Appendices

Appendix A: Demographic classification of existing electoral divisions in New South Wales

Demographic classification of electoral divisions is based on the following criteria:

• Inner metropolitan – situated in capital cities and consisting of well-established built-up suburbs.
• Outer metropolitan – situated in capital cities and containing large areas of recent suburban expansion.
• Provincial – outside capital cities, but with a majority of enrolment in major provincial cities.
• Rural – outside capital cities and without majority of enrolment in major provincial cities.

Appendix B: Summary of compliance with legislative requirements

Appendix C: Operation of statutory requirements for the making of a proposed redistribution

Section 66 of the Electoral Act requires the Redistribution Committee for New South Wales to abide by the following requirements:

• make a proposed redistribution of New South Wales,
• distribute New South Wales into electoral divisions equal in number to the number of members of the House of Representatives to be chosen in New South Wales at a general election, and
• abide by the following requirements:
  3. In making the proposed redistribution, the Redistribution Committee:
     1. shall, as far as practicable, endeavour to ensure that, if the State or Territory were redistributed in accordance with the proposed redistribution, the number of electors enrolled in each Electoral Division in the State or Territory would not, at the projection time determined under section 63A, be less than 96.5% or more than 103.5% of the average divisional enrolment of that State or Territory at that time; and (b) subject to paragraph (a), shall give due consideration, in relation to each proposed Electoral Division, to:
        1. community of interests within the proposed Electoral Division, including economic, social and regional interests;
        2. means of communication and travel within the proposed Electoral Division;
        3. the physical features and area of the proposed Electoral Division; and
        4. the boundaries of existing Divisions in the State or Territory;
           and subject thereto the quota of electors for the State or Territory shall be the basis for the proposed redistribution, and the Redistribution Committee may adopt a margin of allowance, to be used whenever necessary, but in no case shall the quota be departed from to a greater extent than one-tenth more or one-tenth less.
  3. (A) When applying subsection (3), the Redistribution Committee must treat the matter in subparagraph (3)(b)(v) as subordinate to the matters in subparagraphs (3)(b)(i), (ii) and (iv).

These statutory requirements are expressed in a hierarchical order.

The purpose of paragraph 3(a) is suggested by its history. It has undergone some transformation since the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Act 1983 stipulated that boundaries were to be drawn, as far as practicable, to achieve equal numbers of electors in each of a state’s electoral divisions three-and-a-half years after a redistribution. By 1984 ‘it was observed that the three-and-a-half year rule had in some areas forced the adoption, on purely numerical grounds, of boundaries which took little account of perceived community of interest’.²⁷ Therefore, in 1987, the rule was relaxed to permit a measure of tolerance to plus or minus two percent from average projected enrolment. Subsequently, the Parliament of Australia Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters concluded that:

the numerical criteria do not allow “due consideration”, in the words of the Act, to be given to the qualitative factors. Rather, the political parties and others attempting to frame electoral boundaries essentially find themselves engaged in a mathematical modelling exercise. In order to relax the enrolment requirements to that extent necessary to allow a realistic degree of flexibility the Committee recommends… that subsections 66(3)(a) and 73(4)(a) of the Electoral Act be amended, so as to extend the variation from average divisional enrolment allowed three-and-a-half years after a redistribution from two to 3.5 percent.²⁸

The Joint Standing Committee also, in the same report, refers to its recommended amendment as one that ‘would maintain substantial restrictions on malapportionment [and] would allow other legitimate policy objectives to be more effectively met’.

Paragraph 3(a) follows this recommendation. The terms of the recommendation, and the discussion which preceded it, make clear the purpose of paragraph 3(a), as it now stands, and how it was intended to interact with the other criteria set out in the sub-paragraphs of paragraph (b), to which also ‘due consideration’ must be given. The Committee has considered the suggestions and comments and made its proposed redistribution on this basis.

In summary, the primary criteria are to:

• endeavour to ensure that the number of electors in the proposed electoral divisions are within a range of 3.5 per cent below or above the average divisional enrolment at the projection time; and
• ensure that current enrolments are within 10 per cent below or above the current enrolment quota.

