2020/21 NSW Redistribution: Analysis of Draft Electoral Boundaries Background Paper No 02/2020 by Antony Green RELATED PUBLICATIONS NSW Legislative Assembly election: Two-party preferred results by polling place, Antony Green (Background Paper 01/2020) 2019 New South Wales Election: Analysis of Results, Antony Green (Background Paper 01/2019) NSW Legislative Council Election 2015, Antony Green (Background Paper 01/2018) NSW Legislative Assembly election 2015: Two-party preferred results by polling place, Antony Green (Background Paper 02/2015) 2015 New South Wales Election: Analysis of Results, Antony Green (Background Paper 01/2015) ISSN 1325-4456 ISBN November 2020 © 2020 Except to the extent of the uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior consent from the Manager, NSW Parliamentary Research Service, other than by Members of the New South Wales Parliament in the course of their official duties. 2020/21 NSW Redistribution: Analysis of Draft Electoral Boundaries by Antony Green NSW PARLIAMENTARY RESEARCH SERVICE Matthew Dobson (BA (Psych Hons), PhD), Senior Manager, Health, Media and Communications ................. (02) 9230 2356 Daniel Montoya (BEnvSc (Hons), PhD), Senior Research Officer, Environment/Planning ......................... (02) 9230 2003 Lenny Roth (BCom, LLB), Senior Research Officer, Law ....................................................... (02) 9230 2768 Talina Drabsch (BA, LLB (Hons)), Research Officer, Law .................................................................. (02) 9230 2484 Tom Gotsis (BA, LLB, Dip Ed, Grad Dip Soc Sci) Research Officer, Law .................................................................. (02) 9230 3085 Rowena Johns (BA (Hons), LLB), Research Officer, Law .................................................................. (02) 9230 2484 Eline Saleuesile (BA, GradCert PLPP), Research Officer, Social Policy .................................................. (02) 9230 3019 Should Members or their staff require further information about this publication please contact the author. Information about Research Publications can be found online. Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional legal opinion. The Author Antony Green is Chief 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. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations. Antony produces regular publications on electoral matters for the New South Wales Parliamentary Library. Abbreviations ALP Labor Party GRN The Greens IND Independents LGA Local Government Area LIB Liberal Party L/NP Liberal and National Party Coalition NAT The Nationals ONP Pauline Hanson's One Nation OTH Others SFF Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party Comments and Feedback This publication has been prepared with reference to the electoral maps and enrolment data published by the Electoral Districts Redistribution Panel. However, without access to registered voter lists indicating where people cast their vote, re-allocating polling places to new districts is an imprecise science, especially when polling places need to be split between districts. Comments and suggestions on the transfer of polling places is most welcome through [email protected]. CONTENTS Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 Summary of Political Impact ............................................................................... 3 New Electoral Pendulum .................................................................................... 4 Summary of Changes to Electoral Districts ........................................................ 5 Listing of New Districts ..................................................................................... 10 Abolished Districts .......................................................................................... 105 Transfers of old district enrolments ................................................................ 106 2020/21 NSW Redistribution (Draft boundaries) INTRODUCTION This publication assesses the political impact of the draft electoral boundaries for New South Wales released on Monday 9 November 2020. Submissions on the proposed boundaries are now open until 9 December followed by another fortnight for comments on the submissions. The Electoral Districts Redistribution Panel will finalise the redistribution in the first half of 2021. The new boundaries will apply from the 2023 state election. This publication does not provide predictions for the 2023 election. The estimated margins provided are best thought of as possible results of the 2019 election had the election been fought on the draft boundaries. The estimates cannot take account of the difference in candidate and campaign effort that would have occurred had the 2019 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 2019 election by polling place have been re-assigned to align with the proposed electoral boundaries. A number of assumptions have been made as part of the calculations. Candidate versus Party Vote An assumption has been made that votes are cast for parties rather than candidates. This is a reasonable assumption but does ignore that a popular candidate or member can increase a party's level of support. New electoral boundaries can see areas added to an electorate where the party vote was not influenced by the presence of the popular candidate. The roll of sitting Independent members is even more difficult to take into account. None of the Independents elected at the 2019 election contested the areas added to their electorates by the redistribution, making it difficult to calculate reliable new margins. Transferring Booths to Match the New Boundaries The Redistribution Panel released detail on the number of electors transferred from old to new district. The transfer of polling place has been guided by these enrolment transfers and the published maps of old and new districts. 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 pre-poll votes and declaration votes (postal, absent, iVote etc) have been accumulated into a single total and transferred to new electorates. The exceptions to this are Auburn and Upper Hunter where early voting centres in part of an electorate have been transferred in full. The accumulated totals have been transferred to new electorates in proportion to the transfer of enrolment from 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. For example, a part of the Maitland district was transferred to Upper Hunter. The polling places in the area transferred to Upper Hunter had a weaker vote for Labor than the polling places that continued in the re-drawn Maitland district. Reflecting this, the pre-poll and declaration votes transferred to Upper Hunter had a weaker Labor vote than the votes that remained in Maitland. 1 2020/21 NSW Redistribution (Draft boundaries) Two-Party Preferred versus Two-Candidate Preferred Results The two-candidate preferred count for an electorate is the final tally of votes for the two remaining candidates after the exclusion and distribution of preferences from all other candidates. At each step of the preference distribution, the candidate with the lowest tally of votes is excluded and their ballot papers distributed by the next preference for a candidate remaining in the count. If no further preference is available, the ballot paper is said to 'exhaust'. The winning candidate will have more than 50% of the remaining vote at the end of the exclusions. Where a candidate achieves more than 50% of the vote before the final distribution, the two-candidate preferred count is continued for information purposes. The two-party preferred count represents a distribution of preferences between candidates representing the Labor Party and the Liberal/National Party 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. Alternative two-party preferred counts are carried out for information purposes only. In most cases, the two-party preferred result will be the same as the two-candidate preferred result. At the 2019 election, 74 of the electorates finished as two-party preferred contests between Labor and Coalition candidates. Separate two-party preferred