Redistribution

FED2026 Redistributions – South Australian Boundaries Finalised

The South Australian redistribution of electoral boundaries has been finalised this morning. The Commission has abandoned a swap of suburbs between Kingston and Mayo, as well as the transfer of an area from Spence to O’Donoghue (formerly Grey). This means that Kingston and O’Donoghue retain their former boundaries without change.

The Draft boundaries released in March produced only minor changes to the boundaries used at the last three federal elections. Those changes have now been reduced with the Spence to O’Donoghue change reversed and the proposed suburbs swap between Mayo and Kingston abandoned.

South Australia was reduced from 11 to 10 House of Representatives seats by the 2017 redistribution. The current redistribution retains 10 seats and was triggered by the rule requiring boundaries to be re-drawn every seven years. The reason for periodic re-draws is to account for differing patterns of population growth, to bring all electorates back within permitted variation from quota.

Barker pushes closer to Adelaide and gains 3,365 voters around Woodchester from Mayo. Grey has been re-named O’Donoghue but proposed boundary changes abandoned. Population growth in the Adelaide Hills has seen Mayo shed voters to Barker and around 6,275 to Boothby. Adelaide’s outer north has also been growing rapidly and Spence has lost 14,043 voters in Brahma Lodge and Salisbury to Makin. Proposed changes to Kingston have been abandoned and Adelaide, Hindmarsh and Sturt retain their unchanged status from the draft phase.

The table below has been now re-calculated for the final boundaries.

South Australia Federal Redistribution – Summary of New Margins
District Old Boundaries New Boundaries Shift
Adelaide ALP 19.1% ALP 19.1% unchanged boundaries
Barker LIB 13.0% LIB 12.7% 0.3 to Labor
Boothby ALP 11.1% ALP 11.1% no change
Hindmarsh ALP 16.3% ALP 16.3% unchanged boundaries
Kingston ALP 20.7% ALP 20.7% unchanged boundaries
Makin ALP 14.7% ALP 15.3% 0.6 to Labor
Mayo (2-Party) ALP 5.0% ALP 4.8% 0.2 to Liberal
Mayo (IND v ALP) IND 14.9% IND 15.5% 0.6 to Independent
O’Donoghue (formerly Grey) LIB 4.6% LIB 4.6% unchanged boundaries
Spence ALP 15.3% ALP 15.2% 0.1 to Liberal
Sturt ALP 6.6% ALP 6.6% unchanged boundaries

Read More »FED2026 Redistributions – South Australian Boundaries Finalised

FED2026 Redistributions – Tasmanian Boundaries Finalised

The new electoral boundaries for Tasmania have been released today.

Reading through the proposed changes, the major changes to Clark, Franklin and Lyons in southern Tasmania have been agreed to. But there are changes in the north with Break O’Day council being moved into Bass.

There is also a proposed name change which has triggered the calling of a new round of comments specifically about changing the name of Franklin to Tongerlongter. As the proposal explains the name –

Following its deliberations, the augmented Electoral Commission proposes renaming the electorate of Franklin in honour of Tongerlongeter (c. 1790-1837), a Poredareme man of the Oyster Bay nation and a prominent Aboriginal leader whose Country encompassed much of south-east Tasmania, including areas within the reconfigured electorate boundaries. The name ‘Franklin’ is proposed to be retired.

Earlier I tweeted that the draft boundaries had been abandoned. That was confusion on my part by opening the wrong map and thinking that was the reason for calling a new round of submissions. It is rare for redistributions to engage in this extra consultation step. It appears the consultation is over the name change alone so the boundaries appear to be otherwise final.

The draft boundaries released earlier this year produced massive changes to the electorates of Clark, Franklin and Lyons. You can read more details in my post on the draft boundaries.

The table below summarises the two-party preferred margins between Labor and Liberal in the five divisions. I’ll go into more detail on the Independent positions in Clark and Franklin inside the post.

Tasmania Federal Redistribution – Summary of 2-Party Preferred Margin Changes
District Old Boundaries New Boundaries Shift
Bass ALP 8.0% ALP 8.3% 0.3 to ALP
Braddon ALP 7.2% ALP 7.2% Unchanged
Clark ALP 20.9% ALP 20.2% 0.7 to LIB
Franklin ALP 19.4% ALP 18.7% 0.7 to LIB
Lyons ALP 11.6% ALP 12.7% 0.9 to ALP

Read More »FED2026 Redistributions – Tasmanian Boundaries Finalised

FED26 Redistributions – Final Boundaries Released for A.C.T.

