Proposed new electoral boundaries for Western Australian are available for your perusal. Commentary to follow.
Big surprise: a radical redrawing of the remote areas divides them evenly between O’Connor and Kalgoorlie, the former taking the entire northern half of the state and Kalgoorlie most of the south. I don’t imagine Wilson Tuckey will be too happy this morning.
Stirling (Liberal 1.3%): Nothing too radical has occurred in the metropolitan area. Stirling has gained the salient south of Beach Road on the coast from Moore, lost Scarborough to Curtin but gained Joondanna, gained Coolbinia from Perth but lost the west of Morley. My rough calculation is that this cuts the Liberal margin to 0.8 per cent. CORRECTION: Sorry, made an error there: it actually looks like the margin hasn’t changed at all.
Cowan (Liberal 1.7%): This was one of two seats in the country that went from Labor to Liberal at the last election. The electorate has been brought down to size through the loss of the Noranda area south of Reid Highway to Perth and the new suburbs around Tapping in the electorate’s north-west to Moore, cutting the margin by about 0.8 per cent.
Swan (Liberal 0.1%): The other seat in the country that went from Labor to Liberal. It has gained extra territory in the south including Ferndale, Lynwood and Langford, which by my reckoning damages Liberal member Steve Irons 0.7 per cent and puts the seat back into the Labor column. Furthermore, the new areas swung quite heavily to Labor at the election.
Hasluck (Labor 1.3%): The one seat in WA that Labor won from the Liberals has gained Huntingdale and Southern River in the south from Canning, while losing a very small number of voters in the north to Pearce. I estimate that this has knocked 0.2 per cent off Labor member Sharryn Jackson’s margin.
O’Connor: Going on booths alone, I calculate O’Connor has a Liberal margin of 7.2 per cent.
UPDATE: Antony Green explains all. In a nutshell, the metropolitan amendments are of only marginal interest. The big deal is that Kalgoorlie has gone from being a potentially loseable Liberal seat to a very safe one, which has been achieved by cutting the margin in O’Connor from 16.6 per cent to 7.3 per cent (on Antony’s initial calculation). I might venture that this overstates the Liberals’ safety in O’Connor due to Wilson Tuckey’s personal vote (which is especially high in the part of O’Connor that carries over to the newly drawn seat: the southern coast end was only added to the electorate at the previous redistribution), and the fact that Labor have played dead in O’Connor lately to aid the Nationals. For example, the Allendale Primary School and Geraldton Primary School booths in Geraldton respectively split 59-41 and 56-44 in Tuckey’s favour at the 2007 election, whereas Labor won them 51-49 and 55-45 at the 2005 state election. Nonetheless, the new O’Connor still looks more comfortable for the Liberals than did the old Kalgoorlie, so they have reason to be pleased.
The changes are also significant in intra-Coalition terms. Normally it might be assumed that a 72-year-old member would have retirement in mind, but Wilson Tuckey might be rated an exception. If he’s not in the mood to go quietly, he will have a much harder time now he has to persuade preselectors from the unfamiliar Kimberley, Pilbara and Gascoyne. Then there’s the Nationals, who have been hoping O’Connor might give them their first WA House of Representatives seat since 1974. Their hopes, if any, must now be pinned on Kalgoorlie, which takes not only Albany and half their Wheatbelt heartland from O’Connor, but also Manjimup and Bridgetown-Greenbushes from Forrest and areas as near to Perth as Wandering from Pearce. The latter areas are not strong for them, so it can be expected that they will lodge a fairly spirited objection.
84 Comments
Does this make O’Connor a Labor seat? It would certainly make it more marginal. On the other hand Kalgoorlie is probably safer for the Liberals.
Nips and tucks all around Perth but doesn’t look like any major change. Changes to Cowan and Swan seem to have favoured Labor, while Stirling and Hasluck look better for the Liberals.
From a political POV doesn;t look like either party will be too unhappy, although the O’Connor/Kalgoorlie business will surely generate some protest.
“I don’t imagine Wilson Tuckey will be too happy this morning.”
That in itself is a good result.
Does the redrawing of O’Connor and Kalgoorlie really change the likelihood of who would hold the seat though? I don’t see how it would… both seats were relatively safe so I can’t imagine that redrawing them in this way would change that.
