By Callum Ludwig
The redistribution of Victoria’s federal electoral boundaries could see a fairly significant change to the representation of the Yarra Ranges and outer-eastern Melbourne in the Federal Parliament.
The submission from the Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party would see the most significant change, proposing to abolish the seat of Casey and seeing the seat of McEwen take a big shift east and straddle large amounts of the Yarra Ranges.
McEwen MP Rob Mitchell, from the Labor party, said redistributions occur regularly and many suggestions in submissions are made.
“I haven’t made a submission to the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission), but I have read other’s suggestions with interest. That said, suggestions are just that – suggestions,” he said.
“This is a pretty lengthy process with many more steps to go, and I’m looking forward to seeing the draft boundaries when they are released next year.”
Currently, the seat of McEwen stretches a wide span of communities north of Melbourne, representing townships from Woodend and Macedon in the north-west to Kilmore and Wallan centrally and goes all the way across to St Andrews and Christmas Hills, which neighbour the Casey electorate.
In Labor’s submission, the seat of McEwen would lose all of its territory west of Mernda, Yan Yean and Whittlesea, gain Mill Park North and South as well as parts of Research, North Warrandyte and Eltham from Scullin and shift across to envelope the upper Yarra Ranges.
This would include Lilydale-Coldstream (north of the suburb of Lilydale), Yarra Glen, part of Kinglake and Healesville, across all of the Upper Yarra and taking all of the territory the Casey electorate has in the Dandenong Ranges, including the areas of Monbulk-Silvan, part of Emerald-Cockatoo, Belgrave-Selby and Mount Dandenong-Olinda.
The rest of Casey is distributed to neighbouring electorates; Aston takes Upwey-Tecoma and Casey’s share of Lysterfield, Menzies takes Chirnside Park and Moroolbark north and north-west of Hull Road and Deakin takes Kilsyth, Montrose, Mt Evelyn and the entire suburb of Lilydale.
“The redistribution process is important to our democracy and I would encourage everyone to have their say,” Mr Mitchell said.
“As the Member for McEwen I have represented Yarra Ranges under previous boundaries.”
Before the 2010 redistribution, the seat of McEwen used to lay claim to the Yarra Ranges north and north-east of the Yarra River and east of Woori Yallock Creek, including the townships of Yarra Glen and Healesville and the Upper Yarra towns from Woori Yallock eastwards.
Mr Mitchell was elected as McEwen MP on 21 August 2010. The Augmented Electoral Commission made its public announcement of the decision on 21 October 2010 and made its final determination on 24 December 2010 so Mr Mitchell represented parts of the Yarra Ranges for a total of 125 days.
The Victorian Redistribution Committee will release their proposed redistribution report in Quarter 2 of 2024.
In the submission from the Victorian Branch of the Liberal Party, the only change to Casey is that it takes the town of Emerald from La Trobe and transfers its parts of Narre Warren East, Belgrave South, Belgrave Heights, Lysterfield, and Upper Ferntree Gully to Aston. In the Liberals’ submission, McEwen loses some of its western territory to Bendigo, moves south-west into Calwell and Hawke and loses some of its south and south-eastern parts to Scullin and Jagajaga.
In the submission from the Victorian Branch of the Australian Greens, McEwen is the abolished seat. Casey would take Panton Hill and Hurstbridge from McEwen’s abolition and shed the parts of the seat that fall in the shire of Cardinia (Avonsleigh, part of Emerald) to La Trobe.
