Apologies for the inactivity – been a bit busy lately. Those who are interested will already be aware that Malcolm Mackerras has published his calculations of post-redistribution margins, answering (more or less) many queries raised on this site’s comments threads when the proposals were first made public. His figures offer a few surprises: Labor’s newly acquired seat of Parramatta has moved back into the Liberal column; John Howard has only lost 0.3 per cent from his margin in Bennelong; and Mackerras gives the Nationals a margin of 7.9 per cent in the new Queensland seat of Wright, whereas my own calculation (and reportedly that of the Nationals) had it at about 5.5 per cent. The following tables indicate which seats have shifted in which direction and by how much.
NEW SOUTH WALES |
Coalition seats |
NEW |
OLD |
SHIFT |
MEMBER |
Parramatta |
1.1 |
0.7 |
1.8 |
Julie Owens |
Wentworth |
2.6 |
5.6 |
3.0 |
Malcolm Turnbull |
Lindsay |
2.9 |
5.3 |
2.4 |
Jackie Kelly |
Eden-Monaro |
3.3 |
2.2 |
1.1 |
Gary Nairn |
Bennelong |
4.0 |
4.3 |
0.3 |
John Howard |
Dobell |
4.8 |
5.9 |
1.1 |
Ken Ticehurst |
Page |
5.5 |
4.2 |
1.3 |
Ian Causley |
Cowper |
6.6 |
6.4 |
0.2 |
Luke Hartsuyker |
Paterson |
6.8 |
7.0 |
0.2 |
Bob Baldwin |
Robertson |
6.9 |
6.8 |
0.1 |
Jim Lloyd |
Hughes |
8.8 |
11.0 |
2.2 |
Danna Vale |
Gilmore |
9.5 |
10.0 |
0.5 |
Joanna Gash |
North Sydney |
10.1 |
10.0 |
0.1 |
Joe Hockey |
Greenway |
11.0 |
0.6 |
10.4 |
Louise Markus |
Macarthur |
11.1 |
9.5 |
1.6 |
Pat Farmer |
Warringah |
11.3 |
10.0 |
1.3 |
Tony Abbott |
Hume |
12.9 |
14.1 |
1.2 |
Alby Schultz |
Berowra |
13.1 |
12.3 |
0.8 |
Philip Ruddock |
Cook |
13.7 |
13.8 |
0.1 |
Bruce Baird |
Lyne |
14.1 |
13.0 |
1.1 |
Mark Vaile |
New England |
14.2 |
13.2 |
1.0 |
Tony Windsor |
Farrer |
15.4 |
19.9 |
4.5 |
Sussan Ley |
Mackellar |
15.5 |
15.9 |
0.4 |
Bronwyn Bishop |
Bradfield |
17.5 |
18.7 |
1.2 |
Brendan Nelson |
Parkes |
18.8 |
14.4 |
4.4 |
John Cobb |
Riverina |
20.7 |
20.7 |
0.0 |
Kay Hull |
Mitchell |
20.7 |
20.6 |
0.1 |
Alan Cadman |
Labor seats |
NEW |
OLD |
SHIFT |
MEMBER |
Macquarie |
0.5 |
8.9 |
9.4 |
Kerry Bartlett |
Richmond |
1.5 |
0.2 |
1.3 |
Justine Elliot |
Lowe |
3.1 |
3.3 |
0.2 |
John Murphy |
Banks |
3.3 |
1.1 |
2.2 |
Daryl Melham |
Prospect |
6.9 |
7.1 |
0.2 |
Chris Bowen |
Werriwa |
7.1 |
9.3 |
2.2 |
Chris Hayes |
Barton |
7.6 |
7.5 |
0.1 |
Robert McClelland |
Calare |
7.9 |
21.2 |
13.3 |
Peter Andren |
Charlton |
8.4 |
8.0 |
0.4 |
Kelly Hoare |
Kingsford-Smith |
8.6 |
8.9 |
0.3 |
Peter Garrett |
Newcastle |
8.7 |
10.0 |
1.3 |
Sharon Grierson |
Shortland |
9.3 |
9.5 |
0.2 |
Jill Hall |
Hunter |
11.2 |
13.8 |
2.6 |
Joel Fitzgibbon |
Cunningham |
11.7 |
11.5 |
0.2 |
Sharon Bird |
Reid |
12.0 |
12.8 |
0.8 |
Laurie Ferguson |
Chifley |
12.1 |
13.0 |
0.9 |
Roger Price |
Fowler |
13.5 |
21.4 |
7.9 |
Julia Irwin |
Throsby |
13.9 |
15.0 |
1.1 |
Jennie George |
Watson |
14.6 |
15.1 |
0.5 |
Tony Burke |
Blaxland |
15.3 |
12.9 |
2.4 |
Michael Hatton |
Sydney |
17.3 |
16.4 |
0.9 |
Tanya Plibersek |
Grayndler |
21.3 |
22.6 |
1.3 |
Anthony Albanese |
QUEENSLAND |
Coalition seats |
NEW |
OLD |
SHIFT |
MEMBER |
Bonner |
0.6 |
No change |
Ross Vasta |
Moreton |
2.8 |
4.2 |
1.4 |
Gary Hardgrave |
Blair |
5.7 |
11.2 |
5.5 |
Cameron Thompson |
