Jul 01 2006
Musical chairs (part two)
The New South Wales federal electoral redistribution that was unveiled yesterday is of more than usual significance, at least if one school of thought regarding the prime ministerial succession is to be believed. It had been widely surmised that the Prime Minister was awaiting its impact on his precarious electorate of Bennelong, which he carried by an uncomfortable 4.3 per cent in 2004, before deciding whether to lead the party into the next election. Some hypothetical redistribution scenarios had Bennelong either being abolished or shifting westwards into Labor territory as part of a wholesale shake-up of Sydney electorates. The more dramatic of these scenarios were predicated on the assumption that a metropolitan seat would be abolished, but former Nationals leader John Anderson’s electorate of Gwydir has instead been nominated for the chop, cancelling out the good turn done to the Nationals by the Queensland redistribution. This means that adjustments in Sydney have been relatively modest, but they have been sufficient to make life somewhat less comfortable in Bennelong. According to an early estimate by Malcolm Mackerras (cited by Imre Salusinszky in The Australian), the electorate’s absorption of the Ermington area from Labor-held Parramatta will cut Howard’s margin to about 3 per cent.
Another leading Liberal to feel the pinch is Malcolm Turnbull, whose electorate of Wentworth will now extend westwards beyond blue-ribbon beachside suburbs and into the green-and-red inner city, reducing the return on his not inconsiderable investment. Turnbull won the seat with a 5.6 per cent margin in 2004, although the result was distorted by Peter King’s attempt to hold his seat as an independent (King won by 7.9 per cent in 2001). The addition of Woollomooloo and Kings Cross is reckoned by those in the know to have cut his margin to about the same level as Howard’s. It has been a much better redistribution for another Sydney Liberal newcomer, Greenway MP Louise Markus, who trades Labor-leaning outer urban areas for the Shire of Hawkesbury, formerly part of Macquarie. After winning the seat at Labor’s expense in 2004, Markus should now be fairly safe. Jackie Kelly has not done well out of the adjustments to her seat of Lindsay, where a move east into St Marys (formerly in safe Labor Chifley) will bite into her 5.3 per cent margin.
On Labor’s side of the ledger, Parramatta has been substantially redrawn so that the Parramatta town centre is now in neighbouring Reid. Opinion seems divided on who this will benefit, so it seems safe to conclude that Julie Owens’ 0.7 per cent margin will be little changed. Labor should get a boost in its other precarious Sydney seat, the southern suburbs electorate of Banks, which expands northwards to take Bankstown from Blaxland. Their other loseable seat, the inner west electorate of Lowe (3.3 per cent), has undergone a number of adjustments that should largely cancel each other out. Member John Murphy will suffer slightly from the loss of more than 10,000 voters in the Ashfield area to Grayndler to the south-east, and perhaps make a net gain from extensions to the south that add Liberal-voting Strathfield South and Labor-voting Croydon Park.
All of Sydney’s electorates have been altered to some degree, but the decision to abolish Gwydir means that the biggest changes are in country seats that are off Labor’s radar. Most of Gwydir’s geographical area has been absorbed by the already substantial seat of Parkes, which now accounts for about half the state’s territory and has only Dubbo for a large population centre. The most significant knock-on effects are on Calare, which moves inland beyond the Bathurst base of independent member Peter Andren (UPDATE: Andren’s electorate office is in Bathurst, but as Mountainman notes in comments, he is more closely associated with Orange which will remain in the electorate), and Macquarie, which fills Calare’s void by moving west beyond Sydney’s outskirts. Poll Bludger comments regular Geoff Robinson notes on his blog The South Coast that this roughly returns these electorates to the areas they covered before 1977, when Calare was a safe seat for the Nationals and Macquarie mostly held by Labor. Macquarie has since been won by Labor only in 1980, 1983 and 1993 (the current member, Kerry Bartlett, won by 8.9 per cent in 2004), while Calare was held by Labor from 1983 until Andren’s debut in 1996. Robinson notes that Andren must now decide “whether to go for Macquarie and hold it against Labor or to fight the Nationals in the new Calare”. It should not be inferred that Macquarie is out of bounds for the Coalition, but Labor won the corresponding state seat of Bathurst by 6 per cent more than the state average at the 2003 election, and the consensus view is that it’s a Labor-leaning marginal.