I’m obviously missing something…
LTEP, don’t quote me on anything yet, but Kalgoorlie is Liberal because of the city of Kalgoorlie, Esperance, and the farming areas to the south: the northern part which has gone to O’Connor has lots of mining towns and Aboriginal areas.
I think most of the ALP vote in Kalgoorlie and O’Connor is in the north- with most of the mining towns and especially Aboriginal communities there. The real conservative strength is in the south. So by linking all of northern WA in one seat makes it at least more winnable for Labor. Whether there’s enough of the old O’Connor in the new seat to keep it in Liberal hands, I don’t know. What’s certain is that the 20%-odd margin will be cut back quite a bit. The flip side of this is that Kalgoorlie, normally a Labor seat, would be much safer for the Liberals.
Stole my thunder William……at least we agreed!
Bad for the Nats however who would have fancied their prospects when Tuckey went. The Geraldton region remains in O’Connor and is pretty conservative.
The change to Swan is a little odd and will probably be objected to- they propose moving it west across the Canning River, which would seem to be a pretty strong boundary. The original Liberal suggestion proposed moving it eastward into areas that were previously in Swan; at face value that looks more sensible than jumping the river. Whether you can draw a sensible boundary between Hasluck and Tangney in that scenario I don’t know.
With such a strong Labor area added to such a marginal seat, that alone guarantees there’ll be plenty of tit-for-tat objections between the major parties.
No doubt Swan will be objected to. The trouble it’s very hard to come up with anything satisfactory in that part of the city. I had a few attempts and struggled.
I think on the whole, the boundaries in the metro area seem pretty well drawn.
Major change to O’Connor and Kalgoorlie was eventually inevitable, to me it was just a question of whether they were going to bite the bullet this time or leave it for next time.
I imagine that this change will produce a lot of objection though.
At least the proposed boundaries for Kalgoorlie and O’Connor reflect geographic “communities of interest” more closely.
In the old Kalgoorlie, the North was lumped in with the Goldfields, with thousands of kilometres of desert in between. Now there’s one seat for the North, and one seat for the Goldfields – with each seat having the northern and southern part of the Wheat Belt respectively.
Also, keep in mind that the main avenues of transport and communication in WA tend to radiate out from Perth, and it starts to make sense.
The new boundaries are actually pretty close to the telephone directory boundaries (which can sometimes be a good indicator of “communities of interest”) – O’Connor for the “Great Northern” (08) 91 and (08) 99 phone book, and Kalgoorlie for the “Central Country” phone book (08) 90 and (08) 96.
William,
I though the result in O’Connor in the last election ended up being Lib v Nats on TPP rather than Lib v Lab. Is that correct or am I dreaming something random up?
The new boundaries for O’Connor and Kalgoorlie do seem to make sense, but I can’t see why Labor wanted them. Last time the Nationals fell .7% short of overtaking Labor to have a TPP with the Libs. Had they done this my guess is they would have been 2% short of beating Tuckey once you allow for leakage from Labor.
On the other hand Labor was less than 3% off winning Kalgoorlie.
So Labor had a chance of winning one seat and could at least make trouble between the coalition partners in the other.
On the new boundaries I’d imagine the Nationals will be stranded in both places, and I would think that Labors vote in O’Connor was so low that they won’t be competitive in either seat.
From a party perspective Tuckey should be very happy, although his preselection might be more difficult now that he’ll have to run in areas he hasn’t represented before.
William,
Just from a quick look I would say that both the new O’Connor and the new Kalgoorlie are fairly safe Lib under a “normal” voting pattern.
I think that the new Kalgoorlie will be objected to, though – for example, adding Manjimup into Kalgoorlie makes (to me at least) little sense. The community of interest between the tall trees and the eastern desert is difficult to spot.
The metro changes are fairly sensible – I would think that the changes to Swan may stick as the suburbs do actually have a similar outlook.
I would have thought that the addition of Southern River and Huntingdale into Hasluck would make it better for Sharryn – but I will have to go back to my numbers to confirm.
The rest I can’t see making much of a change. I would think that the Kalgoorlie change will be at least partially undone, though.
My first draft of new margins are up at http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/
I have to proof read the calculations now.
