The New South Wales boundaries have now been finalised as well. Geographically dramatic changes have been made to the large electorates in the west after the original proposal had Parkes occupying the entire north-western quarter of the state. It has now traded in more than two-thirds of its total area as originally proposed for the Wellington and Mid-West Regional shires to the east of Dubbo. The state’s north-western vastness will instead be divided between Calare and Farrer, the latter of which loses the Murrumbidgee shire to Riverina. All affected electorates are safe for the Coalition except independent MP Peter Andren’s seat of Calare, whose centre of gravity has moved still further from his home base of Orange.
Elsewhere, a small amount of rejigging has been done around the junction of Paterson, Newcastle and Hunter; changes have been made to the boundary between Parramatta and Reid after the original redistribution deprived the former of the Parramatta town centre; and various adjustments have been made affecting the boundaries of Wentworth, Kingsford-Smith and Sydney. The comments thread of the previous entry contains much productive discussion of the likely effect of these changes.
I will play that to Marcus regardng the lack of road connection over the mountains. Southbank is already a Liberal booth
Adam was it Deakin (and I am answering this without looking it up, so everyone be gentle if I am wrong)
Nah, I am wrong, I will leave it for someone else to answer.
Btw I don’t understand why the AEC would need to abolish Melbourne Ports. Not only is it an federation electorate but the area is gentrifying and even the areas closest to Melbourne would increasingly have less in common with Melbourne and it would make more sense just to move Caulfield into Higgins or Goldstein.
Yeah now I realize it was a rhetorical question. Thank goodness for the anonymity of the internet!
Melbourne Ports has become substantially more affluent over the last 15 years, but there’s no evidence that that’s made it any more conservative – the margin has hardly shifted from 1993 onwards. The Southbank residential population is too small to make much of a difference, and it arguably belongs more with Melbourne on community-of-interest grounds anyway (although it’s been a while since a seat in Melbourne has crossed the Yarra). I also wouldn’t mind betting that a fairly high proportion of Southbank residents aren’t Australian citizens.
As was alluded to in an earlier post, the real impact of removing Caulfield from Melbourne Ports would be to remove a lot of the internal ALP power base from the present sitting member.
Well I know this one having read some of the submissions earlier in the year. The ALP used the precedent of Watson (and others like Tangney?) to push for a new electorate called Whitlam.
For some reason Watson was later abolished. And later re-created.
By the way, the current Vic boundaries (and I would assume previous boundaries too?) show great respect to the Yarra River as an electorate boundary. So a merger of Melbourne & Melb Ports strikes me as unlikely.
Well, Whitlam seems to be showing some disinclination to ever die at all, so I think now would be a reasonable time to name a seat after him. Of course, it’d be politically unfeasible, since he’s the most controversial Prime Minister we’ve ever had.
As for the next election, I don’t think the Coalition will keep their Senate majority; despite my belief that they’ll be re-elected, I don’t think they will gain enough support to win enough senators to maintain it. Where the Democrats go depends on how the election goes; one or two will probably go to the Greens, with the rest depending on how Howard holds up for the rest of his term; if he’s unlucky, there’s a good chance Labor could gain two of the Democrat Senators. I think there’s definitely a vote base for Family First in the community, and that they’ll serve to attrite the coalition enough to prevent the Coalition from maintaining their Senate majority.
The original Melbourne Ports covered both sides of the Yarra and seat of Yarra use to covered Richmond and Hawthorn
I suspect the aspiration of most Green activists is to be respectable coalition partners for Labor on the model of the German Greens and the SPD. As one coalition ebbs in Australian politics another will arise. The German Greens backed the Kosovo and Afghan wars. I agree state and federal redistribution commissioners strangely reluctant to cross the Yarra; the Victorian Legislative Council boundaries would be more logical if they had done so.