The final boundaries for the ACT have been released. Maps and numbers of voters transferred have not been released, but I have managed to estimate new margins using data published with the draft boundaries.

In short, nothing much changes. The table below summarise the margins for the ACT’s three electorates.

ACT Federal Redistribution (Final) – Summary of Margin Changes
District Contest Old Boundaries New Boundaries Shift
Bean 2-Party ALP 19.3% ALP 19.4% 0.1 to ALP
Canberra 2-Party ALP 26.4% ALP 26.4% No change
Fenner 2-Party ALP 22.1% ALP 22.1% No change
Bean ALP v IND ALP 0.3% ALP 0.2% 0.1 to IND
Canberra ALP v GRN ALP 19.5% ALP 19.5% No change

There’s more details on each electorate inside the post.
Read More »FED26 Redistributions – Final Boundaries Released for A.C.T.

ABS Population Statistics confirm no change to State Representation for the Next Federal Election

(Update 23 July: the Electoral Commissioner’s determination has been published in the government gazette today. You can find it here.

The official calculations are the same as the ones in this post except the Territories have slightly higher numbers after adding in Norfolk Island and Jervis Bay to the ACT, and Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling Island to the Northern Territory.)

(Original post from 18 June follows)

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has today released state population figures for the last quarter of 2025. These numbers confirm that there will be no change to state representation in the House of Representatives for the next Federal election.

The interest had been whether Queensland would be entitled to an extra seat for its twice delayed redistribution of Federal electoral boundaries.

Under the 7-year rule, Queensland had been due to have a redistribution begin in March 2025. Clearly this wasn’t possible with a Federal election due.

The redistribution should have started after the election along with the redistributions in Tasmania, South Australia and the ACT.

The Queensland redistribution was officially deferred until after a determination on state representation by the Electoral Commissioner to be made in July 2026

If Queensland was going to be allocated a 31st seat, there was no point starting a redistribution for 30 seats. The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released today confirm that Queensland will remain with 30 members.

No change in state numbers will become official in July when the Australian Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope issues a formal determination of the number of House members to be elected form each state and territory. The determination is always made one year after the first sitting of the House of Representatives following an election.

Commissioner Pope has no personal choice in making the determination as the method is strictly defined in law. For states the Commissioner will apply the formula set out in Section 24 of the Constitution. For the Territories the Commissioner will use the formula set out in the Electoral Act. The Constitution also states that the Commissioner will use the “latest statistics of the Commonwealth”, a phrase the High Court and Parliament has determined will be the quarterly population statistics. Today’s ABS release of last December’s statistics is the population numbers that Commissioner Pope will use.

The precise calculations around how seats are allocated is explained inside this post.

Once the new numbers are officially announced at the end of July, a redistribution of Queensland federal boundaries will commence based on re-drawing the existing 30 seats. The new boundaries will be in place for the next election due in 2028.Read More »ABS Population Statistics confirm no change to State Representation for the Next Federal Election

2026 Federal Redistributions – South Australia

Proposed new electoral boundaries for South Australia have been released. It is a bad day for me to try and analyse them as I have other commitments. But I have done a quick summary of the changes in this post.

The number of seats is unchanged at 10 on and at first glance the boundary changes are minor.

There is one change of electorate name. As the Redistribution Committee describes it –

The Redistribution Committee proposes renaming the electorate of Grey to the electorate of O’Donoghue. This is to honour the legacy of Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue AC CBE DSG (1932–2024), a Yankunytjatjara woman who was the first Indigenous nurse at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and became a distinguished public administrator, champion for health equity, and Indigenous rights activist. The electorate of Grey was chosen to be renamed due to Dr O’Donoghue’s strong connection to the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, which are largely located in the electorate of Grey.

More inside the post.
Read More »2026 Federal Redistributions – South Australia

FED26 Redistributions – ACT Draft Boundaries

Draft federal electoral boundaries for the ACT’s three House of Representatives’ seats have been released this morning. The redistribution has been required under the Electoral Act’s seven-year rule where boundaries are periodically re-drawn to bring electorate enrolments back within permitted variation from quota.

The draft boundaries have proved to be more complex than expected. Rather than a simple transfer of voters from the southern seat of Bean to central Canberra with the northern seat of Fenner left unchanged, the Redistribution has adopted a more extensive proposal that alters all three electorates. My estimated new margins are shown below with more detail inside the post.