The redistribution has inevitably brought changes to the state’s rapidly growing and electorally sensitive north coast, though none are headline-grabbers. The northernmost coastal seat, Richmond, was one of three Labor gains at the 2004 election, when Nationals member Larry Anthony was voted out by the narrowest of margins. The redistribution has reunited the electorate with the northern part of the Shire of Lismore, which it last contained before the 1993 election. At the centre of this area is Nimbin, and it is accordingly noted for its strong counter-cultural element. This area has been added in exchange for Wollongbar and Alstonville in the electorate’s south, which split nearly 60-40 in the Nationals’ favour in 2004. While these areas only account for about 7000 voters each out of a total of 94,333, Labor member Justine Elliot will presumably enjoy a slight boost to her margin. However, this is a case of swings and roundabouts for Labor, since both areas have been exchanged with its very marginal neighbour Page, held for the Nationals by Ian Causley on a margin of 4.2 per cent. Page also gains about 5500 voters around Yamba from its southern neighbour Cowper, which is unlikely to make much difference. Cowper itself is potentially winnable for Labor, currently being held for the Nationals by Luke Hartsuyker with a margin of 6.4 per cent, which will not be much changed by its exchange of Yamba in the north for Kempsey in the south. The Hunter region seat of Paterson, where the Liberal margin inflated from 1.5 per cent to 7.0 per cent in 2004, exchanges a Labor area north of Newcastle for an even more Labor area further along the Hunter Valley, which should cut the margin slightly.
In a potentially bad omen for Labor, the famously marginal seat of Eden-Monaro has extended westwards into Farrer in exchange for the loss of its anomalous territory to the north of the Australian Capital Territory, a knock-on effect of Farrer’s gain of Broken Hill at the expense of Parkes. With the addition of the Shires of Tumut and Tumbarumba, Liberal member Gary Nairn should enjoy some extra padding on his current margin of 2.2 per cent.
UPDATE: Malcolm Mackerras has posted his calculations of post-redistribution margins at Crikey.
July 1st, 2006 at 11:44 am
Just out of interest,
Grayndler: Obviously this seat will remain a very safe labor seat, but what will the alterations do to the margins? I’m especially interested in the minor party margins.
July 1st, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Actually, what are the thoughts out there on the changes to the boundaries of Sydney? It absorbs part of the Left-Labor/Green area in Grayndler and loses the slightly more conservative Labor/Liberal areas of Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay and Paddington South. Despite the very safe nature of this seat for Tanya Plibersek, if it were to go to a Labor-Green contest at the next election the Liberal preferences would probably follow the inner-Sydney state election pattern of flowing against Labor and towards the Greens, making it more marginal but most likely not changing Labor’s hold on the seat. The actual numbers of electors changing electorates are quite small because of the movements of non-residential areas like Moore Park, but the difference between Liberal (28.46%, 23419) and Green (21.61%, 17784) in 2004 is slight enough for the combined effects of the redistribution and a potential anti-Liberal swing in 2007 to create a genuine contest for second place on 2PP.
Or is this just hope over all evidence to the contrary?
July 1st, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Its just hope
July 1st, 2006 at 3:47 pm
You would need the Liberal vote to increase quite a bit - the greens poll pretty well in Potts Pt/Elizabeth Bay so it wouldn’t change things dramatically.
July 1st, 2006 at 6:04 pm
Here’s a tip. Despite the redistribution the real action in 2007 will be in Victoria. Melbourne, described by Beazley as the only European city in Australia, (ie. the only civilised portion of the continent) will split 55-45 in favour of the ALP. Howard has only won the 2pp vote in Victoria once, 2004, mainly because Latham was even more ‘Sydney’ than Howard.
July 1st, 2006 at 6:49 pm
I don’t know why you say Andren is Bathurst based - his base is actually Orange. That’s where he was a broadcaster, and it’s where he still lives and runs most of his business from. He does well in Bathurst, but wouldn’t do so well in the Labor stronghold of the Upper Mountains.
July 1st, 2006 at 8:06 pm
I pretty much lifted that from Wikipedia, although this probably only meant that his electorate office is there.
July 1st, 2006 at 8:12 pm
I disagree with Mackerras’ assessment of Bennelong - Ermington isn’t that Labor (the three Ermington booths broke down only 53-47 in Labor’s favour in 2004). Bennelong also gains a slice of Beecroft south of the M2 from Berowra - and the Berowra portion of the nearest booth, Roselea, voted 63% Liberal. Howard’s final margin will be much closer to 4% than 3%.
July 2nd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
I guess that makes sense. Usually find Wikipedia falls down on the issue of politicians.
I think this redistribution is going to shock a lot of people who have spent a lot of time working on the assumption that Macquarie was going to come east, and swallow up parts of Lindsay. A lot of work has gone into raising profiles of union and Young Labor activists in western Sydney, in Lindsay and in Greenway, and now it seems to have come to naught. What will they do? Greenway looks pretty yuck for Labor right now, and Lindsay is barely affected, though pretty winnable. Who will try to oust Jackie Kelly?
July 2nd, 2006 at 6:18 pm
Lindsay is barely affected, though pretty winnable. Who will try to oust Jackie Kelly? How about Steve Waugh.