Anthony,
The figures for Swan look wrong – it is LIB 0.1% at the moment.
Swing Lowe, that almost happened – there was a bit of excitement after the election that maybe the Nationals would overtake Labor and then at least give Wilson a run for his money. Didn’t quite play out that way though.
I had a double counting error on the declaration vote. Now fixed.
Contrary to some, I expect Tuckey will be delighted by these boundaries. He can retire, safe in the knowledge that the Nationals won’t get his seat when he goes. Probably most of what has kept him there.
Probably whatever was done in this huge part of Aus was going to be difficult.There are now 2 very big seats that contain huge variations. The new Kalgoorlie stretches from Bridgetown to the Ngaanyatyarra lands on the state border, and the new O’Connor from near Perth(Victoria Plains) to Wyndam.
Fascinating. Watching it all unfold will be very interesting.
Until the 1920s the WA outback was divided between two seats Kalgoorlie/Coolgardie and then Kalgoorlie/Dampier. Interesting to see this return.
Mr Green… I believe there is a typo for Tangney in your guide… otherwise good work as usual.
Hi Antony,
I am aware that a savvy young good looking female Lawyer (And former Student Union President) is considering running for Mount Ommaney for the Qld State Election for the LNP. This is my electorate. There is also chatter that Julie Attwood, the ALP Sitting member might pull the pin. Do you think the LNP could snatch the seat? The Liberals gained an 8% in the Jamboree Ward that is in Mount Ommaney at the Council election. Did the redistribution affect Mount Ommaney? I would like to know your thoughts?
I concur with Buster. The Kalgoorlie/O’Connor configuration looks great for the Libs.
Previously Labor and the Nationals were a threat in Kalgoorlie and O’Connor respectively. Not anymore.
#22
Agree about Kalgoorlie, not as sure about O’Connor. Labor would never have put any effort into so safe a seat, and recently have probably played extra-dead to help the Nationals. So, assuming a more active Labor campaign, there’s some room for a boost in the parts of the old O’Connor now in the new seat.
I don’t see why Labor would rather a Nat than Tuckey in. Tuckey has been nothing but damage for the Libs.
Sometimes Labor seem to forget that nats and libs actually vote alongside one another.
The Lib/Nat thing is easy. Every Nat spends most of their time out in the bush annoying hell out of any neighbouring Libs. They don’t have any shadow responsibilities and have no trouble getting pairs. Thus they tie up considerable Lib resources that would otherwise be directed to taking seats off Labor. Thus in WA McGinty has always looked after the Nats like a protected endangered species.
The interesting thing about the O’Connor/Kalgoorlie realignment is if Tuckey retires, which seat will Barry Haase decide to stand for? In both Labor and Liberal, you have to have a firm base in the city of Kalgoorlie, to get the seat. Haase has this, but also is well known through the north. Thus I wouldn’t be surprised if the new member for O’Connor turned out to be the current member for Kalgoorlie, which will make choosing a new candidate for Kalgoorlie very interesting. Hardly anybody would be well known both in Kalgoorlie, and through the southern strip.
Watching this lot work through the system will be as good as the olympics.
“which will make choosing a new candidate for Kalgoorlie very interesting”
Matt Birney???
I looked up:
http://genealogy.familyeducation.com/surname-origin/haas?detoured=1
which gave last name origin & meaning:
Dutch, German, and Jewish (Ashkenazic): from Middle Dutch, Middle High German hase, German Hase ‘hare’, hence a nickname for a swift runner or a timorous or confused person, but in some cases perhaps a habitational name from a house distinguished by the sign of a hare. As a Jewish name it can also be an ornamental name or one of names selected at random from vocabulary words by government officials when surnames became compulsory.
I rate this particular Haase is not a swift runner, not timorous and definitely not random. I suspect he is a Tuckey with a thin veneer of civilization but would welcome further info.
My understanding of WA politics is that the post-1998 Labor decline was most marked in Perth. If Labor’s vote were to bounce back it would probably be most significant in Perth, O’Connor would probably remain well out of reach.
The proposed O’Connor has very similar boundaries to the seat of Dampier that existed between 1913 and 1922. It was held by Harry Gregory as a Liberal/Nationalist/Country MHR through this period (first narrowly, then safely from 1917). In 1922 Kalgoorlie extended north and southern Dampier was renamed Swan (the pre-1922 Swan became Forrest).
