select multiple SA1 areas and have it automatically tabulate if our districts are in quota or not. I recall something very similar being available for the ACT redistribution (albeit they were only redistributing five districts, not 93)

I’ve had a bit more of a play with my proposal tonight and am largely unhappy with it. I imagine the best minds here would be able to poke several holes in it. 🙂
In brief (just the regional seats, I think SEQ will sort itself out fairly clearly):

Cook to Hill and everything inbetween: Unchanged.
Hinchinbrook: Drops Bushland Beach and Deeragun to Thuringowa
Thuringowa: Adds as above, and adds Aitkenvale
Townsville: Adds Gulliver and Mundingburra
Mundingburra: Adds sections of Townsville LGA from Burdekin. Numbers iffy.
Burdekin: Adds Charters Towers, drops Issac and Townsville LGA. Potential large seat (100,000 sq km+)
Whitsunday and Mackay: Unchanged for the most part
Mirani: Adds Moranbah and Nebo from Burdekin, drops Livingstone and Mount Morgan.
Keppel: Adds whole Livingstone Shire, drops Frenchville and Norman Gardens as much as possible
Rockhampton: Adds suburbs from Keppel to bring up to quota. Doesn’t expand south or west.
Traeger: Adds everything west of Central Highlands LGA, loses Charters Towers. Massive seat, the largest it’s ever been.
Gregory: Drops western shires, adds Clermont from Isaac and Banana Shire/Monto from Callide. Can’t take Mirani part of Rocky without exploding quota, so it doesn’t.
Gladstone: Forced to extend north and west to take in former Mirani land around Rocky.
Callide: Still abolished under my plan. Remnants shared between Burnett, Warrego, Gregory and Nanango
Burnett: Pulled north-west. Takes Calliope and Tannum Sands from Gladstone. Gains northern Bundaberg. Loses Childers and Bargara. Probably needs a rename.
Bundaberg: Extends from Avoca to Bargara and Innes Park. No longer a donut hole.
Maryborough: Gains a sliver of Hervey Bay, as well as Childers. Loses everything south of the Mary River to Gympie. City right on the edge of the electorate it is named after.
Gympie: Gains extra territory in the north (up to the Mary River, including Tinana), and passes on excess to Noosa and SEQ.
Nanango: Now takes in Kingaroy, Gayndah, Esk and possibly Crows Nest to make numbers work.
Warrego: Gains Chinchilla and Miles from defunct Callide.

Like I said, not too impressed with this scenario.

The last few days has made it clear, in my view, that Burdekin is going to be the lynchpin to what happens throughout western and central Qld. There may even be a scenario – depending on the Townsville numbers – that Burdekin is split in half, with Ayr being drawn into a hybrid Townsville-rural seat (similar to how Mulgrave used to contain roughly 50% Cairns urban area as well as sugar towns). This may be preferable to redrawing Traeger to the extent that I’ve described above. That would see Home Hill and Bowen join Whitsunday, which would then have to trade some numbers and territory with Mackay and Mirani as a result.

No way is trager gonna be that big. Too massive a seat for just one mp

yea that Traegar is not happening. That seat would probably have more ghost voters then actual voters. too big for 1 mp to represent i dont care how good Robbie Katter thinks he is. hed spend his whole parliamentary just tryng to locate his constituents.

Just my luck, ABS Maps stopped giving me the details of a point (including sa2 numbers) i click just when I needed it.
This is both on Edge and Chrome.
Anyways, I am planning on putting Highfields into Lockyer by the way, because I plan to make my Condamine include Dalby (so I don’t want it to go too north (nor south, though that is unavoidable), Rosewood is growing too fast, and because I am unsure the southern Somerset towns actually belong in Lockyer. I fonde

@Darth, @John, I hear you both — the version of Traeger I sketched last night would probably make Robbie Katter storm out of parliament in a cowboy hat-flipping fury. That said, the reality is Traeger must expand. Even under conservative growth assumptions, it needs to find at least 4,500 voters by 2032 just to scrape into the lower end of quota.

My updated thinking is more restrained: shift Clermont, Collinsville, and Woodstock from Burdekin into Traeger — but leave Moranbah alone. All three towns were in the same electorate as Charters Towers pre-2017 (Dalrymple), so the precedent is there. It’s a geographic stretch, sure, but a far cry from the continent-sized monstrosity I floated earlier.

Then we need to work out what to do with Gregory.