The new seat, made necessary because the ACT’s population had grown faster than the national average, was carved out of the two existing seats, Fraser and Canberra, which at the last election were had the most (94,000) and second-most (90,000) electors in Australia.
The two existing seats were safe Labor seats, but it was thought that the new seat might be a possibility for the Liberals if the carve up was right because some of the inner south suburbs of the affluent and well-heeled are more likely to vote Liberal.
Last week the electoral redistribution committee for the ACT published its proposed names and boundaries for the new seats. Objectors have until July 27 to lodge an objection. Objections will be considered by an augmented committee.
The committee named the three ACT seats Fraser, Canberra and Namadgi. Fraser is taken wholly from the old seat of Fraser and Namadgi is taken wholly from the old seat of Canberra. The new seat comes from the rest of the old seats and is called Canberra. About three-fifths of its comes from old Fraser and two fifths from old Canberra.
The new Fraser has fewer voters to allow for expected high population growth in Gungahlin.
The seat naming is slightly confusing. Bear in mind Ros Kelly’s old seat of Canberra embracing Tuggeranong is now Namadgi and John Langmore’s old seat of Fraser embracing Belconnen is still called Fraser and the new seat is Canberra in the centre of the city grabbing a bit from each of the other electorates.
The redistribution has been very favourable to Labor. It has evened the seats out. All three are now safe Labor. It could have created two very safe seats and one less safe.
The accompanying table shows what has happened.
Old Fraser is now fractionally less safe for Labor (by 1.3 per cent). Old Canberra (now Namadgi) is fractionally more safe for Labor (by 1.9 per cent). The new seat, far from being a Liberal possibility is a safe Labor seat with a two-party-preferred vote of 61.2 per cent to 38.8.
The expected order of safety for Labor is as expected: Fraser, the Tuggeranong seat (Namadgi) and the new central seat (Canberra). What was not expected was the closeness of their two-party-preferred vote: 62.2, 61.5 and 61.2.
This should please the sitting Member for Fraser, John Langmore, and the sitting Member for Canberra, Ros Kelly.
Mr Langmore has magnanimously signalled that he would move to the central seat which was thought to be harder to win for Labor so giving a new candidate in his old seat a better chance. The redistribution committee has made his magnanimity less sacrificial.
Mr Kelly’s Tuggeranong seat is now safer. Indeed, she might have more trouble with the pre-selection committee than with the electorate.
The table shows why it turned out this way. Some of the chunks taken from old Canberra for the new central seat (O’Malley, Deakin and Forrest, for example) were Liberal areas. In all those chunks were more Liberal on average than the seat they came from. However, more than counter balancing that, the chunks that came out of old Fraser for the new seat were very Labor areas. In all those chunks were more Labor on average than the seat they came from _ for example, Lyneham, O’Connor, Downer, Hackett.
The Liberals, however, should not feel hard done by. It would have taken an artful committee, indeed, to craft any new seat that they might regard as winnable.
None the less, they would have been helped a little if Mawson, Farrer, Isaacs and Torrens had gone to the new central seat rather than chunks of Weston Creek, which would have been within electoral parameters. They might have been helped a little if Aranda and Bruce had gone to the central seat rather than Lyneham, which would have stretched the community-of-interest rules somewhat.
The projections above and in the table were calculated from Australian Electoral Office booth-by-booth figures and whole-seat preference counting from the last election.
Of course, not everybody votes at their local polling booth. Moreover, there have been substantial population changes since then, particularly with the growth of Gungahlin. Also, there could be a swing one way or the other before the next election and it may not be uniform, depending on the view the electorate takes of the candidates and things like the sports rorts affair.
Others might calculate the figures slightly differently with slightly different results, but I think the general conclusion will be the same. The new seat is a safe Labor one. The safety of the three seats for Labor is more even than many thought. And that has been caused by safe Labor chunks coming from old Fraser more than out-weighing the more Liberal chunks coming from old Canberra.
When you bear in mind that only seven of 74 ACT polling booths in the ACT put the Liberal candidate before the Labor candidate, it would hardly have mattered how the redistribution committee divided the seats, for the Liberals the new seat is unwinnable. For any sitting MLA to take up the challenge, including Kate Carnell, would be political suicide.