I have nothing to offer on the subject at this stage, but here’s a venue for those of you wishing to wonk out on today’s finalised Victorian state redistribution. In a comprehensive revision to decade-old boundaries, the big news appears to be the abolition of Doncaster, which makes life complicated for senior Liberal MP Mary Wooldridge. The bigger picture is a familiar story of country seats being abolished to make way for more in the city, which in this case is good news for Labor.
Doncaster has been abolished because the East is relatively stable in population, while the inner-city and outer, west north and southeast are growing significantly.
If you follow this link, you can see a map or where Melbourne grew 2001-2011.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2013/10/15/planning-can-the-politics-be-taken-away-from-politicians/
Antony Green’s analysis:
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/vic/2013/redistribution.htm
A foretaste of the federal redistribution in Victoria?
almost changed electorates…miss by 20m,….next time
With these terrible bushfires, I hope all Bludgers and families, in and around Sydney are safe. Ditto fire and emergency services workers, and support services. Take care.
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/vic-minister-losing-seat-in-redistribution/story-e6frfku9-1226741500109
[A foretaste of the federal redistribution in Victoria?]
An aftertaste of the one we just had. This term we’re likely to see redistributions in WA, which will gain a seat, NSW, which will lose one, and ACT and the NT, where they’re due (and which won’t change much).
If I remember correctly, there have been 2 Commonwealth redistributions in Victoria between this state redistribution and the last before the 2002 election. The Commonwealth redistributions were 7 years+ apart as well. When Bracks changed he Constitution in 2003, it was done in such a way that 2002 is no longer considered a general election by the constitutional definition and as such there was no redistribution during the last term of parliament. That is why there are such big changes this time.
7
The WA redistribution should be interesting. Hopefully it will introduce another ALP seat.
A foretaste of the federal redistribution in Victoria?
Even though the last redistribution in Victoria was in 2010, the variance between the seats is already beyond AEC benchmarks due to stronger that expected population growth along the Northern and Western rim of Melbourne. My view is that a number of trends we have seen in this redistribution will influence the next redistribution in 2017/18 (?).
A seat is likley to be abolished in the East. Kooyong, Deakin, Bruce, Menzies, Aston, Casey, Chisholm and Hotham are all signifigantly and persistantly under quota, with McEwen, Gorton and Lalor typically being over quota by an equivalant amount. Additionally enrollment is typically higher in the northern and western seats when compared to the East and South. Most likely abolition will be a non PM seat (my bet is Chisholm) which will trigger big boundary changes in the east. A new seat is most likley to be created in the North West, most likley around Sunbury.
Over the last few redistributions seats on the north side we drawn roughly in concentric rings around the city. More recent the seat on the north (Thomastown, Mill Park, Broadmeadows and Yuroke) have moved to a north/south allignment with an activity center and major rail or road link at the core of the seat so to more accurately cater for projected population growth. I expect the Calwell and Scullin wil follow this trend and roughly be alligned to either the Hume Highway (Calwell) or South Morang line/Plenty Road (Scullin). The new seat based on Sunbury will probabaly be roughly alligned to the Calder Hwy.
The major boundary changes to the North East of Melbourne in the state redistribution (creation of Eildon, changes to Yan Yean) is likley to be reflected in the federal redistribution. This is where the Yarra River boundary disappears and it also traditionally takes the flex on boundary, I expect McEwen to take area from Casey as Casey becomes essentially a urban seat.
I expect the next distribution will probably be one of the more significant ones that Victoria has seen over the last few years.
If we look at the eastern seats the ones which look safe are federation seat Kooyong and the seats named after former PM’s Menzies, Deakin and Bruce.
Overall i thought the VEC would be a bit more aggressive with the redistribution
Sad that they’ve abolished Rodney, which has existed since 1856. There’s not many of the original districts left.
LD:
[ Even though the last redistribution in Victoria was in 2010, the variance between the seats is already beyond AEC benchmarks due to stronger that expected population growth along the Northern and Western rim of Melbourne. My view is that a number of trends we have seen in this redistribution will influence the next redistribution in 2017/18 (?).]
Well said. Yep, that’s what I was driving at.
I enjoyed your appraisal of greater Melbourne seats. However, a PM seat can effectively be abolished and the name simply transferred to another seat – as with what happened in the last NSW re-distribution. There was some jiggery-pokery involved in order to retain the name Reid for one seat and introduce McMahon for another (at the expense of the names Prospect and Lowe).
Irrespective of how the Vic seat boundaries change, it’d be a shame if the name Chisholm was ditched.
The name Kooyong could go. Sure, it’s a Federation seat. But it no longer contains the suburb it’s named after.
The Victorian equivalents of federation seats are those which have existed since 1856. They are Brighton, Richmond and Williamstown. So Rodney was one of only four, and the last one in the country.
Kakaru,
I don’t think that Kooyong will be abolished. In its determinations, the AEC has indicated a preference for federal seets being alligned to municipal boundaries. So I’d expect Kooyong to continue doing what it has done in recent redistributions and incorporate the rest of the City of Boorondara at the expense of Higgins. I think its more likely Kooyong will be renamed.