William, the shire of Boddington has been added to Canning, not taken from it.
If these proposals remain unchanged, Australia no longer has the world’s largest electorate.
The old Kalgoorlie was 2,295,354 sq km.
The proposed O’Connor is 1,587,759 sq km. I can find at least two larger single member electorates:
Nunavut (Canada) 2,093,190
Alaska 1,717,854
Buster… fat chance on Tuckey retiring. He’s stated he’ll have to be carried out in a box.
Brad @ 10 suggests that the new Kal/O’Connor reflects community of interest better – I’d suggest it does the exact opposite. The old O’Connor pretty much was exclusively the wheatbelt plus the regional centers at either end in Albany and Geraldton, while Kalgoorlie and the Pilbara had a lot of community of interest as the mining sector and centres of the pastoral district. Notably that division is closer to the way the state is divided up into regions for the state upper house.
The new divisions make two electorates which are half agricultural and half mining and pastoral – nowhere near the similarities within the electorates that previously existed. And as someone mentioned, there’s little in common between the western desert and the Shire of Manjimup.
Either way the area will continue to be represented by two Libs, no matter what.
MDMConnell @ 8,
It looks like a pretty clean change to me. The Canning River isn’t particularly wide here and the new state seat of Cannington also crosses it at the same point. The Canning River is also crossed by Hasluck.
Yes, this looks to be the problem. Swan only had those areas before Hasluck was created. Any eastward expansion of Swan would likely have gutted Hasluck, dislocating its north end from its south end and probably necessitating a radical redrawing of Hasluck. In addition, the airport between Hasluck and Swan makes for a pretty strong boundary.
Thanks David, I’ve corrected that.
I agree with Mr Q. There’s going to be an avalanche of objections to this, followed I suspect by some very substantial revision.
I am not so sure that there can be any substantial objection to the O’Connor – Kalgoorlie division.
If you look at the current boundaries, O’Connor is squeezed along Great Eastern HIghway. As Kalgoorlie has to expand and it can only expand into O’Connor, it must take area either from the north or the south (it can’t take it from the middle).
Any action then will result in O’Connor shifting – either into Pearce or into Forrest.
What we would end up with is something looking like an American congressional district which is stretched and distorted and looks designed to join voting areas. If you look at the submission made by the Liberal Party, it screams odd!
The committee has decided to stop the bit by bit approach and make a determination that works on the figures.
If we did not have any previous distributions to go by – on the figures we have, these electorates are good divisions in terms of WA. It is always hard to make electorates outside of Perth and the South-West that contain really good communities of interest.
Just a minor point. But the proposed Swan DOESN’T cross the Canning River, rather it is it’s southern and western boundary.
In addition to the point made by David Walsh, where Hasluck crosses the Canning River is in the City of Gosnells. The river flows through this council and is not a major barrier at all, rather it is a feature of the community of interest around the river at this point.
The move of the seat of Swan is down through the City of Canning, which is already partly in the electorate and also travels down Albany Highway which is the major road.
Although going up the Swan towards the Helena River would have merit, it crosses the airport and this is a major barrier.
I don’t see any success in an objection here.
Oops – shouldnt be doing this at this time of night. I do see the crossing now over the Canning River – apologies!
I agree with you about Stirling, William. It’s swings and roundabouts. Stephen Smith won’t be too devastated about losing Coolbinia to Keenan, and Keenan won’t mind coughing up Scarborough to Julie Bishop. Can’t see any reason for Peter Tinley (who shaved a bit off Keenan’s margin last November) to be celebrating yet -though he did say he was keen to have another go in 2010. It’s bound to be another nailbiting night here in Stirling come next election.
David Walsh @ 31
I remember seeing on Lateline a couple of months ago, the Italians had their parliamentary elections, and they have MPs representing the Italian diaspora. The ABC reported that there is one electorate which covered Italian emigrants in Australia, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Now THAT would be the biggest electorate in the world!
After looking at the numbers, I concur with Michael Proud. It’s very difficult to maintain Kalgoorlie and O’Connor in their present form without seriously eroding the integrity of one or the other.
Here’s two approaches.
