A draft redistribution proposal has been published for Tasmania, to to apply at both federal and state elections, which is rather gobsmacking in its extent, it evidently having been determined that population growth in Hobart makes it no longer feasible to have most of it accommodated by Clark (traditionally encompassing the western bank of the Derwent, including the city centre) and Franklin (the eastern bank and the southern outskirts). The proposed solution to this problem is to transfer the entire northern half of Clark to Lyons, which continues to encompass the central parts of the state but will now become largely urban in character; for Clark to absorb all of Franklin’s territory on the western side of the Derwent, including southern Hobart and the hinterland beyond together with wilderness areas further to the west; and for Franklin to occupy most of the state’s eastern coast, while maintaining the Hobart suburbs on the eastern bank of the river. The northern seats of Bass and Braddon, by contrast, are all but entirely unchanged.
I have calculated the following vote shares based on the 2025 federal election result adjusted for the new boundaries, which runs into the fairly substantial problem that Clark is dominated electorally by Andrew Wilkie, and that the second strongest performing candidate in Franklin was another independent, Peter George. Wilkie, for instance, thus ends up with 26.8% in Clark and 18.8% in Lyons, drawn entirely from those parts of the seat that were in Clark as of the 2025 election. The “two-candidate preferred” estimates outside of Bass and Braddon are thus of little value, divided as they are between three rather than two candidates. However, this does not apply to the “two-party preferred” estimates, which boil things down to Labor-versus-Liberal. For all the extent of the voter transfers, the effect here is remarkably modest, with Labor’s commanding margins over the Liberals (at this election, at least) very little changed.
Further detail can be found at the Australian Electoral Commission. Submissions will be received until March 27, and I dare say they will be lively and plentiful – proposals as sweeping as this are quite often reined in after the consultation period. The most useful way to explore the changes is through the interactive maps featured at The Tally Room. A proposal for the Australian Capital Territory will be published in a fortnight.
What do actual Taswegians think of this Redistribution?
The only rational theory is that the WA government got a plant into the AEC specifically to get rid of the WA-hating Wilkie.
You know it makes sense
C@tmomma: I think it’s ultimately *necessary*, I just didn’t think the Committee would actually *do it*. The impact on state politics is going to be immeasurable. (Until such time as it is measured at a state election.)
“which is rather gobsmacking in its extent”
“I dare say they will be lively and plentiful – proposals as sweeping as this are quite often reined in after the consultation period.”
William, can you expand on this and why you think so (in the context of this proposal)? Are you suggesting there is going to be a lot of pushback? If so, for what reasons and what alternatives might there be?
Also, submissions for the round close on 27th March.
Simply because it uproots huge numbers of voters and disconnects them from MPs they have built relations with over a long period. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of those affected will be calling for it to be made less radical — a smaller incursion of Lyons into Hobart, Franklin keeping territory on the west bank of the river, and the eastern coast staying largely or entirely in Lyons.
William: some of those primary vote changes in the table look like they’ve been swapped around. Wilkie up heaps in Clark but down heaps in Lyons (where he didn’t run), George up in Franklin but down in Clark (ditto), and the primary vote and 2cp changes don’t match.
People don’t like change, that is true, but sometimes they can’t see the grass is greener on the other side.
Anyway, the makeup of electorates is always changing and common sense changes like this shouldn’t be scrapped to make a few people happy.
Hi Tantusar!
Waves 🙂
My short hand view is, little change at the federal level, ground shattering at the state level. I reckon 2 lost seats for Labor at the state parliament.
I think the changes to Franklin were needed, adding more of Launceston into Bass makes sense. Not as sure about Glenorchy moving into Lyons, gaining Huon valley and parts of Kingston would have made more sense.
I reckon the proposal loses some of the regional flavour of the theee southern seats, especially Lyons. It would be far better if there was some way of keeping Lyons from crossing the Derwent.