The secondary criteria are community of interests, means of communication and travel, and physical features and area. The Committee also considers the boundaries of existing electoral divisions; however this criterion is subordinate to the others.

Appendix D: Suggestions for the New South Wales redistribution

23 written suggestions were received.

Appendix E: Comments on suggestions for the New South Wales redistribution

157 written comments on suggestions were received. Of these comments, 132 advocated that the Blue Mountains should not be divided into three separate electoral divisions. Comments not solely related to the Blue Mountains are shaded below.

Appendix F: Committee response to themes contained in suggestions and comments on suggestions

Appendix G: Constructing proposed electoral boundaries

As the AEC maintains the electoral roll using Statistical Area 1s (SA1s) it is able to provide data on enrolments and projected enrolments at this level.²⁹ Accordingly, in formulating its proposals, the Committee used SA1s as its basic building blocks. The SA1s have defined boundaries and are of differing sizes and shapes. In cases where the Committee considered that a particular SA1 boundary was inappropriate for use as an electoral division boundary, the SA1 was split to meet the numerical requirements or the Electoral Act and/or to provide a more meaningful boundary.

The indicative area of electoral divisions in New South Wales has been calculated by aggregating the area of:

• all land-based SA1s,
• any parts of land-based SA1s, and
• any lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks, wetlands or marshes not already included in land-based SA1s, that are contained within the divisional boundary of each electoral division.

Areas are calculated on the Geocentric Datum of Australia (GDA94) spheroid using the AEC’s Electoral Boundary Mapping System (EBMS), developed within the ‘MapInfo Professional’ software package. Please note, information previously provided on the AEC website regarding the area of New South Wales was calculated using the Albers projection.

The Committee used EBMS as an aid to modelling various boundary options. This system was also made available for public use at the office of the Australian Electoral Officer for New South Wales in Sydney.

Appendix H: Guidelines for naming federal electoral divisions

Determining the names of federal electoral divisions is part of the process of conducting a federal redistribution within a state or territory.

The criteria used by redistribution committees to propose the names of electoral divisions, and used by augmented electoral commissions to determine the names of electoral divisions, have previously been the subject of recommendations from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. From these recommendations, a set of guidelines were developed as a point of reference only.

It should be noted that redistribution committees and augmented electoral commissions are in no way bound by the guidelines.

Naming after persons

In the main, electoral divisions should be named after deceased Australians who have rendered outstanding service to their country.

When new electoral divisions are created the names of former Prime Ministers should be considered.

Federation Divisional names

Every effort should be made to retain the names of original federation electoral divisions.

Geographical names

Locality or place names should generally be avoided, but in certain areas the use of geographical features may be appropriate (e.g. Perth).

Aboriginal names

Aboriginal names should be used where appropriate and as far as possible existing Aboriginal divisional names should be retained.

Other criteria

The names of Commonwealth electoral divisions should not duplicate existing state districts.

Qualifying names may be used where appropriate (e.g. Melbourne Ports, Port Adelaide).

Names of electoral divisions should not be changed or transferred to new areas without very strong reasons.

When two or more electoral divisions are partially combined, as far as possible the name of the new division should be that of the old electoral division which had the greatest number of electors within the new boundaries. However, where the socio-demographic nature of the electoral division in question has changed significantly, this should override the numerical formula.

Appendix I: Timetable for the remainder of the redistribution of New South Wales

Appendix J: General description of how proposed electoral divisions are constituted

The following tables show how each proposed electoral division has been constituted from existing electoral divisions, arranged under SA2s.³⁰ Each SA2 is comprised of a number of SA1s. The SA1s and SA2s used are those that applied at the 2011 Census of Population and Housing.

The proposed electoral divisions may be constituted by entire SA2s or parts thereof.

The proposed transfer of electors from the existing electoral divisions of Charlton, Hunter and Throsby are included at the end of this section.

Proposed electoral divisions are displayed in alphabetical order.