July 2nd, 2006 at 6:40 pm
If Labor can persuade Steve Waugh to run for Lindsay I would say that not only will they win the seat, they will instantly jump to (soft) favourites to win the election - the effect on morale and their vote in across the country, particularly in neighbouring seats would be that large.
Getting him to run for a safe seat would give them a boost, but nothing like the show of confidence involved in him running for a seat like Lindsay.
July 2nd, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Above comments re Steve Waugh and Lindsay bemuse me considerably. The man has zero connections with the area. He would however be a very viable candidate for the following seats:
Banks: he gre up in the area and would most likely be far more electorably saleable than Daryl Melham. Mind you, Melham’s fuedal grasp on ALP party branches in that electorate would mitigate against him gaining pre-selection.
Hughes: he lives in the electorate and would probably be a viable candidate. Methinks the Lib margin in Hughes is well inflated (mind you the ALP held this seat far longer than demographics would have suggested) and the move into Liverpool should cut this appreciably. Danna Vale has proven a total congenital idiot whenever she opens her trap in public and this seat COULD move should a wider swing be in play. Let’s not forget that ALP holds the State seats in this electorate with reasonable margins and could well still hold them in 2007.
July 2nd, 2006 at 9:41 pm
“Above comments re Steve Waugh and Lindsay bemuse me considerably. The man has zero connections with the area”
I think that hardly matters with a man who was Captain of Australia. But then again if you got him to run for Lindsay, or anywhere, why not Bennelong? Now that would be something.
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:25 am
Agree heartily! Every man and his mum would vote for Waugh.
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:33 am
Hudson,
Don’t make me drool.
July 3rd, 2006 at 10:53 am
Hughes goes from a 11% to 8.5% seat. Need to factor in some sort of figure to allow for effect of zero campaigning in the area last election plus Latham.
A 7-8% figure is my arbitrary guess. Waugh could win it.
July 3rd, 2006 at 12:17 pm
If Waugh went up against Howard I can just picture the campaign. Posters of little kids behind razor wire, with IT’S JUST NOT CRICKET! emblazoned above. Steve Waugh, a man who doesn’t need to lock up children to prove he’s tough.
July 3rd, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Hughes is unwinnable for Labor from opposition baring a total Liberal collapse (no evidence of this). If Labor is to win in 2007 it will have to win seats like Page etc. Labor might in the future be able to win Hughes from government as Carr won Ryde etc. Shouldn’t Labor recruit people who know something about progressive public policy and would be good ministers? Garrett was Latham’s best decision. What about Larissa Behrendt?
July 3rd, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Yes, Garrett was an ok decision, especially as now he has been effectively silenced, as has midnight oil.
July 3rd, 2006 at 2:00 pm
What is Kernot doing these days?
July 3rd, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Yes, consider Kernot and for that matter her 1998 Lib opponent Rod Henshaw (Qld ABC radio & TV identity), and also David Hill (Hughes 1998) in comparison with Garrett. You don’t run your “high-profile” candidates in ‘winnable’ (aka ‘marginal’) seats. You put them in somewhere safe where they can add to the broader campaign. Otherwise, they’re spending all their time trying to win the division (and probably losing)
July 3rd, 2006 at 6:08 pm
I think the margin in Hughes makes it appear safer for the Liberal Party than it really is. The ALP would easily hold that seat based on state election results. Miranda, Menai and Heathcote are all held by them with reasonable margins.
July 3rd, 2006 at 11:23 pm
David Says:
Re the ALP’s impressive performance in NSW state seats like Ryde, Miranda, Menai, Heathcote, Penrith etc… you have to take into account the appalling performance of the state Libs at the last few NSW elections. The NSW Libs are really not worth a crumpet these days. Also, many voters switch parties between state and fed elections. There are parallels between NSW and Qld here (and I suppose SA and Vic too). The stranglehold that Labor has on state and territory govt has more to do with the strengths of Labor (and the weakness of the Coalition) at this level and a desire on the part of many voters to maintain a ‘balance’ between the fed and state governments. It has less to do with any innate voting patterns per seat: pragmatism wins out over party loyalty. You only have to compare the booth results in Penrith, Ryde etc between state and fed elections.
July 4th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Yes, there are obviously big differences between voting patterns for state and federal elections in Ryde, Sutherland Shire, western sydney and Qld.
July 4th, 2006 at 11:25 am
Malcolm Mackerras’s calculations of the new margins can be seen at Crikey.
July 4th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Hughes’ soul is in the Shire (well, it would be if it had one). Steve Waugh’s isn’t. While the Federal/State voting split is well established, the NSW ALP is also going to take a big hit in Miranda and Menai at the 2007 state election, and could easily lose both.