I definitely agree with Geoff R; that seems to have been what the Greens were trying to achieve in Tasmania in the last campaign. In the SMH two weekends ago, there was an essay in Spectrum on the rise of the ‘culturalists’; upper-middle-class lefties who could be persuaded to vote Green rather than Labor, giving the Greens inner-city lower house seats (particularly in the state parliaments; if the Libs stay out of Marrickville and if there’s a sustained swing against Labor at the next election, I think they’re in with a chance)
Oh yes, the Greens could win Marrickville and Balmain if there was a reasonable swing away from Labor and Liberal voters strategically voted by preferencing the Greens – this is a plausible result. If Clover Moore wasn’t running for the state seat of Sydney, the Greens would probably have a chance there too (it’s my seat), although probably less-so than in the other two seats.
What appeared in the SMH isn’t a new idea – I’ve noticed this for many years.
Yes, folks, the only PM to have a seat named after him while still alive was Chris Watson. His old seat of South Sydney was renamed Watson in 1934, 30 years after his prime ministership. Possibly the commissioners thought he was dead. On that precedent, a seat of Whitlam should have been created 30 years after Gough’s reign ended, that is in 2005.
I can think of three other people who had seats named after them while they were still alive: Lord Casey (1969), Dame Dorothy Tangney (1974) and Dame Annabelle Rankin (1984).
There seems to be a great longing on the part of the contributors to give a Victorian seat away in the next redistribution cycle. I have checked the ABS website which shows that over the last several years the Victorian population growth has been tracking the national growth rate (both at 1.2% pa). Depending on how close Vic was to losing a seat last time, this would suggest that Vic will maintain its representation as the relative share is being maintained. SA and NSW are growing (at Dec 05) at 0.6% and 0.8%, WA at 1.6%, Qld at 1.9%. This suggests that Qld and WA are both in line to gain seats, Vic to hold, SA and NSW to lose. As it is probably easier to lose seats from a higher base, NSW may well lose another seat inthe next cycle as well.
Blackburn pseph:
If you see the parliamentary library paper http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2004-05/05rn44.htm – table 1.
Victoria is on 36.581 seat quotas.. 0.081 away from losing a seat. They round to the nearest whole number. NSW and SA have some buffer space so are unlikely to lose a seat even if they decline.
Also Population growth rate isn’t a factor in this – enrolled voter growth rate is the only relevant figure.
I want to start a campaign to have the next Qld seat called Theodore. It’s a disgrace that such a towering figure, the man who could have led Australia out of the Depression had he not been broughtdown by the proto-fascist Lang, has no seat named for him.
blackburnpseph: I echo what Elbow Room says. I have no “great longing” to see Victoria lose a seat; I’m simply acknowledging the trend shown by recent determinations. Victoria doesn’t have much margin for error, unlike NSW and SA which have more recently lost seats anyway.
Adam: As you might be aware, Theodore was the ALP’s original suggestion for the redistribution just finished. It was also pushed by one of the unions during the round of objections/comments after it became clear that Wright was controversial. (This was also when Flynn was suggested; I forget who by.) Perhaps the Mungana Affair is a turnoff.
Sacha: I don’t give the Greens much chance of picking up seats in NSW where the vast majority of Liberal preferences exhaust. The Victorian state election probably offers more hope for the Greens where last time they went close in Melbourne and Richmond in particular.
Seats are doled out to each state based on their relative populations, the number of enrolled voters is irrelevant.
I think that the ALP has pushed for a seat to be called Theodore for the last 15 years! (from memory)
Yes indeed. I missed that. So that last post should read:
I echo what ER says, except the last paragraph. 😉
I have a feeling unless they decide to have Western Australia redistrubted next year, that the next redistrubtion which will see either South Australia or Victoria lose an electorate and Queensland gain it’s 30th will be in 2008.
Tristan, “they” don’t decide whether redistributions happen – these are triggered automatically by provisions of the electoral act.
“Yes, We have No Munganas” – he was never actually charged with anything, although I concede the Royal Commission report wasn’t very flattering.
The AEC usually draws the boundaries sarting from Portland heading east, Midura heading east and Gippsland heading west and from the Yarra river and head north south. There are no crossings of the Yarra until Heidelburg.