Herbert |
6.1 |
6.2 |
0.1 |
Peter Lindsay |
Longman |
6.6 |
7.7 |
1.1 |
Mal Brough |
Wright |
7.9 |
New electorate |
Petrie |
7.9 |
7.9 |
0.0 |
Teresa Gambaro |
Hinkler |
8.8 |
4.8 |
4.0 |
Paul Neville |
Bowman |
8.9 |
9.1 |
0.2 |
Andrew Laming |
Dickson |
9.1 |
7.8 |
1.3 |
Peter Dutton |
Dawson |
10.2 |
10.4 |
0.2 |
De-Anne Kelly |
Leichhardt |
10.3 |
10.0 |
0.3 |
Warren Entsch |
Ryan |
10.4 |
No change |
Michael Johnson |
Kennedy |
10.5 |
9.0 |
1.5 |
Bob Katter |
Wide Bay |
12.2 |
12.9 |
0.7 |
Warren Truss |
Fisher |
13.0 |
13.0 |
0.0 |
Peter Slipper |
Forde |
13.0 |
13.0 |
0.0 |
Kay Elson |
Fairfax |
13.3 |
11.1 |
2.2 |
Alex Somlyay |
McPherson |
14.0 |
13.9 |
0.1 |
Margaret May |
Fadden |
15.3 |
15.3 |
0.0 |
David Jull |
Groom |
19.0 |
19.0 |
0.0 |
Ian Macfarlane |
Moncrieff |
19.9 |
20.1 |
0.2 |
Steven Ciobo |
Maranoa |
21.0 |
20.8 |
0.2 |
Bruce Scott |
Labor seats |
NEW |
OLD |
SHIFT |
MEMBER |
Rankin |
3.0 |
3.3 |
0.3 |
Craig Emerson |
Capricornia |
3.8 |
5.1 |
1.3 |
Kirsten Livermore |
Brisbane |
4.0 |
3.9 |
0.1 |
Arch Bevis |
Lilley |
5.4 |
5.3 |
0.1 |
Wayne Swan |
Oxley |
7.2 |
9.7 |
2.5 |
Bernie Ripoll |
Griffith |
8.5 |
8.6 |
0.1 |
Kevin Rudd |
Author: William Bowe
William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.
View all posts by William Bowe
It is interesting that you show Peter Andren as holding a labor seat. Perhaps if more of his electorate knew his sympathies he would have greater trouble holding the seat of Calare. I have read that he is still undecided about which seat (Calare or Macquarie) to stand in (link)
I think it is unlikely he would stand in Macquarie (although his electorate office is in Bathurst, he is from the Orange end of the electorate). If he did stand in Macquarie, the coalition will win Calare and Macquarie would be anyone’s guess.
The movement in Western Sydney is fascinating: the changes in Greenway, Macquarie and Parramatta are sure to annoy/delight various supporters.
For all those interested, the Toowoomba referendum live feed should be up on http://www.toowoomba.qld.gov.au.
Stuart, I have Calare in the Labor table purely because Malcolm Mackerras does. He explains this decision as follows (referring to himself in the third person):
I see the Toowoomba referendum copped a hiding. John Quiggin will not be pleased.
I don’t know how Malcolm calculated the Wentworth margin. I agreed with his initial 2.9% margin for the libs (assuming that the fact Peter King ran had no impact on the 2PP preferred vote) – this looks like the booth votes. But perhaps he’s done some calculations with the votes from the Sydney Town Hall booth and the non-booths. But I’d be surprised if it came down to 2.6% – I’d say it would most likely be 2.8%.
But these calculated margins don’t matter anyway.
When I look at the map at http://www.aec.gov.au/_content/why/redistributions/2005/qld/report/maps/goldc_web_sec.pdf, it appears that the boundaries for the proposed Ryan are the same as for the existing Ryan.
The margins in the post for at least one of the existing or proposed Ryan electorates must be not quite right.
The distribution report says there’s no change to Ryan’s boundaries. There’s an extra 3500 projected enrolments but that doesn’t strike me as a good indicator of anything.