Waugh v Howard in Bennelong would be the greatest thing to happen in Australian politics since… well, probably forever.
July 4th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
How has Mackerras calculated the vote for Macquarie given Andren’s vote? You would have to use the Senate figures for the current Calare to get a sensible estimate.
July 4th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Geoff, I believe this comment on the earlier post provides an answer to your question.
July 4th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
According to Malcolm, the proposed Macquarie is a Liberal seat by 1.3%.
July 4th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
I noticed that too. Which is why I’ve spent the last few hours trying to piece together the polling places in the new Macquarie. End result? I get a seat that goes 52-48 in the ALP’s favour.
Below are the figures I get. I won’t vouch for 100% accuracy. But this should be close enough.
from Macquarie - Lib 17565 ALP 17628
from Lindsay - Lib 2076 ALP 1862
from Calare - Lib 13524 ALP 16366
Total - Lib 33165 ALP 35856
As I said, that works out to ALP 52-48. Which might close to something like 51-49 on pre-polls & postals. But I remain even more convinced that Macquarie is a notional Labor seat.
July 4th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
In fact, feel free to inspect my work.
July 4th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Could be a stoush between Kerry Bartlett & Louise Markus over who gets the nod in the new Greenway..? From an electoral point of view, the Libs should use the benefit of incumbency and get Bartlett to run in Macquarie and Marcus in the new Parramatta. Parramatta now takes in the Seven Hills end of the old Greenway and this would give them a real chance there. They can then use Greenway to bring in some new blood…perhaps a new home for Prue Goward? Any takers? After all Windsor’s no further from Yass than Epping.
July 4th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
Sorry about the expired link in my previous post.
This page should be more stable.
July 5th, 2006 at 12:19 am
I disagree with the posts above re the contest Howard vs. Waugh. Firstly, I doubt Waugh would ever consider such a run against Howard (Howard, one of Waugh’s biggest fans) and secondly, I think the success of high profile candidates has been mixed, and generally have only succeeded against unknown candidates, and often in vacant seats and not against sitting members.
Admired and successful sportspeople and celebrities soon lose their gloss once they enter the political ring and start having to make a stand on issues or at least start having to sell the party line. Howard will hold his seat.
July 5th, 2006 at 7:52 am
On the ex Calare areas now in Macquarie I doubt the predictive value of the AEC procedure. Most voters for Andren would have simply followed his how to vote card. To whom did he allocate preferences or did he have a split ticket? Mackerras’ Labor vote for Macquarie seems too low. Bathurst is generally a Labor town.
July 5th, 2006 at 9:32 am
On rechecking my Macquarie numbers, I get almost the same outcome as David - my only quibbles are that St Albans shouldn’t be there, and Bilpin appears to be just outside Macquarie on the map. I agree the margin is close to 2%.
I also think the final margin (with absentees etc) will be closer to 2% to 1%, as Labor did notably better in absentee and pre-poll votes than ordinary votes in Macquarie in 2004, losing absentees only 47-53, compared to 41-59 in ordinary votes. Of course, that might just mean that there were disproportionately more of those votes cast by electors from the mountains than the Hawkesbury, but still, absentees don’t appear as bad for Labor as in other places.
And for what it’s worth, I remember the Liberals complaining the day after the map came out that Macquarie was now notionally Labor. I wonder if Antony’s had a go at preparing a notional margin.
July 5th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Zach - I noticed those as well. I’ve now fixed the page. Looking at my notes, I simply forgot to excise St Albans from the spreadsheet. Not sure why I had Bilpin as part of the electorate though.
Geoff R - good point, I assumed Andren issued a split ticket HTV card. It was a marginal Labor seat before he arrived, and on current figures would be a marginal Coalition seat. That sounds about right.
July 5th, 2006 at 11:18 am
Geoff R - see this PDF.
July 5th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
While all this focus on expected margins is useful, has anyone put their mind to thinking what the Latham factor to all of this is?
Remember, Latham managed to take the ALP backwards. The coalition gained 1.8 per cent on the two party preferred back in 2004. What are the chances of that occuring again?
Might the current margins, or expected ones in the case of NSW and Qld, be slightly inflated because of the anti-Latham factor that ran last time round?
July 5th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
David, thanks for the Andren htv, makes the low informal vote in Calare (from memory) even more impressive.
July 5th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
Has anyone done the new 2PP for the new Richmond and Parramatta?
July 5th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Shane, I’m not sure about your idea of an anti-Latham factor in the 2004 election, but you could look at the results in the 2001 election to gain some idea of how the new seats would have been in 2001. This is only 5 years ago, so demographic changes might not be so great as to invalide this.