Otherwise, it’s simply what needs to be done to address demographic changes. . If people living outside Hobart don’t like it, then they need to find a way of attracting more people to live in their regions.
To those who know more about the constitution than I do, how can parliament be expanded, if it is, and Tassie not get extra house of representative seats? I thought every state would need to get more despite population?
All the constitution says is that each state is entitled to a minimum of 5 seats. That’s pretty much why Tasmania has 5 in the first place. If it was just a Territory it’d only get 2-3.
Tasmania needs more immigration. It’s be good for their economy and it’d be nice to see them earn their 5 seats a little better.
Interestingly, the Constitutional guarantee of a minimum of 5 House of Reps seats for original states is numerical – not proportionately. The number has not changed as the size of the House of Representatives has increased – which originally was 75 seats, and currently is 150 seats. In other words, the proportionate share of Tasmania’s House of Representatives seats has halved since Federation, and will reduce further when the size of the Parliament is increased. The size of the Parliament is not fixed by the Constitution – and is determined legislatively by the Parliament itself. Under the Representation Act, the number of Senators is now fixed at 12 per State. Under s.24 of the the Constitution, the number of members of the House of Representatives is “as nearly as practical” twice the number of Senators. There has not been much discussion recently about increasing the size of the Parliament, but there would be a case for increasing the number of Senators to 14 per State (7 elected at each election) and leaving the Territories with 2 each. The size of the Senate would then be 88 Senators, and the House of Representatives would then have 176 members (give or take a couple).
Thanks Kirsdarke and Outsider
On a pure population basis Tassie only has enough people for 3.2 Seats, to get to more than 5 either more people need to move there, or we increase the senate to 18 members per state
As it is Tasmania has 2 more seats than it should, one which currently go to QLd and the other possible go to Victoria
Outsider: There has actually been a great deal of discussion about expanding the Parliament in recent times, spurred on by the Special Minister of State requesting the JSCEM to consider it: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/2025federalelection/Terms_of_Reference
Capt Moonlight: On current numbers you would have to go all the way to 22 Senators per State to give Tasmania *more* than 5 seats. 18 would get it to 5 mathematically.
Renaming of electorates in Tasmania
https://www.aec.gov.au/redistributions/2024/tas/proposed-redistribution/files/Proposed%20redistribution%20of%20Tasmania's%20federal%20electorates%20-%20February%202026.pdf
* Electorate of Clark
Ultimately, the (Redistribution) Committee agreed to retain the name Clark, noting Andrew Inglis Clark’s strong ties with Tasmania and his significant contributions to Federation. However, noting the proposed changes to the boundaries for Clark, the Committee remains open to public input, and invites additional name ideas and feedback for consideration by the augmented Electoral Commission.
* Electorate of Franklin
The Redistribution Committee noted that submissions proposing to rename Franklin were persuasive. It also noted that Sir John Franklin is commemorated in many other ways, including in Tasmania, and that retiring the name would not diminish recognition of his contribution.
…the Committee determined that a name change may be justified. However, it was not persuaded that the names proposed or otherwise considered by the Committee to date demonstrated sufficient connection to the reconfigured electorate.
At this stage, the Committee proposes retaining the name Franklin, but encourages the public to provide further name ideas and feedback for consideration by the augmented Electoral Commission.
* Proposed names of Tasmania’s electorates
While the Redistribution Committee acknowledges the merit of the suggested names, it does not consider that submissions have provided enough justification to alter any electorate names at this time, having regard to the naming guidelines.
The Committee proposes retaining the current names of all electorates at this stage, with further ideas encouraged for potentially renaming the reconfigured electorate of Franklin during the next round of public submissions.
Naming guidelines
https://www.aec.gov.au/redistributions/guidelines/naming-guidelines.html
Thanks for the link Thomas Chick. I will observe with interest!
Tasmania is a failed state. Sad but true.
We need an Indonesian style transmigrasi program.