1. The minimalist approach: Kalgoorlie in its present form gets up to quota by picking up a number of small agricultural electorates.
Problem: It completely destroys the shape of O’Connor. The Liberal Party tried this approach and ended up redrawing O’Connor as a ghastly looking shovel shape. The electorate covers a wide area around Albany, but then goes north along a narrow corridor of shires with the shovel handle getting particularly thin once it reached Geraldton.
2. The Geraldton approach: Kalgoorlie in its present form picks up Geraldton and then sheds southern shires to get it back down to quota.
Problem: Excising agricultural shires (e.g. Merredin) from Kalgoorlie makes a lot of sense. But you actually end up having to go further than that in order to compensate for the big surplus of voters Geraldton brings in. This was the approach Labor took in their submission and they ended up excising the southern goldfields from the electorate. Cutting them off from their natural community of interest: the city of Kalgoorlie. This gave O’Connor an eastern tail that extended all the way to the SA border.
If you add back in the Shire of Dundas to the ALP’s proposal that puts Kalgoorlie right near the upper limit of its permitted projected tolerance.
Brad – ah yes, the peculiar Italian international divisions.
I knew there was a reason I used the “single member” qualifier.
Granted that David Walsh, Michael Proud and the commissioners have given it more thought than I have.
“What we would end up with is something looking like an American congressional district which is stretched and distorted and looks designed to join voting areas.”
Oh, you mean a ‘gerrymander’.
Kakuru, I hated to use that term as one reason for strange American congressional districts is the Voting Rights Act which means that there need to be congressional districts that allow for minority majorities and not for minority groups to be split among districts.
As David Walsh has pointed out the various shapes proposed, the Commissioners have done a better job.
I suspect that the geographically largest single-member electorate in the world would be for the Russian Presidency.
Sacha.
Hard to argue with that one …Although do diaspora Italians get to vote for the Italian president? That might be bigger.
The President of Italy is not elected by the populace, but by a joint session of Parliament with the participation of representatives chosen by the regional councils.
the Kalgoorlie/O’connor boundary makes no sense
there is absolutely nothing in common between kalgoorlie and Albany
nor is there anything in common between the remaining wheat belt area of
O’connor and the Kimberly and mining areas
just as a point of interest it would be very interesting to apply the last state election
figures to the proposed boundaries
How much do Albury and Deniliquin have in common with Broken Hill and Tibooburra? How much does Mount Isa have in common with Innisfail, or Charters Towers with Burketown? What about Wallaroo, Whyalla, Port Lincoln, Ceduna, and Coober Pedy? There are strict numerical criteria which apply to redistributions, and if they mean lumping together areas with little or nothing in common, that’s what happens. If the Electoral Commission decides there’s a better way of meeting the numerical criteria they’ll use it, but the Redistribution Committee won’t have recommended what they have without looking at the options–in fact, if you read their report you’ll find that they did look at the options. Maybe what they’ve done is open to criticism (and the process allows for objections), but the question is whether it’s possible–_within the numerical requirements_–to do better.
(Take a look at the boundaries of Swan between 1922 and 1937 to see what sort of results can be compelled by numerical criteria.)
re post 51
yes the Farrer boundaries are crazy as well, maybe not so much with Grey and Kennedy
but long established boundaries esp in the country i think need a justification for
changing dramatically.
I would have tried to have Kalgoorlie, the Kimberly and the mining areas at least in
the Federal seat of that name
and made O’connor a wheat belt seat
It is possible that Geraldton could have been in either seat, also the same with
Esperence
could Forrest be based on Albany and Bunbury?
Albany was removed from Forrest at the last redistribution. Given that the south west is a growth area, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to add it back in.
Despite this, Labor’s submission proposed to do exactly that. The result was unsurprising: a narrow coastal strip with the two regional centres at its extremities. The resulting division lacked a coherent community of interest, with both towns separated from neighbouring shires.
@52
I think you’re missing the point here.
The redistribution has to follow the law.
You may feel that ‘long established boundaries, especially in the country, need a justification for changing dramatically’, but the law doesn’t say that. The laws doesn’t say _anything_ about long established boundaries. On the other hand, the law lays down numerical constraints that _must_ be observed. So the question is whether it’s possible to draw the kind of boundaries you’re talking about and still observe the numerical constraints.
