2013 VICTORIAN REDISTRIBUTION ANALYSIS OF NEW ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES CONTENTS PAGE Introduction 1 Summary of Political Impact 4 New electoral pendulum 6 Summary of Changes to Assembly Districts 7 Full listing for new Assembly Districts 13 Abolished Districts 113 Transfers of old electorate enrolments 116 Legislative Council Changes 119 The Author Antony Green is an Election Analyst with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and has worked for the ABC on every federal, state and territory election coverage since 1989. Antony studied at Sydney University, obtaining a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and computing, and a Bachelor of Economics with Honours in politics. Antony produces regular publications on electoral matters for the New South Wales Parliamentary Library. Party Abbreviations ALP Labor Party CA Country Alliance CDP Christian Democratic Party DLP Democratic Labor Party FFP Family First GRN The Greens IND Independents LIB Liberal Party NAT The Nationals SA Socialist Alliance ASXP Australian Sex Party OTH Others Comments and Feedback This publication has been prepared with reference to the electoral maps made available by the Electoral Boundaries Commission. However, without access to registered voter lists indicating where people cast their vote, re-allocating polling places to new electorates is an imprecise science, especially when polling places need to be split between electorates. Comments and suggestions on the transfer of polling places are most welcome. Messages can be e-mailed to me at [email protected]. 2013 Victorian Redistribution INTRODUCTION This publication assesses the political impact of the new Victorian electoral boundaries, proclaimed on 17 October 2013. The new boundaries will be used for the first time at the 2014 state election. The publication is based on the results of the 2010 election and does not provide predictions for the 2014 election. The estimated new margins listed in this publication are best thought of as estimated results for the 2010 election had it been fought on the new boundaries. However, the estimated new margins cannot take into account the differences in candidate and campaign effort that would have occurred if the 2010 election had been fought on the new boundaries. The difficulty of splitting polling place catchment areas to match new electoral boundaries, as well as allocating declaration votes to new electorates, means the estimated margins in this publication should be treated as approximations. CALCULATIONS AND METHODOLOGY To calculate the political impact of the new boundaries, the results of the 2010 election have been re-assigned to match the new electoral boundaries. This required a series of assumptions to be made as part of the calculations. These assumptions concern whether votes are cast for candidates or parties, how to transfer polling places between old and new electorates, and how to apportion declaration vote between new electorates. Votes for Candidates versus Votes for Parties An assumption has been made that votes are cast for parties rather than candidates. This is a reasonable assumption, but it cannot correct for the personal support for popular sitting members, or correct for parties running minimal campaigns in their opponent's safe seats. Transferring Booths to Match the New Boundaries The Electoral Boundaries Commission report included tables of enrolment transfers between old and new electorates. The transfers, along with the published maps, have been used as a guide to transfer polling place results from the 2010 election to match the new electorates. Where the transfers and maps suggest the catchment area of a polling place should be divided, an estimate has been made to divide the results of a polling place between new electorates. Dealing with the Declaration Vote For calculation purposes, all declaration votes (pre-poll, postal, absent etc) have been accumulated into a single total and apportioned between new electorates. These accumulated totals have been transferred in proportion to the transfer of enrolment from each old to new electorates. However, the vote by party in the declaration vote has been weighted to reflect the vote by party in polling places transferred between electorates. As an example, the old electorate of Macedon has re-drawn, with around half of its voters remaining in the new Macedon, while the other half now forms part of the new electorate of Sunbury. The polling places in those parts of Macedon transferred to Sunbury voted more strongly for the Labor Party in 2010 than areas that have remained with Macedon. As a result, in dividing the declaration vote between Sunbury and Macedon, the pattern of polling place results has been reflected in the declaration vote transferred. Sunbury has therefore been allocated a higher proportion of Labor vote and lower proportion of Liberal vote in the divided declaration vote compared to the declaration vote transferred to Macedon. 