Changes for Macnamara dropped
The Australian Electoral Commission has reversed its proposal to make a substantial change to the Melbourne Electorates of Macnamara and Higgins that would see all of Caulfield North, Caulfield, Caulfield East and parts of Elsternwick and St Kilda East move from Macnamara into Higgins; and parts of Prahran and South Yarra move from Higgins into Macnamara.
Josh Burns
The original draft redistribution, which was supported by the Greens and Liberals, would have narrowed the gap in Macnamara between Labor and the Greens by about 3.5% – from 7.5% to 4.9% (it was just 3.21% in 2016 when they came closest to winning the seat, which translated to little over 1% after the distribution of minor party and independent preferences). It lead the Greens to announce it was their most winnable seat and on Sunday, they announced their candidate would be Steph Hodgins-May for a third consecutive electio
But the final redistribution has seen the boundaries remain the same as they were in 2019, except that the suburb of Windsor, a strong Greens suburb, now moves into Higgins where it was prior to 2019.
While vote estimates aren’t available yet for the final boundaries, they are expected to make the seat harder to win for the Greens than the old boundaries.
Macnamara was previously named Melbourne Ports and Michael Danby represented the seat until is retirement.
Today, Josh Burns is the Federal Labor MP for Macnamara. He told J-Wire: “I’ve been honoured to represent this diverse electorate from Port Melbourne to Albert Park, St Kilda and Elwood and across to my home in Caulfield and the Jewish community I grew up in.
I’m pleased the AEC has decided to make this redistribution less disruptive both to the Jewish community and to all of my constituents in Caulfield, Elsternwick and St Kilda East and I hope to continue to have the honour of representing them in Parliament.”
Redistributions are only about logically boundaries that contain as similar number of voters in every electorate. They are not about the interests of political parties, religions or communities of like views.
Political, and perhaps religious pressure, imposed on the “independent” AEC it would appear. The original AEC boundary proposes was much tidier and rational. However interference by self serving government and other parliamentarians is a growing problem in Australia.