For all I know, it is possible, but we can’t prove it by you because you haven’t even looked at the numerical constraints.
If anyone hasn’t done it yet, you should read the report and it is clear that the Commission has done a great job in considering some of the issues we are discussing.
They are concerned about
- continuing to grow the rural divisions in area and how that process makes it harder to represent the electorate
- communities of interest and how it is impossible to do so in sparsely populated areas
- exisiting boundaries (as required by the Act).
Remember also that issues like community of interest are second order matters. Firstly, there must be divisions of equal size within +/- 10%.
Secondly, AS FAR AS PRACTICABLE, the divisions must be within 3.5% in 3.5 years
and
Thirdly, in drawing the boundaries a number of factors are taken into account.
#50
Well, where’s the community of interest between Esperance and Port Headland?
Kalgoorlie was always a “leftovers” seat once you drew the Perth, South West and Wheatbelt seats. And it covered over 2 million sq kms or something, hardly fair for either the voters or the MP. At least with the new arrangement they’ve made some effort to (a) reduce the size of seats, and (b) have some community of interest within both seats: north, mainly mining versus south, mainly agricultural.
## 56
yes maybe Esperence should be included in O’connor?
what about the Avon Valley towns such as Northam could they be taken out of
Pearce(outer urban)….. and place in O’connor
it is quite possible to make O’connor a seat like Lyons (Tas) and draw a Kalgoorlie
as I suggested in #52
@57
You can draw any sort of boundaries you like if you ignore the numerical criteria. The law does not permit the redistribution to ignore the numerical criteria.
I heard on NewsRadio this morning that Troy Buswell is going to resign as Liberal leader: http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=88869
Yes, the word is that Buswell will announce his resignation at a press conference at noon – but can we please discuss this on the Westpoll thread.
I agree with Antony Green’s blog except for Stirling where the new Liberal margin is 0.9% ( down from 1.3%. He also thought parts of Scarborough had been added to Stirling when these had been removed ).
Actually, I did the calculation on Scarborough correctly but wrote the description of the boundary change incorrectly. I’ve swapped the ‘from’ to a ‘to’ in my write-up to correct it. Our estimates are only 0.2% different, which may be no more than the difference in split booths and the method used to split the declaration vote and nursing homes.
I’m surprised about the unnecessary changes to the country electorates.
I would have thought it would make more sense to unite the entire eastern wheatbelt in a single seat, along with Albany and Esperance, and add Geraldton to Kalgoorlie, since the latter already extends to the northern edge of Geraldton. Pearce could then have taken the shires between Perth and Geraldton (it already includes part of that area) and given Northam to O’Connor. I understand that the character of the northern coastal shires is different from those further inland so that would seem a more appropriate place to divide the seats than the proposed boundaries, as well as providing more scope for future expansion of Kalgoorlie.
This seems to work within the numerical constraints and maintains the broad character of the two seats – one agricultural and one combining all the mining areas along with a gradually increasing share of the north coast.
Otherwise I don’t think there’s much to quibble about.
@63
finally someone broadly agrees with me
see my posts in @52 & @57
the electoral commissioners of course must act within the law I never said
otherwise!
but
they operated on a plan……. this is not the only plan possible I have simply suggested an alternate plan which does not generate insane boundaries WITH
NO community of interest
@64
The difference between comment 63 and what you have been saying is that Chris Sant explicitly acknowledges the numerical constraints. If somebody says that what they are suggesting works within the numerical constraints, I am prepared to take their word for it. You still haven’t even admitted that they exist.
Some reaction:
Wilson Tuckey’s in favour. The article says he’ll be standing in Kalgoorlie. (Does that mean a preselection showdown with Haase?)
State MP Robyn McSweeney declares herself horrified that the over quota Forrest is to lose the two shires furthest removed from Bunbury.
@66
The Redistribution Committee’s proposal puts far more of the voters from the existing O’Connor in the proposed Kalgoorlie than in the proposed O’Connor. So it’s unsurprising that Tuckey should prefer to contest the proposed Kalgoorlie. But on the other hand, the proposal puts far more of the voters from the existing Kalgoorlie in the proposed O’Connor than in the proposed Kalgoorlie. So the same logic would point to Haase contesting the proposed O’Connor, avoiding any preselection clash. Of course, Haase may have other reasons for preferring the proposed Kalgoorlie, and in any case the Electoral Commission may not end up adopting the Redistribution Committee’s proposal.