July 5th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Howard could always switch seats. Maybe jump to Mitchell or Berowra if either Cadman or Ruddock choose to retire. Both have been in Parliament seemingly FOREVER. Then again, so has Howard (Cadman and Howard were elected the same day I believe - talk about chalk and cheese career-wise). I also think Ruddock might be the longest-serving MP still in Parliament. Ruddock was first elected to the seat of Parramatta - the boundaries of these seats have changed so much over the past 20 years that Howard would have some justification in claiming that Bennelong is not the same seat it used to be. After all, Beazley changed seats, so there’s a lot of precedent here.
July 6th, 2006 at 7:25 am
That’s right - Ruddock has been an MP since September 1973
July 6th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Howard could shift, but oh the humiliation! It’s one thing to run away from a seat that was drastically redistributed to be safe for the other side, but to do a bunk from a seat that is still notionally Liberal would undermine all his carefully groomed image as a “man of steel”, “conviction politician”, “someone who does not run away from a fight”. He’ll run for Bennelong or retire.
July 6th, 2006 at 11:53 am
If people are interested, I’m currently working on a notional margin for Werriwa.
Having counted the booths transfered from Macarthur to Werriwa:
-Blairmount
-Claymore
-Eagle Vale
-Eschol Park
-Leppington
-Robert Townson (Macarthur)
-Woodbine
Out of 9300 votes cast there, the Libs hold 53.55% 2pp, suggesting a slight swing towards the Libs on the new margins.
July 6th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
I’ve crunched a very primitive bunch of notional figures for Werriwa.
Basically, the ALP sits on 57.02% of 2PP, down from 59.31% in 2004.
While not quite a marginal seat, I think that it is a surprisingly high result for the Liberals, considering their low-level campaign in the seat in 2004.
July 6th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I get a notional Liberal seat for Parramatta. A bit above 51-49.
The calculations are somewhat rough-and-ready, as I deliberately avoided the messy task of splitting booths between electorates. But it looks like Julie Owens may have to pry back a slight Liberal margin all over again.
July 6th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Ben- I think alot of those booths in Werriwa snapshot you have done will swing back to ALP. I really do think there is a ‘Pat Farmer’ factor in some of those figures.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:14 am
If anyone’s interested, I have calculated the new Greenway electorate to be around 64% to 36% 2PP in favour of the Liberals. As its only a rough figure, is there actually a proper formula for calculating 2PP margins?
July 7th, 2006 at 9:31 am
You would also have to add in a Latham factor to those figures too… They did swing between 2001 and 2004.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:04 am
The major issue of this redistribution is that the ‘community of interest’ provisions seems to have been selectively ignored when the commissioners were making their deliberation.
It appears that when they were looking at the boundaries that they started in Sydney and worked out to the edges rather than starting at the edge and moving in.
Picture the scene: “look chaps we’ve got Albury and Broken Hill left over .. lets bung ‘em in the same seat”
The line the Nats are running at the moment about the loss of a seat is a big furphy but in regional NSW, the commissioners have got it wrong.
Farrer: the commissioners believe that Broken Hill has a relationship with the town of Wentworth, Wentworth is on the Murray it must have a relationship with Albury … hey presto! There is no community of interest between Albury and Broken Hill .. not by road, social or media links.
Eden Monaro: Anybody who has ever been to Tumut or Tumbarumba knows that their community of interest is with either Albury or Wagga, there may be mountains, but they do not link the communities.
Calare: Bathurst and Orange have a strong community of interest cut in 2 by this redistribution.
There are other linkages that could happen: Queanbayen and Goulburn could go into the same seat, so could Nowra and the Sothern Highlands (as they did).
Even in Sydney the community of interest is odd.
Warringah has now been extended across Middle Harbour into parts of Ku Ring Gai when the southern parts of Ku Ring Gai would have more in common with North Sydney, but somehow Cremorne and Mosman could not be in the same seat as ‘lacking in community of interest’. No doubt there are many more!
The commissioners should outline their understanding of the concept!
July 7th, 2006 at 11:48 am
Without defending the proposed electorates, it’s a big juggling act to create 49 electorates while satisfying all the competing criteria, the only one for which there is no leeway being the numbers one. Readers should try it someday.
Eg, say Broken Hill is put into Parkes or Riverina (or even Calare). Then you have to shuffle a couple of tens of thousands of voters around the electorates; each shuffle leading to subsequent shuffles…
While non-Sydney has lost a seat, it has gained parts of Macquarie, Greenway and Macarthur, so it actually hasn’t lost a seat - it might have lost 1/3-1/2 a seat, which is pretty much what the enrolment numbers suggest should happen.
July 7th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
I agree that the juggling act is not easy and that some seemingly strange outcomes will always result.
There will always be a very large (and getting larger with each redistribution) seat in western NSW because there aren’t many people and the numbers are declining quickly. That is why the current Nats campaign to retain Gwydir is a bit of a try on.