While this startegy ignors many ties along the river both the AEC and VEC see it as impregnable.
Melbourne Ports used to evenhave Williamstown in it before the Westgate Bridge was built. the last major change moved Richmond and Prahran out of Melbourne Ports and included Caulfield.
With the last council amalgamations Higgins looks like the City of Stonnington and I can see the AEC getting rid of Caulfield as they would never cross St Kilda Road again and put Prahran back in.
While Victoria is gaining more residents compared to NSW, the seat of Wills is hardly moving but i would predict that as Gippsland,Wannon, Murray and Particularly Mallee have shrinnking enrollments these seats will move towards Melbourne and the traditional last seat to be drawn McEwan, will come back and take a broadmeadows base
Thank you elbow room for the link. I have done some maths based on later ABS population data which shows that the SA and NSW entitlement is trending down reasonably fast, Vic at a slower rate but still down, so a seat loss is a reasonable assumption at the next redisribution (due early 2010 apparently), WA sitting on 14.6 and QLD trending up.
Now that I have that settled in my own mind, I can join the Vic rsdistrubution discussion.
One scenario would be to abolish either Murray or Mallee (both 1948 seats) and have Bendigo move into northern Victoria, the city being at the southern end. This would require McEwen to become more rural.
Or if seats have to go in Melbourne, it would have to be Chisholm – no natural boundaries, no community of interest. In my opinion cuts more communities up (Monash, Whitehorse) than joins them up.
Peter might be right about not crossing St Kilda Rd, except the State seat of Prahran crosses that very road
Slightly off topic, I know, but I just read that Cate Molloy is going to have a crack at Wide Bay. What does everyone in Queensland think about this? I would have thought Warren Truss has some concerns – I understand the new Wide Bay will be more urban and presumably a lot of Liberals might be tempted to give her a go. Worse still for Truss, she might preference to her old party? We are just over one year from the next election…are there any other heavyweight independents that will be campaigning against sitting members?
cate molloy would have no hope of achieving anything there mate.when she left labor she is gone.
Adam says that Theodore was never charged with anything, but that is not so. After the damning report of the Royal Commissioner (J.L. Campbell, a retired NSW judge – The QLD Country Party Premier Arthur Moore refused to appoint any QLD judge)…Theodore badgered the QLD Government for almost a year to charge him with something, so that he would have the opportunity to defend himself in a properly constituted court.
Nearly twelve months later the QLD Gov’t had Theodore and others tried in the QLD Supreme Court on a civil count of conspiracy. Theodore was acquitted, and the jury’s findings with regard to the questions posed to them by the trial judge clearly contradicted the findings of the Royal Commission.
QLD Political Portraits by D J Murphy and R B Joyce (University of Queensland Press) is most enlightening.
To Darryl Rosin…
Darryl congratulations on your effort, I see that you increased the Green vote from 9.6% in 2004 to 12.6% and the booth result in Coorparoo was great. All done on a shoestring budget to I dare say.
Why do you think that Coorparoo was the second worst booth for the Liberals (just wondering because Coorparoo is where I grew up).
Theodore was a brillant man, but so conscious of his own brillance he thought he could double-cross everybody. He should have run for Herbert in 1928 which he should have won. K H Kennedy’s book on the Munguana Affair agrees with the Royal Commission.
If Victoria does go down to 36 seats the seat most likely to go, in my view would be McEwan
I would think the AEC would expand Wannon East , Corangamite East and North, Corio would stay roughly the same, Mallee East, Ballarat and Bendigo South East, Murray and Indo South. Casey and Calwell north from Melbourne and Gippsland further West pushing McMillan West.
With the current very pro conservative (Liberal) AEC that would mean Nats to loose both seats Mallee to the Libs (although I think this will happen next election if the member retires and then Gippsland to the ALP
Can the Nats justify independance with representation from just 2 States?