1 2013 Victorian Redistribution By-elections and Changes in Party Membership Calculations in this publication are based on the result of the 2010 election. They do not use the results of the four by-elections conducted since the 2010 election. The by-elections were in Labor held Broadmeadows (February 2011), Niddrie (March 2012), Melbourne (July 2012) and Lyndhurst (April 2013). Labor retained all four seats and none of the by-elections were contested by the Liberal Party. The publication also does not take account of the change in party status of Frankston MLA Mr Geoff Shaw. Mr Shaw was elected as a Liberal candidate at the 2010 election, but now sits as an Independent. Calculations in this publication indicate that based on the 2010 election, the Liberal margin for Frankston falls from 2.1% to 0.4% based on the new boundaries Two-Party Preferred versus Two-Candidate Preferred Results The two-candidate preferred count for an electorate is defined as the final count of votes between the two remaining candidates after the exclusion and distribution as preferences of votes for all other candidates. At each stage of the distribution of preferences, the candidate with the fewest votes is excluded and his or her ballot papers re-examined to determine the candidate with the next available preference. To achieve victory, a candidate must receive more than 50% of the total two-candidate preferred vote. Where a candidate achieves more than 50% of the vote before the final distribution, the two-candidate preferred count is continued to completion for information purposes. The two-party preferred count represents a distribution of preferences between candidates representing the Labor Party and the Coalition. Candidates are again excluded based on lowest progressive vote, though at some point the second lowest candidate is excluded to retain candidates representing Labor and the Coalition. The two-party preferred count plays no part in determining the winning candidate but is undertaken for information purposes. In most cases, the two-party preferred result will be the same as the two-candidate preferred result. At the 2010 election, 82 of the 88 electorates finished as two-party preferred contests between Labor and Coalition candidates. In Brunswick, Melbourne, Northcote and Richmond, the final two-candidate preferred contest was between Labor and Green candidates. In Gippsland East and Mildura the final contest was between National and Independent candidates. A separate two-party preferred count was conducted between Labor and the Coalition in these six contests. In Bendigo West the final two-candidate preferred count saw Labor retain the seat with a 2.9% margin versus the National Party. An alternative count between Labor and Liberal candidates produced a Labor margin of 8.0% based on differential flows of third party preferences. Margins based on both counts are referred to where relevant in this publication. Two-party preferred margins are provided in this publication for all 88 new electorates. Alternative two-candidate preferred margins have been calculated between Labor and the Greens for the electorates of Brunswick, Melbourne, Northcote and Richmond. Legislative Council Calculations Percentage first preference votes for each party have been calculated for each new Legislative Council region. The same calculation methods have been used based on the same polling place transfers. Estimates can be found on page 119. 2 2013 Victorian Redistribution Electorate Name Changes Of the 88 Legislative Assembly electorates, 73 retain the same name, though some continuing electorates have undergone extensive boundary changes. Fifteen electorate names have disappeared, and fifteen new names appear or re-appear on the state’s electoral map. For the purposes of this publication, I have treated ten of these fifteen electorates as being changes in name, while I have identified five electorates as having been abolished and five as newly created. See the summary of the political impact on page 4 for the details of electorates classed as abolished, created and re-named. Throughout this publication the new names for electorates will generally be used. Acknowledgements and Disclaimer All estimates have been calculated based on the actual results of the 2010 election and with reference to data and maps provided by the Electoral Boundaries Commission. My thanks go to the staff the Victorian Electoral Commission and the Victorian Electoral Boundaries Commission. My particular thanks go to Dr Paul Thornton-Smith for his assistance with sourcing data. However, responsibility for all calculations, and the assumption underlying them, must rest with the author. Antony Green November 2013 Update – August 2014 When originally published in November 2013, there was an error in the re-calculated informal vote listed for each electorate. This has been corrected with this version of the publication. No other calculations were affected. 3 2013 Victorian Redistribution Summary of the Political Impact Party Composition of Legislative Assembly based on Old and New Boundaries S e a t s H e l d B y P a r t y Liberal National Labor Others Total Old Boundaries 35 10 43 .. 88 New Boundaries 39 9 40 .