By abolishing Chisholm (which traverses three railway lines with little common) it would allow Deakin to be neatly based on the City of Whitehorse and Bruce to be largely based on the City of Monash, a trend which the AEC has already started with Bruce. Aston would then pick up the rest of Knox and Casey would be based on Maroondah and Yarra Ranges. Also not good for Chisholm is that Oakleigh and Clayton are some of the areas of weakest population growth in Melbourne.
I’d be particulalry cautious about using the VEC as a precedent in the South and South East though. The South and South East is anyones guess and depends two things. First if Melbourne Port’s enrollments stay so far below projections ( not helped by potential boundary changes between Kooyong and Higgins). Second both the state ALP and Liberals have given serious consideration to building on VicTrack land and also over the rail line along the Dandenong and Frankston rail corridors, there are a number of strategies that seek to expidite this which would result in building on the electoral boundary
Currently the AEC’s electoral boundaries in the South East utilise rail lines as the their marker. This also splits the major activity centres, thus making population projections more prone to error (the council an only tell you what overall projected activity centre population will be, it can’t accurately tell you which side of the line will actaully develop faster and at what rate, which results in the average for teh activity centre being right but the dispersion being wrong). An example of this is the Bruce/Isaacs boundary through the Dandenong activity center. So far the growth population growth has been encouraging, but some of the major developments (Metro 3175 with 3000 residents for example) have been on the Issacs side of the boundary, at the next re-distribution Issacs is expected to be well over quota, Bruce well under, even though Dandenong as an activity center appears to be on track to meet its popultion projections.
Victorian planning has a prefernce for clusting development around rail stations, but this is something the AEC has ignored but The VEC rarely uses rail lines as a boundary (Only between Springvale and Noble Park that I’m aware of for the Mulgrave/Keysborough boundary). At some point the AEC will have to address this, but its anyone’s guess when.
My opinion is that spliiting activity centres (which AEC only seems to do in Victoria) is one of the reasons why Victorian enrollments are so askew, as the woodworkers would have you know, you work with the wood, not against it.
Thanks heaps for your assessment, Louis – makes perfect sense.
I agree with your comment re Kooyong – the seat could be retained (with a bit of tweaking), but under a new name.
Not to get (too) morbid, but there’s going to be a need for Vic seats to accommodate new names – not just Cowen, but (at some time in the not-too-distant future) Stephen, Hawke and Fraser.
Since it’s unlikely that Vic is going to get an increase in HoS seats, new names will come at the expense of existing names – like Kooyong or Melbourne Ports. (I could be mistaken, but I vaguely recall McEwen is essentially the seat of Burke under a new name.) I’d prefer that Lalor, Dunkley and Chisholm not get the chop.
kakuru: There’s already a Federal seat called Fraser…
I doubt they will rename Kooyong – unless it gets pretty much abolished. From what I understand, the AEC try where possible to protect names of electorates from Federation.
Almost certainly the next AEC review will see the changes that were originally proposed in 2010, reimposed this time. Eg the abolition of Murray was just deferred not fought off permanently. There will instead be a new seat created on the north-west edge of Melbourne.
The EBC on the whole did a good job in Victoria. Whilst it is sad to see electorates stretching back to 1856 abolished, there is no justification for the protection of declining rural electorates, whilst electorates on the edge of Melbourne have booming population growth. Under the Nats plans, these would have continued to be under represented, which would only have got worse over the next few years.
In relation to Rodney, whilst not wanting to completely dismiss the local Nat MPs comments about Echuca experiencing population growth, he did bring a smile to my face when he bemoaned the fact that 600 people extra had moved in over the last year – therefore justifying why Rodney should be protected. In comparison the fast growing Mernda-Doreen postcode had been growing by 4,000 residents a year for the last few years! The consequence was that Yan Yean has 64,000 electors, whilst Swan Hill just 32,000.
caf
[ kakuru: There’s already a Federal seat called Fraser…]
I have every respect for the memory of ACT member Jim Fraser. But I find it difficult to accept that, when the time comes, Malcolm Fraser would be passed over when naming Vic fed seats.
LD,
[By abolishing Chisholm (which traverses three railway lines with little common) it would allow Deakin to be neatly based on the City of Whitehorse and Bruce to be largely based on the City of Monash, a trend which the AEC has already started with Bruce. Aston would then pick up the rest of Knox and Casey would be based on Maroondah and Yarra Ranges. Also not good for Chisholm is that Oakleigh and Clayton are some of the areas of weakest population growth in Melbourne.]
Casey has already pretty much evacuated Maroondah in the last redistribution leaving only half of Mooroolbark (Mooroolbark hanging over municipal borders), which still leaves excess which resulted in the area around the Dandenongs being surrendered to La Trobe. Casey’a overall movement is primarily Eastwards and Northwards, not the opposite directions.