And get rid of the tas ruling class
I live in Franklin and this is long overdue. Should have been done years ago. To say that the old non contiguous boundaries were a distortion is an understatement. The Derwent is not just a Geographical separation but a cultural one. If you take the historic example of the lake Illawarra knocking down the Derwent Bridge in the 70s, that experience of being cut off from the city stayed with alot of people. If you were on the right side of the bridge it was more of a novelty. There is also the idea that the Easter Shore(esp Clarence) does not get a fair share of funding. All the pork barrelling goes elsewhere. Even at the state level, funding often goes to Kingston and Huonville in Franklin. The federal margins are very inflated. I would be interested to see the figures for the last state election.
Corleone, be as stupid as you like on the open threads, but I require comments on posts like this one to be of a tolerable standard.
Ben Raue at the Tally Room’s got them:
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/64458
Labor musings.
I reckon Josh has to go to Lyons. Ella and Dean stay in the new Clark, move one of the lesser current Lyons to the new Franklin, and you’ll retain your 10. If Josh doesnt go to Lyons he and Dean go head to head. Ella would be fine
Kristie Johnston is toast with her vote effectively split in half
The move of Glenorchy to Lyons has a bigger impact than the way Franklin and Clark have been redrawn, a feature of having hyper local support
I love the change to Clark.
But the more I look at it, the more I think the changes to Lyons are completely pointless.
The AEC could have just swapped Kingston/Huonville with Glenorchy for Clarke and Franklin and basically left Lyons alone.
They say they want to “include an urban centre within each electorate where possible” as a requirement of the Electoral Act, but is this actually a requirement? I can’t find it.
What’s the point of having a “centre” that’s at the far corner of the electorate? It’s not at the centre! Its a more than 3 hour drive from Sheffield or St Helens to the “centre”.
William is there any way to enable attaching images to this thread?
It would be fun to post screenshots of alternate maps using https://auredistribution.com/fed_tas_2025.html
Moksha: Leaving Lyons alone would have meant that it overshot the half-time maximum by several thousand:
Simply not an option.
Although if the argument is to retain the Prospect Vale swap, then I can sort of see it, but I think the committee wanted to put the river question to bed. And there’s community of interest concerns, but those are going to be there no matter what configuration you put the state in. Greater Hobart is simply too big for one seat and too small for two seats, and the Huon has no meaningful connection to the rest of the state that doesn’t go through Hobart.
Thomas I said “basically” leave Lyons alone. I agree some changes are needed, but the AEC didn’t need to change 40% of all three electorates.
40% of Clarke and Franklin, and minor changes to Lyons was enough. They have a mandate under the Act to make the changes consider “(v) the boundaries of existing Divisions in the State;”
Their current proposal still has Lyons crossing the river.
If instead you make Franklin consist of (basically) Clarence and Glenorchy, they are joined by the Bowen Bridge and therefore contiguous.
If they are sticking with this current plan, I think Break o Day council should join Franklin, and parts of Brighton should join Lyons. They are much more sensible in terms of travel times to the respective “urban centre” for each electorate.
I suspect one would have a hard time finding a Lyons configuration that *doesn’t* cross the Derwent, given it starts halfway up the state.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2026/03/tasmania-redistribution-draft-scraps.html
Tasmania Redistribution: Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide
Maybe it’s just me but I don’t feel like i have any special kinship with those north of the flannelette curtain. Most people who live in Clarence use the Tasman Bridge to cross the river. People from Old Beach use the Bowen but that is in Brighton council. I can’t think of anyone I know going to Glenorchy recently for any particular reason. However I know plenty of people who just went to the Koonya Garlic festival for example. Ideally I would have liked to have seen most of Brighton stay in Lyons. I submitted a proposal to the AEC that would have been a gradual moving to an Eastern Shore seat. Leaving the Urban part of Kingston in Lyons for now. But they want to rip the bandaid off and I get that.
Sorry. That should have said ‘Leaving the Urban part of Kingston in Franklin, for now.’