As for Blair, yep I wondered that too Sacha. It’s academic now. Blair’s boundaries have changed to make it even more Lib-friendly.

While on the topic of names, “Calare” (apart from being pronounced incorrectly) is also a name that covers only part of the seat.

Of the criteria you link, it’s the very first that states: “In the main, Divisions should be named after deceased Australians who have rendered outstanding service to their country.”

Surely the above squarely befits Henry Parkes, the “father of federation”.

The AEC has guidelines on their website for the naming of divisions: http://www.aec.gov.au/_content/Why/redistributions/guidelines.htm

It clearly says that “Every effort should be made to retain the names of original Federation Divisions.” I’d argue that the value in retaining Federation divisions is to, as much as possible, preserve historical value in electorates, such as having a continuous list of MPs representing an electorate, etc, thus Parkes would not be considered to be a Federation division. At the very least, it’s historical value is substantially less than those electorates that have existed continously since Federation.

There are only 37 federation electorates, out of an original 63, remaining in 2006. These include 15 in NSW, 11 in Victoria, 7 in Queensland and 4 in Western Australia.

So while clearly the AEC can do whatever they want, I would argue that there is far more value in preserving the seat of Gwydir rather than Parkes, and the AEC’s own website seems to back that up.

Regarding Werriwa in Western Sydney, I would expect that with the increasing growth in South-West Sydney with the Bringelly development and general increases in population, we will see future redistributions leading to the creation of new electorates, or substantial shifting of electorates, in the area, which would allow the AEC to create a seat of Whitlam without getting rid of the electorate of Werriwa.

Apart from the fact that Werriwa is both a federation electorate and is an “existing Aboriginal Divisional name”, which are both criteria for protecting electorate names, I would also argue that it doesn’t fit into the general concept of a geographical name. While it is named after Lake George, the reasons for avoiding geographical names don’t apply to Werriwa.

For example:
-Avoiding having the same name for local, state and federal electorates (eg. Parramatta and Sydney)
-Confusion caused when electorates are shifted so that they no longer include the area the electorate is named after (eg. Parramatta at the last election).

One last point, is that very few Prime Minister’s electorates have ever been abolished, and none since 1969.

Considering that three recent members for Werriwa have been very senior figures in the ALP, this would add to the historical value of the seat.

Of course, the AEC can do whatever they want and ignore that, but I think that there’s a lot of worth in preserving seats with greater historical value.

Gwydir was the most appropriate seat to abolish given it has the lowest popultaion/growth and was situated next to the second lowest population/growth (Parkes).

Parkes should easily go to John Cobb unless there is a strong independent challenge, which seems unlikely.

Peter Anderen could probably win either Calare or Macquarie, although I would say he will probably contest Calare. Macquarie should go to Labor if he contests Calare unless Labor puts in another really bad electoral performance. If Anderen chose to contest Macquarie then Calare would probably go to the Liberal Party rather than the national party based upon the National’s disasterous performance in that area recently. eg. 2004 election, Dubbo by-election.

Farrer remains a safe Liberal seat, the population of Broken Hill is becoming less significant and the National Party didn’t actually do too badly there in 2004. Greenway should now be fairly safe Liberal. Macarthur also is now fairly safe Liberal and would only fall to Labor in a complete landslide. Lindsay becomes slightly better for Labor.

I think the most interesting changes are Wentworth and Bennelong. Neither of these seats can clearly be described as safe Liberal based on recent changes, Especially Wentworth with the addition of several solid Labor voting booths. Support for the Liberal Party has also been declining in inner city areas in recent elections, perhaps reflective of Howards socially conservative rather than economically rational policies such as middle class welfare for nuclear families, social conservativism, no gay marriage etc.

The changes to Bennelong are not dramatic, but surely make it a seat that Labor has to win if it is to return to government at a margin of less than 5%. Labor does hold the state seat of Ryde with a huge majority. Labor would be foolish not to put resources and a good candidate into winning this seat with the addition of Labor voting areas from Parramatta.

Eden Monaro becomes slightly safer for the Liberal Party, although still a seat that Labor would probably win if it returned to government. Richmond should stay Labor, I can’t see the National Party winning this seat in future based upon changing demographics, are more likely challenge would come from the Liberal Party.

While some people have mentioned Hunter as a potential contest, I really can’t see Labor losing this seat based upon its margin at the 2004 election. Overall these changes probably will not benefit either the Liberal Party or the Labor Party significantly. The main loser will be the National Party, although that has probably been inevitable given the declining population of areas west of the Great Dividing Range for some time.

Plugging the relevant numbers into the new Macquarie boundaries gives a Labor margin in the region of 2.5% – pretty close to what James says. A Labor seat, but with enough Liberal votes in the lower mountains and some of the rural areas around Bathurst and Oberon to keep it competitive.

And the Eden-Monaro/Tumut question – those new booths are pretty bad for Labor, but the areas lost to Gilmore are mostly marginal Liberal booths in the Batemans Bay area, so the net effect isn’t that high. The new margin will be close to 3%. In fact, you could say this makes Eden-Monaro a truer bellwether – the swing Labor needs to win it becomes closer to (but still less than) the swing they need to win nationally.