Again in my view ony if they say they will never go into a coalitio with the Libs (as they are now saying in the WA state parliament)
Kim, to get back to Malcolm (Turnbull, not Fraser) for a moment. Wentworth has been relatively marginal for several elections now, and was in prime “doctors wives” zone. The addition of the relatively affluent but very Howard unfriendly Darlinghurst and the Housing Commission dominated Woolloomooloo will make it extremely close, and if anyone other than Beazley was Opposition Leader, I’d say Malcolm would be a goner.
Malcolm will hold Wentworth, Wentworth looks like Higgins with its large doctor’s wive population and large public housing complex gee image if the Government lost Bennenlong, Wentworth and Higgins won’t happen but would be a real turn up
Peter King will not be on the ballot paper this time. And Turnbull is a first term incumbent, which (other things being equal) tends to lead to a ‘sophomore surge’, as was discussed during the Queensland election. And to the extent there was a doctors’ wives effect in 2004, that will surely unwind to some degree in 2007. And the newly added areas of Darlinghurst and Woolloomooloo had only the most perfunctory Liberal campaign last time but will see far more campaign activity this time. The Libs must surely be able to squeeze out a few more votes from those places. Turnbull is starting from further ahead than the raw margin suggests.
Hmmm, a lot of assumptions there Zach. And reason for scepticism on all them:
1. I’m not convinced that Peter King’s presence on the ballot made much impact on the final result. King didn’t direct preferences, which split 61-39 in Turnbull’s favour. There’s no evidence those 39% weren’t Labor voters to begin with. A good many were probably Labor voters voting ‘strategically’.
2. The “sophomore surge” is usually put down to the increased exposure an MP gains over the course of his term. Given that Turnbull was already a well known personality before entering parliament, it may not be so applicable in his case.
3. Wasn’t the “doctors’ wives” theory that typically Liberal voters were turned off by Howard’s staunch social conservatism? Well Howard’s still espousing the same values.
4. Despite all the coverage the contest got, the ALP weren’t pouring resources into Wentworth in 2004. So the argument about the treatment of safe seats may actually favour Labor! The only quantitative guide suggests that it may not matter much. As the one booth shared between Wentworth and Sydney, Paddington South, produced pretty similar results in both electorates.
I would reckon Wentworth has a liberal margin of around 4% going into the 2007 election, Turnbull should be safe if there is no big swing aganist the Coalition. But if Labor wins, they will pick up Wentworth and maybe Bennelong. In NSW the seats to watch out for along with Wentworth and Bennelong are Parramatta (Liberal notionally, but has a Labor member), Lindsay (Jackie Kelly is possibly retiring), Macquarie (Andren is considering running there and his chances are more iffy than say if he decides on recontesting Calare), Page (Ian Causley is probably retiring) and Eden-Monaro (the classic swing seat since 1972).
Woollahra Council, which is the core of Wentworth, is always very Liberal voting (but it’s more of a contest in Paddington). However, there’s more to Wentworth than Woollahra – there’s the area north of Oxford St, a fair chunk of Waverley Council and half of the suburb of Randwick (and perhaps some more bits and pieces) The redistribution notionally cuts about 2.5% off the 2PP Liberal vote. It was held by about 8% in 2001 and my guess is that while it is likely that Turnbull will win the seat in 2007, it’s not a certainty.
Is there any chance that Peter King may stand again as an independent? If he does not Labor’s chances would be improved, as the vote against Turnbull would not be split. They could run Turnbull’s doorstop from outside Federal Parliament when he said people in his electorate are not affected by the rate rises.
Considering that inner city sydney electorates generally swung to Labor in 2004. A good estimate of the Liberal margin in Wentworth is around 2-4%. If I was Malcolm Turnbull I would be seriously be looking for a safer electorate.
Tristan,
What about Cowper, seat just south of Page, which is becoming ful lof sea-changers? Also dont forget Paterson and Dobell, which had 0.1-0.5% margins for 2004 and swung so far to the Liberals last time. They must swing back some way, they were both ALP seats before the 2001 election
The seat Whitlam held was Werriwa, which used to cover the Southern Highlands of NSW but now covers a slice of Sydney suburbia. The name is an Aboriginal word for Lake George, which is hundreds of kilometres from that electorate. The commissioners are disinclined to change the names of electorates with Aboriginal names, which may explain why Calare prevails.
