26 July 2021 – google searches still find this post but a much more complete analysis of the final boundaries has now been published at 2021 Federal Redistribution – Boundaries Finalised for Victoria This includes maps of the major boundary changes.
UPDATE 29 June 2021 – The boundaries have been finalised with various nips and tucks. New maps haven’t been published yet which makes it hard to calculate new margins. The major change appear to be the changes to Macnamara have been undone, and Tucker has reverted back to being known as Corangamite. I’ll review all the calculations after the map details are published on 26 July.
Last year’s review of state representation in the House of Representatives recommended that Victoria gain a seat, increasing its number of members from 38 to 39 seats.
The short story is the seat of Corangamite has been re-named Tucker and becomes a more urban seat centred on southern Geelong.
There is a new seat called Hawke covering Melbourne’s outer west and north-west fringe including Sunbury, Melton, Bacchus Marsh and Ballan.
Most urban seats have had some boundary changes. The transfer of Springvale and Noble Park from Bruce to Hotham means the two seats more or less swap margins. Chisholm is slightly weakened for Liberal Gladys Liu and suburb swaps between Macnamara and Higgins opens an opportunity for the Greens to pass Labor and win Macnamara.
The table below is set out entirely based on two-party preferred margins. Note that Indi is Independent held and Melbourne is held by the Greens.
I don’t have the capacity to do first preference estimates at the moment but there are versions around See the Tallyroom site and the Poll Bludger site.
| Division | Old Margin | New Margin | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aston | LIB 10.1% | L/NP 10.1% | no change |
| Ballarat | ALP 11.0% | ALP 10.1% | 0.9 to L/NP |
| Bendigo | ALP 9.0% | ALP 8.9% | 0.2 to L/NP |
| Bruce | ALP 14.2% | ALP 7.5% | 6.6 to L/NP |
| Calwell | ALP 18.8% | ALP 19.6% | 0.8 to ALP |
| Casey | LIB 4.6% | L/NP 4.6% | no change |
| Chisholm | LIB 0.6% | L/NP 0.2% | 0.4 to ALP |
| Cooper | ALP 26.3% | ALP 26.2% | 0.1 to L/NP |
| Corio | ALP 10.3% | ALP 10.3% | no change |
| Deakin | LIB 4.8% | L/NP 4.7% | 0.1 to ALP |
| Dunkley | ALP 2.7% | ALP 2.7% | no change |
| Flinders | LIB 5.6% | L/NP 5.6% | no change |
| Fraser | ALP 14.2% | ALP 18.1% | 3.9 to ALP |
| Gellibrand | ALP 14.8% | ALP 13.0% | 1.8 to L/NP |
| Gippsland | NAT 16.7% | L/NP 16.7% | no change |
| Goldstein | LIB 7.8% | L/NP 7.8% | no change |
| Gorton | ALP 15.4% | ALP 14.3% | 1.1 to L/NP |
| Hawke (New seat) | .. | ALP 10.4% | .. |
| Higgins | LIB 3.9% | L/NP 3.7% | 0.2 to ALP |
| Holt | ALP 8.7% | ALP 8.5% | 0.2 to L/NP |
| Hotham | ALP 5.9% | ALP 11.3% | 5.4 to ALP |
| Indi | LIB 12.7% | L/NP 12.7% | no change |
| Isaacs | ALP 6.4% | ALP 6.2% | 0.2 to L/NP |
| Jagajaga | ALP 6.6% | ALP 5.9% | 0.7 to L/NP |
| Kooyong | LIB 6.7% | L/NP 6.6% | 0.1 to ALP |
| La Trobe | LIB 4.5% | L/NP 4.9% | 0.4 to L/NP |
| Lalor | ALP 12.4% | ALP 12.4% | no change |
| Macnamara | ALP 6.2% | ALP 6.3% | no change |
| Mallee | NAT 16.2% | L/NP 15.7% | 0.6 to ALP |
| Maribyrnong | ALP 11.2% | ALP 10.3% | 0.9 to L/NP |
| McEwen | ALP 5.0% | ALP 5.3% | 0.3 to ALP |
| Melbourne | ALP 17.1% | ALP 17.8% | 0.7 to ALP |
| Menzies | LIB 7.5% | L/NP 7.0% | 0.5 to ALP |
| Monash | LIB 7.4% | L/NP 6.9% | 0.5 to ALP |
| Nicholls | NAT 20.0% | L/NP 20.0% | no change |
| Scullin | ALP 21.7% | ALP 21.7% | no change |
| Tucker (formerly Corangamite) | ALP 1.1% | ALP 1.1% | no change |
| Wannon | LIB 10.4% | L/NP 10.2% | 0.2 to ALP |
| Wills | ALP 25.9% | ALP 25.7% | 0.1 to L/NP |
Hi Antony, I’ve been looking at the new maps and I can’t help but think Fraser will become ALP vs GRN 2pp, as they lose much of their Liberal vote to Gorton and gain a chunk of Greens votes from Gellibrand and Maribyrnong. Do you think this will be the case, and if so, would you have a projected 2pp for that scenario?