The main problem is not that a rural seat is lost but how the jigsaw is put together.
Possibly the commissioners should have been braver and abolished more than one seat! one rural - one Sydney to try and restore some sort of community of interest balance.
July 7th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
I agree with blackburnpseph that some of these boundaries are very poor on the community of interest criteria. The Broken Hill fiasco & the split with Orange and Bathurst are a direct result of the decision to abolish Gwydir. They had to take Broken Hill out of Parkes, as Parkes needed to move over to absorb Gwydir. Likewise Calare moved north-west to take surplus voters from this Parkes/Gwydir merge.
Given that these are already by far and away the largest seats in the state it seems a bit unfair to target them for abolition instead of Blaxland or Reid as was expected.
Another shocking decision is the new Hughes which links Liverpool & Sutherland. The existing Hughes was bad enough but this is disgraceful. No solution would be ideal as the sutherland shire equals 1.5 seats so there was always going to be a mixed electorate. The Liberal party submission was to give Hughes part of Banks around East Hills & Labor suggested extending it down to Wollongong. Either of these would have been better than what is proposed - but I think the logical solution would have been to extend it north accross the Georges River to take in the riverside suburbs south of Hurstville.
Perhaps I should lodge an objection?
July 7th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
If you lodge an objection, it’s probably good to have suggested replacement boundaries to take account of all the flow-on changes.
July 7th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
I agree that Hughes has nothing in common with Liverpool. It probably wouldn’t be any worse to move it west into Campbelltown. Both of these areas don’t really have a great deal to do with the Shire and the most logical thing to do would surely be to move the seat north or south to Wollongon or Hurstville along the railway line.
I am suprised at some of the comments in relation to abolishing Gwydir. If you look at the AEC figures then Gwydir has the lowest projected enrolment over the period and Parkes which is situated next to it has the second lowest. Given the low enrollment of pretty much all of the seats west of the Great Dividing Range, I can’t really see how they could avoid abolishing at least one of these seats. While there were some seats in Sydney with low projected enrolment like Blaxland and Reid, there were also seats with very high projected enrolment like Macarthur and Greenway that needed to shed a large number of voters.
July 8th, 2006 at 1:48 am
The only solution would have been to have a complete overhaul of ALL NSW electoral boundaries, including Greater Sydney. Instead, the AEC tinkered with existing boundaries in a ‘minimalist’ approach to redistribution. They did the same thing in Qld. OK, so one whole seat (and a pretty big one, geographically speaking) was abolished in NSW, meaning that the surrounding seats were expanded or moved to fill the vacuum, in turn resulting in some pretty drastic changes to many seats. But the only way to change the electoral boundaries AND maintain a “community of interest” for each and every seat (or as many seats as practicable) is to go back to the drawing board and re-draw EVERY seat with this in mind. This would not sit well with most sitting parliamentarians, who might see their electorate completely re-drawn beyond recognition. Many politicians would scream blue murder. As it stands, only a handful of sitting members have seen their margins cut, and the majority of seats really haven’t changed that much.
blackburnpseph is correct on this point, that “community of interest” was thrown to the wolves. Putting Queanbeyan and Goulburn in the same seat, and Mosman and Cremorne in the same seat, and Bathurst and Orange in the same seat, etc - these are all laudable ideas. But they would require that current boundaries be rubbed out, and the AEC make a fresh start in drawing all electoral boundaries anew - which would be hugely controversial politically.
I like the analogy of the ‘jigsaw’. In this case, the AEC just moved the pieces around or made certain pieces bigger or smaller, instead of making a whole new jigsaw. Unfortunately, mathematically, it would be impossible to maintain a community of interest within every seat, especially given the prerequisites that (a) electoral boundaries have to conform to state and territory borders; (b) electorates have to be contiguous; and (c) electorates have to stay within quota.
July 8th, 2006 at 7:09 am
My understanding is that ‘community of interest’ is aimed at keeping towns and centres in the same electorate rather than in linking them together. Who cares if Broken Hill and Albury are in the same electorate, as long as both towns are included in their entirity.
July 8th, 2006 at 8:34 am
A couple of points. One is that the existing boundaries is also a criteria for drawing new boundaries, as is community of interest. Thats one of the reasons why the Commissioners tend to minimise the number of people moved between electorates, and also why over time you sometimes get strange electoral boundaries develop. Have a look at Petrie in Brisbane as an example of how existing boundaries survive over time.
Secondly, community of interest is a nebulous concept, and the submissions of the parties always manage to put their political arguments in the language of community of interest. Having sat through a few hearings, it is quite amusing to watch.