Wentworth is one seat that does not swing. When Labor were at their height, it had a Liberal majority of about 6%. At the last election the result was about the same. Macarthur nominally has a far safer margin for the Liberals than Wentworth, but though Labor will be keen to give Turnbull hell they are better off targetting Macarthur in order to actually win government (assuming that is their aim).
Regional seats generally, and those on the NSW north coast in particular, are the ones to watch. Justine Elliott showed the way for Labor by displacing a third-generation National and aspiring candidates would do well to follow her lead. From Page to Lyne (including Cowper) are about half a dozen seats that are ripe for Labor picking, which would eviscerate the National Party and put Labor a long way down the track to government.
To BenC,
Cowper for now it still fairly safe for the Nationals, Page is more marginal (given Causley’s popular vote, which will go if he retires). Cowper, Dobell and Paterson would be interesting contests if there is a sizeable swing to Labor nationwide like 3-4%.
Wentworth is the Sydney apartment belt, so it probabaly has a very high population turnover. This would make it more difficult for Turnbull to build up a personal vote. Presumably if it was targetted by Labor they would work to get people on the roll. In 1943 only the donkey vote prevented Jessie Street winning it for Labor.
I do not think at the 2004 election, Peter King was spliting the Labor vote, it is more likely being an ex-liberal member, who got screwed in the Liberal pre-selection, that he split the liberal vote, also being a widely recognise member and sitting member now, I do not think he is in any danger of losing, Bennelong would be very interesting if Howard retires, it is very likely to be lost to Labor, when Howard steps down
I handed out how-to-votes in Darling Pt in the 2004 fed election, and it was pretty clear that Peter King was attracting quite a few usually Liberal voters. Many usually Liberal voters wanted to vote King and to preference the Libs.
When Vaile retires, Lyne is more likely to fall to the Libs than the ALP (unless Oakshott goes federal – he’s very popular in the state seat of Port Macquarie). Vaile only scraped in against a Lib candidate the last time the seat was open. But Page is a potential ALP gain.
Mallee and Gippsland, the Nats’ last two toeholds in Vic, should also be future gains for the Libs and ALP, respectively. Especially considering that Gippsland has shifted into the Latrobe valley. Unless the House is expanded beyond the current 150, the Nats are going to be battered by future redistributions, in Vic as well as NSW and Qld.
Peter King’s how to votes at prepoll were different to those
handed out on election day
If his preferences had not been directed to the lib candidate
then David Patch could have gone much closer
I suspect Malcolm Turnbull will win again unless there is
a large (more than 5%) swing to labor. due to the advantage of incumbancy
If Labor wins the election, they will pick up seats like Wentworth, Bennelong, Lindsay, Eden-Monaro, Dobell, Page, Parramatta (which is notionally Liberal on the new boundaries).
Andrew E, you are whistling dixie if you think Labor has a better chance of winning Macarthur (11.1% swing required) than Wentworth. What Kim Beazley clearly hasn’t realised is that seats like Macarthur are now the Liberal heartland. Those people love John Howard and everything he stands for, and Kim can try all he wants to be John Howard, but its not going to work. For Labor to win, they must win disaffected rural and regional seats like Bass, Braddon, Solomon, Page and Wakefield by focusing on WorkChoices (which they are doing) but also inner city seats like Wentworth, Bennelong and Makin by focusing on the disaster that is Iraq and Howard’s social conservatism (which of course they are not doing)
trying to win back “Howard’s Battlers” will be micturating into the wind.
I’m pretty that Peter King had two how-to-vote cards in the 2004 election. One of them preferenced the libs, and his workers gave them out to people who wanted to preference the libs, and I think the other was a 50/50 split, but I could be wrong about this.