ACT Federal Redistribution (Draft) – Summary of Margin Changes
Old Boundaries New Boundaries Shift
Bean (ALP v LIB) ALP 19.3% ALP 19.4% +0.1 ALP
Bean (ALP v IND) ALP 0.3% ALP 1.4% +1.1 ALP
Canberra (ALP v LIB) ALP 26.4% ALP 26.1% -0.3 ALP
Canberra (ALP v GRN) ALP 19.5% ALP 19.5% No change
Fenner (ALP v LIB) ALP 22.1% ALP 22.3% +0.2 ALP

Note: The Labor versus Independent calculation for Bean has added the vote for the Independent in Canberra to the vote for Jess Price in Bean. This probably underestimates the support Price might have received in the added areas but it is not really possible to estimate how Price might have polled. After transferring the primary votes I’ve applied the preference distribution for Bean. This produces a 1.4% major which I suspect is a little higher than it should be. I’ll have a think if there is a better method for the final boundaries later in the year.

The method I normally use is to use the ratio of Senate to House vote for the larger parties. That method is not possible in the ACT because the success of Independent David Pocock in the Senate means all other parties have a lower Senate vote than House vote.

More detail on the redistribution and much more on the ins and outs of each division inside the post.Read More »FED26 Redistributions – ACT Draft Boundaries

FED26 Redistribution – Tasmania Draft Boundaries

Last Friday the Australian Electoral Commission issued draft electoral boundaries for Tasmania. It was the first of this year’s round of federal redistributions.

Draft boundaries for the ACT will be released in a fortnight, South Australia some time after the state election to avoid confusion, and a Queensland federal redistribution will get underway in July.

If the Albanese government goes ahead with rumoured plans to increase the size of the parliament, then all five mainland states will require redistributions before the next election. Tasmania and the two territories would be untouched by an expansion of parliamkent.

But first Tasmania.

Full details of the proposed boundaries can be found at the Australian Electoral Commission’s website. This includes details on how to make comment on or object to the new boundaries.

As I will explain in this post, the Redistribution Committee has abandoned its recent habit of engaging in incremental redistributions, boundaries adjusted at the edges to minimise the number of voters transferred between electorates.

In Tasmania, the proposed boundaries re-arrange the electoral geography of southern Tasmania. Just over a quarter of the state’s electors are moved between seats. The southern seats of Clark and Franklin split in two and re-assembled with a series of rotational swaps through the central seat of Lyons.

The Committee has decided to tackle the state’s most peculiar electoral boundary, the division of the southern seat of Franklin in two by neighbouring Clark. All means of transport between the two ends of Franklin pass through Clark, the seat covering all of central Hobart west of the Derwent River. Franklin covers the eastern shore of Hobart, plus Kingston and all populated parts of the state south of Hobart.

That Franklin has evolved this peculiar geography has roots that go back to Federation. When boundaries were first drawn in 1903, Clark (then known as Denison) covered Hobart on the western shore of the Derwent River at a time when few lived to the east. In 1903 Franklin was the state’s largest electorate in area, extending deep into central Tasmania and completely surrounded Denison. The state’s other three electorates were clustered in northern Tasmania.

Over many decades, as the population of southern Tasmania grew faster than the rest of the state, Franklin contracted south. As Hobart grew in the post-war era, new bridges across the Derwent allowed suburbia to spread to the eastern shore. Areas south of Hobart also grew. Incremental boundary changes turned a Franklin that surrounded Denison into an electorate with two distinct ends.

Federal electorates are so large it is difficult to get a single community of interest that covers an electorate. But no electorate in the country is as geographically divided as Franklin. With Clark (formerly Denison) well under quota, expansion was required with the possibility it would make the boundaries for Franklin even more illogical.

So the Committee has gone for a big bang change more likely to cope with future population shifts. Both Clark and Franklin have been split in two and re-arranged with a rotation of voters through the southern part of the central seat of Lyons.

In terms of two-party politics the new boundaries have little impact. But Clark is held by Independent Andrew Wilkie, and Franklin in 2025 saw a strong challenge from Independent Peter George. He has since gone on to win one of Franklin’s seven seats in state parliament. The proposed boundaries for Clark and Franklin drastically re-arrange Independent support.

