Caloundra – Queensland 2024

@leon i agree with that i think the southern somerset towns should be taken out of lockyer. I am deating whether to reunit it with the rest of smoerset or put it into what i assume will be a new ipswich seat given all the surplus there and in logan a new seat will be needed.

@real talk thats why i was contemplating puting burdekin shire into it. the nnumbers from 2 years ago were alot more promising because t could have taken in the surplus that was building in the cairns seats. my current line of thinking is to remove the raminedr or mareeba shire from Barron River into Cook and the move Traegar part way into marreba. Also it might be feasile to do a sort of shift as Hinchin brook has about 6.5% excess on the projected quota. so it might also work to shift that north and possibly share tragers defeicet across HinchinBrook, HIll, Mulgrave, Cainrs, Cook and Barron River Overall they all have about a 14-15% combined defeceit so it might work to set all 7 abour 2% under quota each.

Gregory can take in Issacs council which it currently only has a small portion of given issacs shape but you add in that whole council which according to the data is 82599.72 sqkm although the council website and wikipedia says 58,709 sqkm so based on the councils data thats an addition 1174 “electors” minus whatever territory it already holds. Plus an addition 14,000 electors (educated guess at this point) minus whatever people live in that small part already so add an addition 15174 electors giving it 51,094 Probably around 50,000 once you remove area and electors already inside the seat so that already over quota. meaning it can either shed some territory to Treger or take in less of Isaac Council.

Thoughts?

though instead of not taking in all of isaacs it could just shed parts of central higlands to top up Callide which might be a more feasible option given isaacs is more boxed in and has a narrower land corridor to between rockhampton and central highlands

@real talk after it loses part of Tablelands regional and moves further into Hinchin Brook. Im gonna suggest renaming this Johnstone after the river that dominates the district. removing another seat named after a person. if the island of hinchinbrook has to be moved in to il also rename Hinchinbrook Burdell. the most populous suburb of Townsville within the seat

renaming Hill that should say

@John I’m curious why you see the solution to Traeger as lying northward. According to the ECQ, the five Far North seats from Cook to Hill are all projected to remain within quota, now and in 2032, with an average variation of just -0.6%. That’s about as clean as it gets. I don’t think there’s another cluster of five contiguous seats in Queensland where the largest projected deviation is under 3.3%. In short: if it ain’t broke, maybe don’t fix it.

Personally, I’d prefer to see Hinchinbrook use its surplus to shore up the Townsville trio, which are collectively projected at an average of 7% below in 2025 and 12.6% below in 2032. There’s a clear need for top-up there, and an obvious donor.

On Gregory/Traeger/Isaac: your solution works numerically, but it does require shifting out the western shires — something I’ve started trying to avoid since my geographical faux pas last night. The other risk is geographic absurdity: a single seat stretching from the NT border to the Coral Sea. If we move all of Isaac into Gregory, we end up with exactly that. I’m leaning toward a split, with the old Broadsound section of Isaac staying with Mirani — it feels more aligned geographically and economically.

And on names, fair call on Johnstone and Burdell. If Hinchinbrook had to be renamed, I’d lean toward Ingham over Burdell, just on the basis of population and regional identity. But unless there’s a major redraw up north, I think the island is staying put — and the name probably should too, unless you wanted to remove it on the basis of sharing with an LGA, in which case go right ahead.

I haven’t had any experience with redistributions, and this is just a half-baked idea based on a quick look at the map, but could we abolish one of the Townsville seats? All three are going to end up well under quota, as are Traeger and Burdekin, so by abolishing a Townsville seat and moving Traeger and Burdekin into the outskirts of Townsville, could that help fix the problem?

@real talk but if you want to fix traeger without creating a larger monstrosity you simply share its defeceit with other seats thats my reasoning hill can move further into cassowary coast of hinchinbrook and that surplus can help solve the defeceit of traegar. the townsville trio would be better fixed by having mundingburra take in the townsville part of burdekin. which can then consist of burdekin and whitsunday. Then mackay can be divided into 2 seats. the second i intend to name Pioneer River. The problem with naming it Ingham is Hinchinbrook will probably be the ideal choice for a 4th townsville seat and Hinchinbrook shire would be the next to go, though I did originally consider Ingham and would have it as an alternative name. currently townsville is split across 3 (townsville, mundingburra(whch i intend to rename Ross) and Thuringowa) and the part in Hinchinbrook and part in Burdekin when you can put it into 4. as for where Gregory streches so what? Traegar almost does that except for a small patch of land near Rollingstone. given gregory would then be over quota it can leave the western shires put and as you said leave the coastal areas of isaac in Mirani which ive effectively abolished and renamed Pioneer River as the second Mackay seat. Burdekin instead could take in the northern parts of Mackay because the combined Burdekin and Whitsunday LGAs would likely be short of the quota.

@clarinet burdekin already takes in parts of townsville to the southern area. and the norther parts in Hinchinbrook. youve also got community of interest problems. as just stated to real talk townsville currently splits into 3 and a bit quota so theres no need to abolish a seat that meets nearly a quota and doesnt cross the lga of a small city. really townsville shouldnt be in both burdekin and hinchinbrook as well which is why i intend to propse remving the townsville parts from Burdekin.

John the Townsville parts of Burdekin seem to be only scraps of semi-rural area, so I doubt that would be enough. And so your plan would be to abolish Whitsunday and replace it with a second Mackay seat? That basically decimates Mirani then, taking the area around Mackay into two seats, so what happens to the area down to Rockhampton and Gladstone?

i have to wait until i have time to go through the numbers and do a formal proposal but thats just a basic plan. It has been my plan for months to abolish Mirani as real talk state one regional seat has got to be abolished due to the fact the 30 seats north of the sunshine coast only have enough quota for 29 and the sunshine coast is in need of an additional seat due to its surplus.

the coastal areas of Isaac would be in either Pioneer River (Mirani), Gregory, or Keppel which i intend to as previously staed take in the entire Lvingstone Shire. and after Rockhampton is brought to quota that excess moved into Callide

tbh there may only be enough population in townsville for 3 seats meaning it may even be possiblt o abolish Hinchinbrook. and then remove charters towers from Traeger. again have to look at the numbers when i can get around to it

Yeah nah Hinchinbrook isn’t getting abolished.