Molonglo, Brindabella and Ginninderra were confirmed in the Gazette yesterday as the names for the three electorates for the ACT Legislative Assembly.
It rejected the name Namadgi for the southern seat, saying it could not authenticate it as an Aboriginal name.
The boundaries were also confirmed. The confirmation came from the augmented ACT Electoral Commission which hears final objections after the earlier publication of the Redistribution Committee’s findings.
Those findings stand. Ginninderra (five seats) will comprise Belconnen and Hall. Brindabella (five seats) will comprise Tuggeranong and the Woden suburbs of Torrens, Pearce and Chifley and the southern remainder of the ACT. Molonglo (seven seats) will comprise North and South Canberra, Gungahlin, Weston Creek and Woden (exclusing Torrens, Chiefley and Pearce).
The Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, said the confirmation of the names and boundaries “”completes the initial task set for the Electoral Commission as the Government moves to implement a new electoral system for the ACT, in accordance with the wishes oi the community
in the 1992 referendum”.
“”The Government remains committed to the full implementation of this referendum decision,” she said.
The referendum approved the Hare-Clark multi-member system with Robson rotation. (Under this candidates names appear in a different order on different voters’ ballot papers with no above-the-line party vote.)
Ms Follett said drafting of the legislation was complex, but legislation should be introduced at the end of the year.
The commission rejected submissions on the Woden suburbs that go to Bridabella. It recognised there was a community of interest for them to remain with the rest of Woden in the Molonglo seat, but said the legislation required one-vote, one-value to override that. To achieve a 5, 5, 7 split with equal voting values some part of Woden or Weston had to go to Brindabella.
It seems likely, however, that with the faster growth of Tuggeranong and Gungahlin the boundaries will change at the next redistribution. Also, the ACT will get a third Federal seat before the next election. The three Federal seats will, of necessity, have different boundaries to the territory seats because they will be equal seats, not split in a ratio of 5-5-7.
The commission rejected a suggestion by Andrew Tatnell to call the southern seat Namadgi. Mr Tatnell argued that Brindabella was mostly in NSW; it was not the range seen from Commonwealth Avenue Bridge as most people thought; and anyway was not peculiar to the southern part of the ACT.
The commission said Brindabella peaks were well-known landmarks to the west of Canberra. Further, it “”was not unable to authenticate an Aboriginal derivation for the name Namadgi or ascertain its meaning”. It was “”not satisfied that the name was sufficiently authenticated as an Aboriginal name to fit the theme for the electorate names that it has adopted”.
It said the first record of the name “”was contained in the surveyor John Lhotsky’s record of his explorations in or about 1834”. Lhotsky had recorded: “”The people pointed out to me namadgi range being 18 miles south-west . . . ”. The commission said it was not clear whether “”the people” were Aboriginal or European settlers.
The Namadgi Park Vistors Centre map and guide uses the same quote from Lhotsky and says Namadgi is “”an ABoriginal name for the mountains south-west of Canberra”. A ranger said she would seek more information and get back “”but there is no-one here now who knows”.
The Aboriginal meanings of the names are: Brindabella, two kangaroo rats; Ginninderra “”sparkling like the stars”; and Molonglo “”like the sound of thunder”.
The commission said the boundaries would provide at election time in February 1995 enrolment tolerances well below the 5 per cent either way allowed by the legislation of Brindabella minus 1.31 per cent (58020); Ginninderra minus 0.52 (58487) and Molonglo (83382) plus 1.31.