In fact, if the approved guidelines on naming electoral divisions were applied to the Redistribution Committee’s proposed boundaries, the names of Kalgoorlie and O’Connor would have to be interchanged. But it is the established practice (and the acknowledged right) of the Electoral Commission to ignore those guidelines except when they provide a convenient excuse for rejecting other people’s suggestions.
William who is going to be the next leader of the WA Libs? Wilson Tuckey? Charles Court? Hal Colebatch? Someone picked at random in St Georges Terrace?
All jokes aside Adam, the party this morning unanimously elected Colin Barnett. The question facing the party now is what to do with Cottesloe candidate Deidre Willmott. That pickle aside, it does generally seem that things are falling into place for them.
Oh, BTW – the WA politics thread is here.
J-D @ 67,
My information is that Haase is based in city of Kalgoorlie. Hence the question.
Which brings me to your other point. I don’t think it can be sensibly argued that the electorate named Kalgoorlie ought not to be the one containing the town of the same name. Though perhaps another name should have been chosen for the northern electorate.
Whether it’s sensible or not, between 1977 and 1984 the electorate named Brisbane was not the one containing the city of Brisbane. And the electorate named Werriwa has not been the one containing Werriwa since 1906.
Anyway, where is it written that there has to be an electorate called Kalgoorlie? It would be more in accordance with the guidelines, if they were to have influence, to give the name of O’Connor to the proposed southern division and to give a new name to the proposed northern division.
Thank you for the information about Haase. I didn’t know that. Yes, that might well produce a conflict between him and Tuckey (that is, if the final report adopts the proposal of the Redistribution Committee, or something close to it).
Oh, and another thought: the two points are connected. If the proposed boundaries are adopted, and if Tuckey and Haase oppose each other for preselection, the way the proposed names are assigned will make it look as if Tuckey is leaving his seat to challenge Haase in his, and that won’t be true: the truth will be that the redistribution moved Haase’s home town into Tuckey’s seat.
Why should Kalgoorlie be retained as an electorate name?
Well, the guidelines state that “[e]very effort should be made to retain the names of original Federation Divisions.”
Kalgoorlie was one of WA’s original five federal electorates.
Yes, but the guidelines also say ‘When two or more Divisions are partially combined, as far as possible the name of the new Division should be that of the old Division which had the greatest number of electors within the new boundaries’ and they also say ‘Locality or place names should generally be avoided’. And what does ‘every effort’ mean? How much effort was made to retain the name of Gwydir, also an ‘original Federation Division’, at the last redistribution of New South Wales? What would be the result if the same amount of effort were made to retain the name of Kalgoorlie? As I said before, ‘it is the established practice (and the acknowledged right) of the Electoral Commission to ignore those guidelines except when they provide a convenient excuse for rejecting other people’s suggestions’, so it would probably be futile for anybody to make any suggestions on the subject; but, as I said before, _if_ the guidelines–_all_ of them–were applied, the result would be to give the proposed southern division the name of O’Connor and to give the proposed northern division either the name of Kalgoorlie or some new name.
One of the original suggestions proposed naming one of the two outback divisions “Beazley” after Kimbo Sr. Another option might be “Court”. Either of those would avoid the problem with Kalgoorlie as a geographic name.
If they were going to name a new electorate in WA, my money would be on “Barwick” – after the former Chief Justice of the High Court who was originally Chief Justice of the WA Court of Appeals…
or Harris after Rolf
Dropping the name Gwydir was a poor decision on the commission’s part. But just because a (bad) precedent exists doesn’t mean it ought to be followed.
The guideline about geographical names makes exceptions, with Kalgoorlie cited as a specific example.
The guideline about name continuity is stuffed into “other criteria”, suggesting it’s of lower order importance to the rest.
Swing Lowe – Barwick was from New South Wales. It has been mentioned repeatedly that French is the first CJ from WA.
Turns out Haase will be contesting the northern electorate, which he wants renamed “Court”. Haase and Tuckey also want the southern electorate to be called O’Connor.
