WA redistributed

80 comments on “WA redistributed”

1. Pedants? Who else would be following this thread?

2. What?! I come here for up-to-date and detailed psephological insights only to find none…

   William, could we please have a thread on the Brisbane Council redistributions?

3. Why restrict it to just the BCC why not all council redistributions (and for that matter cover council elections other than the BCC ones).

4. RR, allow me to explain my policy regarding council redistributions with reference to my all-time favourite moment from The Simpsons. Springfield is hit by a snow storm, and Homer infuriates Marge by refusing to come with his family to church. As Homer spends his Sunday morning lazing around the house, everything seems to be going right for him. Then he turns on the television, to be confronted by a program called “Municipal Roundtable”:

   TV Talking Head: Let’s define our terms, gentlemen – are we talking about re-districting, or are we talking about re-apportionment?

   Homer: Oh, well – can’t win ’em all.

   TV Voiceover: We interrupt this public affairs program in order to bring you … a football game.

   Homer: WOO-HOO!

5. But William, the BCC redistribution is using Google Maps.

   You’re missing out on all the fun.

   Plus there is a common rumour in Brisbane that the BCC budget is bigger than the Tasmanian state budget.

6. Have there been any major changes to the Greens Electoral fortunes in the redistribution.

7. Yes there are Tom, but I have yet to read those particular tea-leaves. When the new legislation was being negotiated in early 2005, the Greens insisted that the existing system of five- and seven- member upper house regions be replaced with six-member regions. To my mind, they were shooting themselves in the foot – it means Labor is likely to win three seats in each metropolitan region with only tiny surplus left over as preferences for the Greens. I will look at the likely vote outcomes for the new upper house regions when time permits.

   While I’m here, I should promote Antony Green’s analysis of the new boundaries at the ABC.

8. I continue to be intrigued by the loss of two Liberal seats in East Metropolitan.

   From visual inspection, it looks as if the redistributed Darling Range (ALP 0.5%) has much in common with the abolished Serpentine-Jarrahdale (Lib 1.2%). Whilst the newly created Kalamunda (ALP 0.2%) would appear to draw largely from the old Darling Range (Lib 3.1%). Those who have properly crunched the numbers can correct or confirm; I can’t find this detail in the commissioners’ report.

   So – just to throw PB’s table about – there must be some likelihood that sitting Darling Range MLA John Day will contest Kalamunda. Leaving Darling Range to be contested by sitting Serpentine-Jarrahdale MLA Tony Simpson.

   The two seats are much of a muchness. Both have notional Labor margins of less than 1%. Neither have sitting Labor MPs. Hence the logic of having standing incumbent Liberal MPs.

9. David, you are entirely correct – Antony’s as-yet-unpublished calculations are that the new seats are composed as follows:

   DARLING RANGE

   Serpentine-Jarrahdale – 11,418 voters
   Armadale 5205
   Darling Range – 3325
   Swan Hills 3062
   Peel 22

   KALAMUNDA

   Darling Range 14,681
   Kenwick 5297
   Swan Hills 2007
   Armadale 447

10. Based on those numbers, the name “Darling Range” should probably have been abolished to avoid confusion, but I guess it was the best name for the seat (I can’t think of anything that would have been better anyway).

    It’s interesting that this redistribution has managed to redistribute both Liberal marginal seats in East Metropolitan out of existence. I’d have thought that was quite difficult to do – though I’d expect the Libs to “win” them back at the next election anyway unless they do something spectacularly stupid again.

11. Tom:

    In 2005 the Greens won two seats, both of them, unsurprisingly, in the two low quota 7 member regions. They had no luck in the 5 member regions, however these regions now have 6 members.

    I’d guess the thinking was they’d improve their chances in more regions than they’d lose. ie 2 get worse, 4 get better. Optimism.

    They’ll either win no seats at all, or increase their representation. There is a narrow pivot point between the two situations.. roughly around the half quota mark of 7-8%. Below it, they elect labor members, above it lib/labor elect them.

    North Metro is the most likely hold – but South West is probably a goner, maybe they’ll pick up East Metro (from memory).

12. I’ve checked the results, south metro, not east metro is a greens chance and funnily enough, mining and pastoral has an ok greens vote.

13. Mr Speaker

    On the Greens position at the next election: [internal politics and campaigns aside], North Metro should be a hold, South Metro should be returned (IMHO it should never have been lost, but thats another story), South West continues to be a chance (dependent on preference flows, and maintaining a decent primary), East Metro still remains a chance (if the ALP primary remains as high, it actually improves the Greens chances against the 3rd Lib), Agricultural is not a chance, and Mining & Pastoral is only an outside chance – you should remember that most of the vote in M&P was more of a personal vote for Robin Chapple, coz he actually worked the electorate well. Margetts in the Agric worked the electorate but the electorate just weren’t going to shift their vote (Nats voters, switched to PHON, switched back to Lib/Nats). On the other hand in M&P alot of the votes washing about post PHON were ex-ALP votes, and Chapple capitalised on that.