Thanks
How do they choose the boundary line? Western border of Hawke to Ballarat has the weirdest run, splitting communities, rather than natural boundaries. Will be hard to know electorate.
COMMENT: You should lodge a suggestion. While it is rare for the redistribution commissioners to abandon a major change, they commonly adopt suggestions for a better demarcation of boundaries if such a suggestion is made.
Ben Raue’s estimate of The Greens’ primary in the new Fraser is under 14%.
What about seats where 2PP has Greens?
COMMENT: I have no time to do that today or for the next week. Other commitments.
Melbourne, Wills and Cooper have only minor changes.
Macnamara should become much better for the Greens at the expense of their chances in Higgins.
I’d expect Fraser might be getting close to Labor vs Green? Most of the good Green bits of the inner west are now united in this seat.
Mark, not necessarily because as you head north up Chapel St, the Liberal vote strengthens which would offset some of the lost Liberal vote around Caulfield. There might be elections where the Greens can win the seat but its just as likely to go to the Liberals as they improve their support in areas around Albert Park and South Melbourne.
La Trobe and McEwen?
COMMENT: Currently checking the calculations. They were not right on the first pass.
Any update on McEwan
If they were incorrect on first pass
COMMENT: Complete calculations for all electorates including McEwen are in the table.
Thanks Antony. Could you also publish the changes in primary vote?
COMMENT: No. I don’t have those calculations.
Surprised to see Higgins with a reduction in its Liberal margin? It’s gaining Liberal Caulfield and losing most of its best Labor/Greens areas.
The previous Liberal candidate for Macnamara had a shocker of a campaign, and Labor really improved their vote at the expense of the Liberals in most of Caulfield and Elsternwick, so it helps Labor in the 2PP in Higgins.
I’d be very curious to see if the new seat of Hawke is an equivalent to the loss of the Liberal seat of Stirling in WA. Any take on that?
COMMENT: The new Hawke is a Labor seat.
Evening.
Thank you for this update.
Is it possible to present the figures for both Melbourne and Indi in a way that reflects the actual voting patterns at least since 2013?
(Clearly not two party preferred L-NP Labor)
COMMENT: I don’t have calculations for either seat but there is little change in Melbourne and no change in Indi.
“The new Tucker loses all of the Surf Coast end of the former Corangamite” is not correct – it cuts the Surf Coast in two, leaving the Torquay end of the Surf Coast in Tucker.
The Corangamite/Tucker boundary changes seem major. I’m surprised the margin hasn’t changed accordingly.
The Surf Coast and Midland highway booths that are going, apart from Lorne, are ALP leaning, balancing out Winchelsea and Birregurra.