Third, the Commissioners have to weigh up competing communities of interest. I sat through hearings for a state redistribution years ago where there were arguments about splitting North Sydney Council between seats. The only way you could avoid doing that was to split the Manly Council area. You couldn’t draw boundaries that avoid splitting both. But which was the more important community of interest? There was no objective answer, only subjective ones. Every re-drawing of boundaries comes up against such inconsistencies someweher in the state.
Fourth, Federal electorate are sometimes so large it is impossible to have a single community of interest. As an example, Broken Hill is very distinct from the rest of NSW, it operates on a different time zone, gets its media from Adelaide, and historically operated with its own industrial awards different from the rest of NSW. It is a mining town in a sparsely populated part of the state. Whether it is put in Parkes or Farrer, I think you can safely say it is a city that has its own community of interest distinct from whichever electorate you put it in.
And Sacha’s point is quite correct. The abolition of Parkes has made Hunter, Macquarie and Eden Monaro slightly more rural than they were before.
I also think you will find that much of the National Party’s push to raise community anger at the new boundaries may stem from the fact the Liberal Party may not be willing to lift a finger to help. Bringing back Gwydir puts Broken Hil back into Parkes, moves Farrer back to Tumut, Eden-Monaro into the South Coast, Gilmore into the Illawarra, Hughes further across the Georges River. You get the suspicion the Liberal Party won’t want to put up with that pain just to re-create a seat for the National Party.
July 8th, 2006 at 8:46 am
The AEC seems to have chosen one part of their brief - minimisation of disruption at the expense of another - community of interest.
There are precedents for greater change - in 1993, two seats - Dundas and Phillip were abolished - and one created - Paterson.
It also has to be remembered that prior to this redistribution there were two clusters of low enrolment seats - Parkes, Gwydir, New England being one and Inner South Western Sydney - Reid, Blaxland, Watson being another.
July 8th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Sure, Pat Farmer undoubtedly had an effect on the Liberal vote in Macarthur, but Latham would have had even more of an impact on the Labor vote in Werriwa, particularly considering the low profile of the new sitting Labor MP.
As a local involved in the last few campaigns in Campbelltown, I can tell you that Werriwa has never been seriously contested by the Liberals. Considering that the margin would only be about 7% on new boundaries, without Latham, with a lower-profile Labor MP, and a stronger effort by the Liberals, it would be very marginal.
Maybe the Libs don’t have the energy/money/need to take on another seat, and I don’t want to see the Libs take yet another seat, but comparing Werriwa to seats like Lindsay, Macarthur, Parramatta, the old Greenway, there’s no reason why it should be a safe Labor seat.
July 8th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Ben Raue makes a good point that a party will make an effort when they hold a seat. This is one reason why Wentworth expanding into Potts Point, Darlinghurst and Elizabeth Bay may not be such a problem for Malcolm Turnbull. These were areas that were lib or close to on a 2pp when they were in Wentworth in 1990 but when I lived in the area for the 1996 and 1998 elections (when they were in Sydney) they made no effort - not a single piece of paper in the letter box. Why spend time or money when you can’t win.
Malcolm Turnbull is a good fit for these areas and though they may be at the forefront of the political culture wars, these may become less intense once John Winston retires.
Where Wentworth will become interesting is that it will become the litmus tests of culture and social issues as the primary determinant of voting patterns. It may become in a few elections like Hampstead in the UK or congressional districts in Manhattan or Westside LA which have high incomes but vote solidly for the so called left.
July 8th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Antony, are you going to do up a report on the impact of the redistribution and new notional margins per seat? (like you did for the NSW state redistribution last year) If so when/where??
July 8th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
I would do normally, but at the moment am too involved in another project. I might do some work before the final boundaries, but at the moment just too busy.
I’m currently pulling together every NSW state election back to 1856 into a standard format for publication. The 19th century results all have to be found through newspapers and in archive searches.
Got all the basic records set up. That’s 54 elections, 5 different electoral systems, 5,083 individual electorate contets, 16,046 candidate records. Includes 667 by-election contests. 19th century turnout figures have been located for the first time and the website will be fully annotated with sources and also material on special features of certain contests.
Will all be published as a website at the end of this year or early next year. Current deadline is to have all party holdings ready for an atlas by the end of August, with all boundaries back to 1856 having been geocoded into a modern mapping system. Atlas will be out at end of year, with an interactive cd-rom of the results and probably a web site.
This week is proof-reading the 1869-70 election and getting the data from 1894-1907 ready to map. Oh, and getting all my Victorian and Queensland election notes ready to publish for the ABC website.
So, in about two months time I might have some time.
July 8th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Strewth. Rapid reply and comprehensive response. Thanks!
Looking forward to your NSW election project now though. I am particulalrly interested in the results from the first half of the 20th century which I understand were under a multi-member-per-electorate system (did that mean Labor MPs from the North Shore?? If so, how funny is that.)