That level of precision is also a bit silly, isn’t it? 0.1% is only an extra 90 votes.
Well done Sacha and Darryl, you have uncovered a tiny error in Mackerras’s paper. Ryan has indeed not changed, but in one of his two tables he has incorrectly identified the margin as 10.5 per cent rather than 10.4 per cent. My table has been corrected.
Maybe the next stage in silly “precision” is attempting to account for enrolment growth and demographic change?
Check out the number of objections to the redistribution in NSW. I expect that a lot of them are form letters related to the impending demise of Gwydir.
http://www.aec.gov.au/_content/why/redistributions/2005/nsw/object.htm
Blair remains of interest. The commission may not be done cutting down the Liberal margin.
Both John Cherry and, unsurprisingly, Labor object to the inclusion of Boonah LGA and instead suggest expanding Blair into Ipswich East.
The political effects are straight forward. Boonah LGA contains 6000 registered voters. I haven’t fully figured out all the polling booths belonging to the shire, but it looks like they voted Liberal roughly in the order of 70-75% in 2004. Whilst Redbank & Redbank Plains in Ipswich East voted Labor roughly 60%. Curiously, Cherry adds more voters here than Labor does, 4800 vs 3600.
On the face of it, the suggestion appears to have a fair bit of merit. Why does Blair shed rural territory to the north only to gain rural territory to the south? A seat even more centred on urban Ipswich makes sense. As does retaining Boonah in the predominately rural Forde.
The real test is whether the changes are outweighed by less than ideal knock-on effects to other seats.
you gotta love the masses who cant understand why seats go away – you saw the same in SA in ’04
From a previous comment of mine:
Here are the 2 party preferred votes in the booths in the 2004 election for the proposed Blair eletorate:
from Oxley: 7240 ALP, 4460 Lib
from Forde: 1330 ALP, 3749 Lib (including 1/2 of Flagstone)
from Blair: 19067 ALP, 27527 Lib
The part from Forde is Boonah shire with perhaps some extra bits, so you can see why the ALP wants Boonah shire to stay in Forde.
I’m sure even Malcolm and Antony would be the first to admit that recalculating TPPs for redistributed electorates can be a bit iffy. Having done so myself, I would think that it’s so iffy that, in most cases, it’s probably not worth the effort- which is very considerable. There are all sorts of issues to do with the population of booths within an electorate, how they may change from election to election, what their “catchment†is and how to split up their votes when their existing catchment partly changes from one electorate to another. These problems loom particularly large in the border areas between two urban seats which are being redistributed. There is also the problem that the people who vote at a particular booth, although they are presumably of the same demographic, vote differently according to which electorate they are in. You can see this in places like Dee Why, where the main booth services both Warringah and Mackellar (both fairly blue-ribbon-ish Liberal). The TPP at this booth can differ significantly depending on whether the voters vote in a Warringah or a Mackellar cubicle.
When we get down to splitting hairs at the less than 1% change level (as in Bennelong), we really are wasting our time starting the whole process. This doesn’t mean that I don’t take advantage of Malcolm’s hard work in doing my own tea-leaf reading prior to an election, but I don’t think I could show an increased prediction performance on the basis of it.
Geoff Lambert
Just to expand on the point about shared booths…
There were about 230 of these at the 2004 election (not counting the CBD booths which serve ALL electorates). The average absolute difference in the TPP for the two (it’s nearly always only 2) electorates shared by these booths was 6.1%, the smallest difference was 0.01% and the largest was 40% (!)
Sorry about this, but I overlooked the peculiar case of the booth at Rottnest Island- you can vote in any WA Federal Electorate at Rottnest. If you take Rottnest out, the above numbers become 5.6%, 0.01% and 24%.
Geoff: perhaps results in booths shared by neighbouring electorates could be used to look at candidate effects on how people vote.
It might be interesting to look at this in areas that are pretty homogeneous.
Interesting Geoff. But I wonder if the large % discrepancies are as significant as you make them out to be. Or whether they’re simply exaggerated by the small-ish sizes involved.
For instance, to use the Dee Why Central example:
The 481 Mackellar voters went 58.4% Liberal
The 1546 Warringah voters went 52.8% Liberal
A difference of 5.6% may seem large. But 5.6% only amounts to 27 voters for Mackellar.
Or to look at it another way, the 2027 Dee Why Central voters went 54.1% Liberal in total. If you split that between the two electorates as per the 481:1546 ratio above, you get a result that’s only 21 voters off either side.
A drop in the ocean in electorates of 80,000+ voters.
Hmmm…. a Chi-Sq test on these numbers returns P