It’s best for me to explain the change seat by seat. Note: maps have been taken from the redistribution report and are published by the Australian Electoral Commission.Read More »FED26 Redistribution – Tasmania Draft Boundaries

FED25 – A Plethora of Estimated Margins and Problems with the AEC Version

In a pre-Christmas treat for election nerds, the Australian Electoral Commission is about to publish its estimated seat margins for next year’s Federal election.

The 2025 Federal election will be fought on new electoral boundaries following redistributions in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. There has also been a redistribution in the Northern Territory though those boundaries are yet to be formally gazetted into place.

Earlier this month I published my estimates of post-redistribution margins. These are the margins I recommend the ABC should use at the 2025 election. (The post includes links to an alphabetic list of electorates and all new margins plus a new pendulum.

Having been asked my opinion of the AEC’s estimated new margins, I agree with the AEC in 137 of the 150 seats, am in close agreement on another four, but disagree on nine seats to varying degrees.

These nine seats are contests that did not finish as traditional two-party preferred races between Labor and the Coalition in 2022, and where there have been significant boundary changes.

Inside this post I have published a table that includes my estimated margins for these nine seats, as well as the AEC’s, and two other estimates published by prominent election observers, Ben Raue of the Tallyroom website, and William Bowe of the Pollbludger website.

(The AEC’s estimates are now available. You can find them at this link.)

In some entries in the table, the AEC’s estimates differ from the values that Ben, William and I calculated independently. In other entries the different methodologies adopted mean there are a range of possible estimated margins.

In this post I’ll run through detail on where there is disagreement.

But I need to make clear I am in no way suggesting there is a problem with how the AEC will conduct the 2025 election.Read More »FED25 – A Plethora of Estimated Margins and Problems with the AEC Version

FED25 Election – New Seat Margins and Electoral Pendulum

At the 2025 Federal election, more than half of seats in the House of Representatives will be contested on new electoral boundaries.

In this post I summarise the state of play going into the election and provide estimated margins for all seats affected by the redistribution. You can find a listing of margins for all seats at this link.

The above document lists traditional two-party preferred margins for all seats, but also alternative two-candidate preferred margins in seats that were not contests between Labor and the Coalition in 2022.

There were a record 27 seats in 2022 that did not finish as contests between Labor and Coalition candidates. There is every chance this number could increase in 2025, with analysis of results further complicated by the new electoral boundaries.

I’ve tried to create a new electoral pendulum that summarises the party contest for 2025. You can find the pendulum at this link.

The pendulum groups seats by holding party, simplified to Labor, Coalition and ‘Other’ groupings. Within each party grouping, seats are listed in margin order. Second placed party is also shown for seats that were not Labor versus Coalition contests in 2022.

The problem with this layout is that it mixes two-party and two-candidate margins. The ordering allows you to identify marginal seats, but makes it impossible to apply uniform two-party preferred swing to try and predict seat numbers. It is best to skip over the ‘Other’ contest seats in applying two-party swing.

On a third page of the pendulum document I’ve added mini-pendulums that set out margins for Labor versus Others and Coalition versus Others contests. For several electorates where Labor and the Greens compete on first preferences to make the final contest versus the Coalition, I have also provided an estimated primary vote margin.

There’s more about the redistribution and information on how the new margins have been calculated inside this post.Read More »FED25 Election – New Seat Margins and Electoral Pendulum

2024 Federal Redistributions – Draft Northern Territory Boundaries

(22 November – no objections were received for the draft boundaries and they should be gazetted in the new year for use at the 2025 Federal election.)

(4 March 2025 – after a long delay, the new boundaries will be gazetted today allowing them to be used at the soon to be announced federal election. That it has taken so long for an uncontroversial boundary change to be implemented is something that should be looked at in a review of the legislation.)

The final electoral jigsaw piece has been put in place for next year’s Federal election.

Redistributions have been finalised for NSW, WA and Victoria. Today has seen the release of draft boundaries for the Northern Territory.

These draft boundaries are now open for public comment, but as the Redistribution Commissioner’s proposal is the same as every submission suggested, the final stage of the redistribution will simply rubber stamp the draft proposal.

If you want to make a submission or read more detail on the redistribution, you can do so through the AEC’s NT Redistribution site.

In this post I’ll just give a brief summary of the change and estimated new margins for Lingiari and Solomon.Read More »2024 Federal Redistributions – Draft Northern Territory Boundaries