Box Hill being split in two along Whitehorse Road in Chisholm sticks out as a crazy boundary. And just one redistribution ago they logically removed the southern Chisholm part extending over the Monash (which everybody applauded at the time) and now they put it back again and delete another logical boundary in the North of Koonung Creek … in which Menzies has now jumped over it’s logical boundary
And on another matter Corangamite name should remain (even if it’s lake is no longer in the district). Kooyong the suburb isn’t in Kooyong either and still it retains its 1901 Federation name. If the AEC wants Tucker … replace Hotham or Gellibrand named after two colonialists not replace an existing Aboriginal name
Yes, interesting. Like Corangamite, Werriwa was a Federation seat, given the indigenous name for Lake George which is just outside Canberra. Werriwa is now located in the S Western suburbs of Sydney, through boundary changes, and not the last one before leaving the Sydney metro area.
The Greens to win Chisholm? They got 12% of the vote in 2019. They must have lots of hidden voters in suburbia to suddenly overtake Labor and win the seat from the Liberals.
Any Green hopes of winning Fraser are quite forlorn. Yes, it picks up the rather yuppified Yarraville, Seddon and (even) West Footscray – but they’re far outweighed by Sunshine, St Albans and Deer Park, all of which are positively hostile to The Greens (and where they rarely deign to tread). It’s a more pronounced version of the problem that The Greens still face in Cooper and Willis: the further they stretch from the inner suburbs the harder they get.
Much the same can be said of Maribyrnong: yes, it picks up Kensington but it also picks up Gladstone Park, Tullamarine and Keilor Park.
The only possibly way for their to be a winnable seat for the Greens in the inner-west is a north-south electorate along the Maribyrnong/Yarra, even then that is a while away. This redistribution proposes to move away from that by moving some of the more Green friendly areas of Gellibrand to Fraser, splitting the strong Greens areas like has traditionally been the case with Wills and what is now Cooper.
Wills and Cooper are probably just a term or two of ALP majority government under a leader that does not inspire the left away from being won by the Greens (although probably on a continuingly marginal basis). Both the balance of urban densification (more in the south of these seats, particularly in Wills) and the gradual northward expansion of Green friendly demographics.
surely combining the inner suburbs and outer suburbs in separate seats means the electorate are more representative? yeah sure it probably would create another Greens seat in Melbourne but the whole communities of interest thing can’t really be carried over two distinct areas
The communities of interest of radial transport corridors and geographic features in Melbourne favour radial electorates.
The redistribution around Chisholm and Menzies is crazy stuff. The suburb of Blackburn will be split into three seats! Box Hill will be split in two. The AEC write whatever they want to justify these absurd boundaries. They talk about the need to bring Warranwood into Deakin to “reunite the City of Maroondah” and yet say there’s no issue dividing the Box Hill business district in two and Blackburn into three seats.
As a resident of Blackburn North, this will the the third seat in three elections – Deakin, then Chisholm then Menzies! What the hell do we here have in common with Templestowe / Park Orchards / Warrandyte / Wonga Park? What a farce.
I have some discrepancies with some of your figures in the “old margin” column listed below. I agree with your “old margin” figures except for what I have listed below.
Cooper should be 14.65% not 26.3%.
Indi should be 1.39% not 12.7%
Kooyong should be 5.7% not 6.7%
Melbourne should be 21.8% not 17.1%
Wills should be 8.17% not 25.9%
My “old margin” figures are taken from the TPP results of the 2019 federal election. How did you reach the above “old margin” figures?
COMMENT: My old figures are the TPP results, that is two-party preferred. The figures you quote are two-candidate preferred figures, margins for contests that aren’t Labor versus Coalition. As I said in the post, I was only calculating two-party preferred margins. Once the boundaries are finalised I will probably do more work on estimating primary votes and two-candidate preferred margins.
You may find if you ask the people who have the thankless task of drawing up new boundaries. I write that because whatever they come up with will be criticized. The real aim is to have as close as possible, the same number of electors in each division without considering who they may vote for. Unless you make some boundaries ridiculous like diving properties in two, you will never get exactly the same. Therefore the rule is to have them within 2%. Most of the time it is well within the 2%. It can get annoying when you happen to live close the boundary. I have live at this address since 1985 (due to the Ash Wednesday fires) and have been 5 or maybe even 6 different divisions over that time. This is purely due to population movements.