Tasmania Redistribution: The Reaction

Yesterday the AEC released public feedback on the proposed radical redistribution as previously covered here (Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide).  Frankly I thought there might be more complaints than there were, but some of those that there are are pretty punchy.  Of the 90 distinct submissions received, exactly half by my count discussed the proposed boundaries at all, and of these I counted 14 as purely supporting the proposal (one or two noting some initial reluctance in doing so) and 31 objecting, nearly all of these proposing something substantially different if they proposed anything at all.

Predictably the most common objections concerned the condition of Lyons and especially the placement of Glenorchy in it.  Objectors raised Glenorchy's disconnection from the bulk of Lyons through the inclusion of Brighton in Franklin, argued that neo-Lyons was thematically incoherent, complained about the severing of Glenorchy from Greater Hobart and also objected to rural Tasmania being fragmented into majority urban seats.  Submission 34 by Mark James is a good representative of the objections:

"Under the proposed model, rural/regional voters will be outnumbered by city voters in all five electorates. There is no community of interest at all between Glenorchy, Sheffield, and St. Helens. - For a state with a famously decentralised population, in which the majority of the population live outside the capital city, voters in the capital city will form the bulk of three out of five electorates."

Similarly, some submissions objected to the placement of Brighton or at least the whole thereof in Franklin on the grounds of it having stronger links to the southern midlands (in my view this is true of the Brighton part but not so much of the Bridgewater/Gagebrook part).  

A different objection in a small number of submissions was the position of Break O'Day in neo-Lyons as the only east coast touching council.  Some submissions preferred Break O'Day to go into Bass with the whole of Meander Valley LGA including Prospect Vale and Blackstone Heights remaining in Lyons.  This new Lyons would be virtually landlocked, touching the Derwent foreshore in Glenorchy but not reaching the actual sea as such anywhere. I certainly wouldn't be going there for any seashell collecting trips.  

Submission 83 by Aussies Elect raises a point also raised here in comments - some issues are caused by the weird boundaries of Southern Midlands if that council becomes the Lyons boundary.  In the area of Runnymede, Southern Midlands crosses the Tasman Highway, meaning that as one goes from Orford to Sorell and vice versa, the highway will briefly pass from Franklin to Lyons and then back to Franklin again.  Furthermore, the Southern Midlands boundary cuts Richmond (currently in Lyons) off Colebrook and Campania in the Coal River Valley.  If one is willing to break up LGAs then there's an opportunity here to expand the new Franklin in this area and in the process keep the northern part of Glamorgan-Spring Bay in Lyons.  

Local government areas often don't like being split between electorates and this redistribution process has made me wonder about the extent to which the tail wags the dog.  Why are Tasmania's local government boundaries like they are (in some cases I suspect the answer is about rates bases) and should LGA boundaries be adaptive to the needs of the federal boundary process rather than the other way around?  Anyway the Redistribution Committee can only work with what there is.

By far the most common suggested solution to the Lyons problem was to put Glenorchy into Franklin and keep the east coast in Lyons.  Those supporting this stressed that while this solution crosses the Derwent, the divide is nothing like the existing Franklin divide in that Glenorchy and Clarence are connected directly by at least one bridge (depending on exact boundaries) and there is significant direct commuting between the two, unlike the existing Franklin divide where the only connections with any real level of usage pass through Clark.

A minority supported putting Derwent Valley into Clark (see my comments on this in the "Clark extends up the river" section of my first article), which provides scope for maintaining more of Kingborough in the current Franklin.  I detected basically no support for the minimal change option of moving Clark further south into Kingborough, suggesting that most objectors realise this is a problem but prefer a different solution to the one found.

There were a number of eccentric proposals.  I'm not going to go through those in detail for cases where the submission doesn't realise this is a federal redistribution, hasn't noticed the number of seats is fixed at five, or is barely comprehensible.   (In at least one case the AEC seemed unsure whether the submission actually referred to the boundaries at all).  However it was disappointing to see some people supporting putting Huon Valley and in cases parts of Kingborough into Lyons without noticing that these areas are essentially disconnected from the rest of Lyons with the connecting bushland having only one significant unsealed link road through it.  

The Glenorchy submission (72) caused serious threats to my Panadol supply and includes a bizarre example "contiguous Franklin" alternative in which in order to keep Glenorchy in the same seat as most of Hobart City and move Kingborough into Clark, a substantial chunk of inner Hobart political greenery is donated to Lyons, becoming an urban exclave and also meaning that to remain in Clark while commuting from Glenorchy to the remaining Hobart City part of it you would have to undertake a 13.5 km bushwalk from Tolosa St to Old Farm Road peaking at around 1120 m near Big Bend.   (Looks like a rather good walk actually).  If this submission was actually entirely written by humans then they've passed a reverse Turing test with flying colours (sorry this is not a compliment; hat tip to a colleague who suggested that it looked partially AI written.)

In terms of the draft redistribution proposal (as distinct from the daft redistribution proposals in some of the submissions) the Greens and Labor have supported it. The Liberals have opposed it without making further comment on any particular alternative.  Sorell Council has supported the proposal while Glenorchy, Break O'Day, Southern Midlands, Brighton and Central Highlands are objecting.

Meanwhile, readers of this site continue to have a positive view of the draft proposal.

Many new names were suggested for Franklin especially but I wasn't wildly enthused by the suggestions.  It just doesn't seem that there's anything near a community consensus on an individual with a strong link to the proposed new Franklin whose contribution is such as to deserve an electorate named after them.  Some submitters suggested calling the proposed Clark Franklin and vice versa, but this involves transplanting the name Clark to an area it entirely doesn't cover at the present (always best avoided if possible).  

What next?

There is now a phase in which people can reply to the submissions.  Following that the Augmented Electoral Commission (which adds the Chair and the non-judicial member of the AEC to the existing Redistribution Committee of two AEC and two non-AEC staff) can make a decision, and can hold public hearings prior to doing so if it wishes.  In the event that it now wished to switch from the initial proposal to one that was substantially different (such as Glenorchy into Franklin instead of the east coast) then there would be likely to be another round of ideas submission on the current proposal.