    My best bet on the Greens would be 2-3 seats, but its equally possible (and some obviously think likely) to be reduced to 0-1.

    As to previous posts re why this UH system, I explained some of the thinking behind this months ago and don’t intend to repeat it. As for “worst decisions” and “votes for cows” I would invite posters to look to their own parties for interesting decisions.

14. Oh, forgot to add, consider the Lib position coming out of this redistribution – they potentially have the opportunity to govern (at some point in the near future) in their own right, especially if the Nats do not win any lower house seats. This is because a lot of their support is as city-based as the ALP. And remember that the ALP has been perfectly able to govern with Greens in the so-called “balance of power” for these last 6 years (with either the Coalition parties or Greens providing the votes for legislation) – there’s no reason that a Lib govt couldn’t do the same with Nats on the cross benches. 10 ALP seats are ripe to fall at the next election (assuming the Libs don’t implode again – or is that continue to…) which almost gets them there. Certainly the Libs would be looking to the 2013 election with considerable interest…

15. As to previous posts re why this UH system, I explained some of the thinking behind this months ago and don’t intend to repeat it.

    Oh come onnn.. repeat. I missed it!

    I for one don’t think it was as bad a decision as some people are making out.

16. Mr Q – In respect of the East Metro Liberal marginals disappearing, this has happened as the marginal Liberal seats were next to a few safe Labor seats. So as all the seats diminish in size, the extra Labor votes have to get distributed.

    In respect of Serpentine – Jarrahdale, in becoming Darling Range, it lost the area at Canning Vale to the new Southern River. Here the TPP would favour the Liberals. The effect is that the losing seat shifts into Labor territory (particularly considering the other changes to the seat) and Southern River loses its very big margin.

    In determining the margins of electorates, Antony Green has done a fantastic job – why else would he be the patron saint of the split booth – but his calculations are historical. (not a criticism – only an observation). If we assume that political parties put more effort into seats they want to win rather than seats they know they will win or will never win, then we should see some effect. So Labor may never think it will have won Churchlands or Carine – but today it would put some effort into winning Scarborough. Does this mean that the Labor vote is down in those areas? Possibly.

    On the other hand, was the Liberal Party more concerned with protecting some seats and so the Labor vote was up in its own marginal seats.

    What the effect of this is that a major redistribution makes it harder to estimate the margins. All that can be done is use historical figures to calculate the margins.

    WA will never have a redistribution this major ever again as they are now going to happen every 4 years. Unless there is another change to the voting system or similar, then the changes from now will tend to be incremental. With shifts outwards in the metro area and shifts to the south-west in the rural areas.

17. Michael, what I was saying was that, knowing Perth’s socio-economic distribution quite well that it would have made more sense for the areas that were removed from DR to be the more Labor oriented areas, and the added areas the more Liberal oriented areas. I would have guessed quite a different distribiution of the vote in all three of Kalamunda, Darling Range and Forrestfield. I would have guessed Forrestfield as Labor by about 10% and the other two Liberal by about 3%. I’d admit I missed the addition of part of the old Kenwick electorate into DR, which is probably why I was so far out. Not that I’m in any way doubting that Antony’s got this right – he’s the man that really understands this stuff in Australian politics. I was going on gut feel and a look at the maps which can of course be misleading as they only show area, not population density.

    Oddly enough, at the last election there was some discussion before the night of the old Carine at about 4.5% being vulnerable if Barnett was only a little bit more incompetent than he was – it was certainly being discussed. In the end though it was very much status quo. The creation of a seat like Scarborough was inevitable, and that it’s marginal is no surprise given the previous similar seat to exist (Innaloo until 2004) was a Labor marginal in 2001.

18. Mr Q – I agree with what you say. I am surprised that Kalamunda is so close for the ALP. I would have thought that it is still a Liberal voting area. But those foothills are difficult to judge.

    The new Darling Range looks like a Liberal seat – but it is really those dense areas of ALP votes that count.

    Of course, in 2001, John Day almost turned the old DR into a marginal all by himself. i think there are a lot of soft green liberals in the hills.

    Carine is marginal only because of the big swings in the metro area in 2005 and is probably at its nadir for the Liberal Party. I suspect that Scarborough would have actually been won for the ALP on these boundaries as Quigley would have stayed and campaigned.

19. Latest westpoll on STATE voting intentions (ie not fed)

    Primaries:

    ALP 43
    Coaliton 35

    TPP

    56.3 (yeah westpoll is different… lets say 56)
    Coal 44.7 (again say 44. they had it at 44.7…should be 43.7 .. the west is fricken hopeless)

    preferred premier

    Carpenter 63
    Omodei 14
    neither 13
    either (???) 3
    dont know 7
    (I am presuming they add up to 100..but wit the west….)

20. oops for primaries, shold be ‘Liberal’ not coalition.

    also saying ‘coaltion’ in tpp is assuming they will. Statewise, they are not offcially in coalition

21. Blacklight – it may be hard for the Liberals to accept the nats in coalition if they challenge Omodei in the new seat of (now called) Blackwood-Stirling.