And will keep an eye out for the redistribution report when you get round to it.
July 8th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
I’ve lived in Elizabeth Bay for 3.75 years and on Cleveland St in Darlington the previous 2.5 years, and was a Brisbaneite before then. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people in Elizabeth Bay, Potts Pt and Darlinghurst are very socially liberal, and that this is a big determinant of how they vote; their income is less important. This is just a feeling - I don’t have any data on this.
I suspect that a lot of people in these areas don’t vote on the basis of self-identification of class - of course, a lot of people in this area are gay, and I suspect that this is a big factor.
July 8th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
An acquantaince (spelling?) told me that a lot of people in Macarthur voted for Pat Farmer rather than the Liberal Party, and that Pat wasn’t necessary a Liberal, rather that the Liberals were the current government and he wanted to be part of it. I don’t know how true this is.
July 8th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
Antony’s right about the seat of Petrie in Brisbane - it’s a very strange shape - snaking down from Recliffe through Bald Hills and ending up in northern brisbane suburbs. The idea must be that Recliffe is really part of greater brisbane, and they’ve drawn Petrie accordingly rather than put Recliffe in with Pine Rivers Shire or Caboolture Shire.
For some reason they’ve often kept Pine Rivers in a separate seat to northern brisbane suburbs which seems a bit strange - you could put the strathpine suburban area in with northern brisbane suburbs fairly easily.
July 9th, 2006 at 8:12 am
Ben, engaged in several experiments with electoral system in the early 20th century. They used second ballots for three elections 1910-17, a second ballot conducted if no candidate had a majority, as used in France. NSW then used Hare-Clark for three elections 1920-25, contingent or single preference voting in 1927 then preferential voting from 1930.
July 9th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Someone asked whether Sydney was more winnable for the Greens under the proposed boundaries. By my accounting, it looks slightly more winnable, although by not much:
The 2004 Sydney ordinary (booth) vote for the Greens, Libs and ALP was:
Greens: 21.65%
Liberal: 27.7%
ALP: 45.65%
and the 2PP vote for booth votes was 67.46% to ALP.
The total primary vote (including pre-polls etc) was:
Greens: 21.61%
Liberal: 28.46%
ALP: 44.68%
for a grand 2PP vote of 66.42% to ALP.
Under the proposed boundaries for Sydney (obtained by just adding the figures together), we have a booth (ordinary) primary vote for the Greens, Liberal and ALP as follows:
Greens: 21.92%
Liberal: 26.76%
ALP: 46.22%
with a 2PP booth vote of 68.37% to ALP.
July 10th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Further to the community of interest argument. It can work the other way.
I was a young journo in Wagga at the time of the 1993 redistribution, and there was a proposal to reunite Wagga and Albury in one electorate.
But neither of these two large communities were interested in each other. The argument ran that as these two rural cities were in competition with each other (mostly for public servants), then a single person could not represent the one seat properly!
Of course, the AEC went with the new Riverina (ditching the Darling), moved Hume north and kept Albury and Wagga in different electorates. And it satisfied these two communities who would definitely, by any other definition, be a community of interest.
July 12th, 2006 at 1:05 am
Interesting times… One observation I have is the vote shift that happens when a suburb or area moves from a safe electorate for one party to a safe electorate for the other. View West Ipswich / East Ipswich which is now a marginal Lib / safe Labor divide, Campbelltown which actually went Liberal except for Airds after it migrated to Macarthur, etc. Also, I doubt Peter Andren will have any problem with the new boundaries for Calare, although it will require a lot of campaigning - the test for an independent in Australia seems to be whether they are capable and active, and others have succeeded in equally odd circumstances (viz. Elizabeth Constable’s WA state seat of Churchlands 1991-2005)
July 26th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
Have you seen Mackerras’ pendulum on his website? He has Macquarie at 0.5% notionally Labor and Parramatta 1.1% notionally Liberal.
July 27th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Macquarie now includes Blue Mountains (safe Labor-Green) and Lithgow (safe Labor prior to the rise of Peter Andren) with surrounding coalition-friendly rural areas, while the bit that kept it safe Liberal, Richmond-Windsor, has been shuffled into Greenway. Fowler has been mutated beyond all recognition to turn it into what looks like a moderately strong Liberal seat, it now takes in bits of Lindsay and Macarthur like Badgery’s Creek which have never swayed in support for the Coalition despite numerous boundary changes.
July 28th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Although the new Fowler includes a large area of Liberal-leaning rural territory, the actual number of voters would be very low relative to the Labor voters in Liverpool. The bulk of Fowler is still made up of these working-class areas west of the Liverpool CBD. Mackerras i think gives it 13% ALP (down from 20-odd % in 2004).