See here and here.
@79
I am not putting an argument about what I think the names should be. If it were up to me, I would prefer to use the US system and number the divisions instead of naming them. But obviously that isn’t going to happen. The UK system would also be better than ours: there, all the names are strictly geographical and the names are changed frequently when the geography change. But we are stuck with what we’ve got. And what we’ve got is, as I said, a system where the Electoral Commission does what it damn well pleases–and the guidelines, as I have already acknowledged, specifically endorse this. You go back and look at past redistribution reports and you will see that what I have said is true: if they don’t want to follow the guidelines, they disregard them, but when somebody makes a suggestion that goes against the guidelines (and they don’t want to follow it), they invoke them. I’m not saying the guidelines _should_ be followed–for one thing, they’re so badly worded that you couldn’t follow them even if you wanted to. Look at the geographic name guideline, for example: what does that tell you to do? Don’t use geographic names except when you do! How helpful is that? It mentions Perth and Kalgoorlie as ‘examples’ for the exception, but how are they examples? What do they exemplify? How can you tell whether any other geographical names fall into that same category or not?
It will be interesting to see whether Tuckey and Haase have any more success in getting their views about names accepted than a random member of the public would. I still think, for what it’s worth, that their approach is, as I said before, more in line with the spirit of the guidelines as a whole. And it’s also in line with what I think is a sound principle that the choice of names for divisions should not have an arbitrary political impact (as it would if the proposed names were adopted and made it look as if Tuckey and Haase were changing seats when they’re not).
I would prefer a different name to Court, though. I notice that there are not currently any seats named after famous Western Australian Aboriginals. (Kalgoorlie _is_ an Aboriginal word, of course, but it’s the name of a place, not a person.) If you wanted to go that way, though, I would want to act with the advice of local Aboriginal people.
J-D,
What exactly is your point? You object to the committee forming independent judgements and bemoan that guidelines get ignored. Yet at the same time you insist you’re not saying the guidelines should be strictly followed. So what are you saying?
The guidelines are many and varied. Some guidelines can come into contradiction with other guidelines. The committee is quite entitled to exercise commonsense.
The guideline about geographical names is poorly worded but I don’t think its meaning is that hard to discern. It is surely about continuity. Whilst the concept of naming new divisions after locations has gone out of fashion, it is still preferable to retain the names for long standing electorates. Adelaide, Brisbane, Newcastle, etc.
And numbering electorates is an awful system. I can easily place the location and political hue of Bennelong, which I’m not going to confuse with Blaxland. But trying to place NSW-25 as opposed to NSW-26? Ugh! Do you have an easier time remembering postcodes than suburb names?
What exactly is your point? You objectNo, I did not object. I simply noted what happens.to the committee forming independent judgements and bemoanNo, I did not bemoan. I simply noted what happens.that guidelines get ignored. Yet at the same time you insist you’re not saying the guidelines should be strictly followed. So what are you saying?Several different things, some initially and some more in response to you.The guidelines are many and varied.And mostly unclearly worded, and mostly not supported by reasons. Some guidelines can come into contradiction with other guidelines. The committee is quite entitled to exercise commonsense.
The guideline about geographical names is poorly worded but I don’t think its meaning is that hard to discern. It is surely about continuity. Whilst the concept of naming new divisions after locations has gone out of fashion, it is still preferable to retain the names for long standing electorates. Adelaide, Brisbane, Newcastle, etc.Possibly what was meant was ‘New geographical names should not be introduced, but existing ones may be retained’. But if that is what was meant, why wasn’t it said? Surely that wouldn’t have been hard.
And numbering electorates is an awful system. I can easily place the location and political hue of Bennelong, which I’m not going to confuse with Blaxland. But trying to place NSW-25 as opposed to NSW-26? Ugh! Do you have an easier time remembering postcodes than suburb names?People in the US seem to cope, just the same. Also, as I pointed out, there’s no chance of the system being adopted here.
If I were asked to write a set of rules for naming (numbering) electoral divisions, I could produce a result both more clearly worded and structured and more clearly supported by valid reasons than the existing ones. But nobody’s going to ask me to do that, are they?
Sorry about that last comment. I tried to quote what David Walsh was saying and respond to it point by point, but I’ve mucked it up.