22. One thing that is remarkable is the political weight of the “leafy suburbs” has been minimised with only the loss of the northern portion of Chuchlands and West Perth Compared to the Seventies when there were seats such as Floreat, Mount Hawthorn, Subiaco, Nedlands and Cottesloe. with an increase of eletorates of the current redistribution has created the loss of political clout of that area is profound.

23. Would the Greens been able to get lower house PR in instead of the six in each region they did get ammended in.

24. I suspect the Greens might politically prefer to have their regional system of PR as it will give them more chances to actually have members of parliament. Their very high level of votes (compared to the ALP) in 2001 meant that they had 5 members in the LC or 2 more than proportionate to their vote.

    The new system with 6 members will give them more chances now.

25. Ok – now the boundaries are out.
    I think all concerned seem to agree that:
    1) they have not been unreasonably drawn, and
    2) that they have made things harder for the Libs.
    That said, objections are due by 30 July – does anyone think anyone will lodge objections and, if so, what?

26. There’s going to be objections – whether or not they’re reasonable is anyone’s guess.

    The two things I can see triggering objections are the spill of Dawesville over the Mandurah bridge (probably from the Libs) and the relative sizes of the South-West and Agricultural regions (probably from Labor). The fact that the Libs had two marginals in East Metro and now have none despite their being more actual electorates might make them object to that section of the redraw. Labor might object to Esperance being in Mining and Pastoral rather than Agricultural (as it makes it impossible for them to win a seat in the South-East)

27. The Labor party, according to a report I read online, is considering objecting to matters pertaining to the agricultural boundaries, whether Esperance is considered part of mining and pastoral or not. Since these regions were introduced, it has always been in the agricultural region.

    The regions are now determined in part by land-use and this could stymie any objections about relative sizes of the regions. There is no requirement that the regions be equal (outside of the metro area) in numbers of electors or electorates, so there argument would have to be some other argument (maybe demographics). Half of the south-west electorates are under quota whereas 3 of the four in the slow growing agricultural are under quota. I think an argument could be made that the agricultural boundary should be shifted – whether east or west, i am uncertain, but it is an argument with merit.

    The Liberals will find it hard to object to the northern boundary of Dawesville as their submission has a similar boundary – though more favourable to them. Their submission included the shire of Waroona – which of course would have increased their margins. Dawesville is now at 1.7% from 4.1% and this is ordinarily the lowest they would get.

    The commissioners have been prudent in seeking objections, reminding people that an objection to an element of the redistribution requires a solution and they have asked people to come up with a solution that meets the objection. This makes it harder to say the redistribution is flawed.

    The Eastern Metropolitan “problem” for the Liberals is that the region always had some very dense areas of ALP support and usually less strong areas of Liberal support. With the increase of seats in the area, parts of the ALP support have been joined to the Liberal areas to make marginal Labor seats.

    I think this is more a consequence of what was almost a landslide election in WA terms and the fact that what was once very strong Liberal voting areas are not so dark blue anymore. In 1996 John Day achieved a 55% 1st primary vote in Darling Range and a 63% 2PP. In 2001, these had dropped to 36% and 50.3%. These elections were held under the same boundaries and so are comparable.

    In Roleystone (1996 48%/57% 2001 32% 45%) and Swan Hills (1996 51% / 60% 2001 35% / 48%) the figures are the same. The Liberals suffered a lot of swings in 2001, but they should never have suffered this in good Liberal areas.

28. The Greens would be in a better position if they had negotiated a change to 9 7-member electorates because it would give them some power over who was in government quite a bit of the time and because giving people the chance to elect the Greens in the more powerful house may cause them to be more likely to vote for them e.g. Tasmania.

29. Tom, of course giving the Greens more power in the supposedly more powerful house might prompt others to not vote for the greens. We cannot assume that people vote for the Greens (or any party) solely because they want them to be in government. Another good reason is to provide a check, which is why the “minor” parties do better in (outside of Tas) the upper houses.

    I think Tasmania is also politically different. For the ALP to get almost 50% and the Greens to get 16% as in 2006 shows a different political complexion to all other states.

    Part of the negotiations for the legislative reform package in WA proceeded on an understanding that each house was best to decide how that house was formed. I would also expect that if the negotiations were looking like a multi member lower house that the Libs would have negotiated an alternative that suits them. The current system promotes the Nationals and Greens against Labor and the Liberals. i do believe that this promotion is minor though.

30. Ok – some interesting comments.
    Of course I’m sure that SOMEONE will object to SOMETHING – they always do! 😉
    That said, I don’t think that there’s lots to object to.
    I don’t think that you could really object about Esperance – all the comments and responses I saw from that pretty little corner of the world were in favour of links with Kal and M&P.
    The Parliament, by requiring the regions be split according to land use, made this problem for themselves. That was always going to create disparity demographically and geographically.

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