Analysis: Queensland Redistribution Commission smashes electoral map

THE Queensland Redistribution Commission hasn’t just rejigged electoral boundaries. It has smashed and reshaped the electoral map. And one Minister is refusing to rule out being dropped into a safer seat.

• Electoral changes: New-look state could end MP careers
• Does your electorate still exist?
• North Queensland loses seat

STATE Environment Minister Steven Miles has not ruled being parachuted into a safe seat after his electorate of Mt Coot-tha morphed into a newly named seat of Maiwar.

The change means his former electorate would be joined by Indooroopilly under the new Maiwar banner, pitting him against Opposition treasury spokesman Scott Emerson.

“Clearly my job is far from done,” Dr Miles said this morning, before heading out on a snorkelling trip on the Great Barrier Reef, off Cairns.

“Politics is tough on family. This is not something I’ve been able to discuss with my wife and family. We are well established in the community I represent.

“I’ll be running at the next state election.”

Environment Minister Dr Steven Miles’ Mt Coot-tha electorate will be merged with Opposition treasury spokesman Scott Emerson’s Indooroopilly. Picture: Annette Dew

Meanwhile, Queensland Redistribution Commissioner Hugh Botting and Electoral Commissioner Walter van der Merwe have slammed the early release of the state’s new electorates by a regional newspaper as they outlined the changes this morning.

Fairfax paper the North West Star yesterday appeared to break the ECQ’s embargo and published the maps online before they were due to be released this morning.

Mr van der Merwe said he was furious at the paper’s actions with the ECQ considering its options.

“We will see what we can do about it,” he said.

He said the breach of the embargo was “unprecedented”.

OVERNIGHT: This, as one senior Labor figure last night aptly described it, is “mass carnage”.

The Queensland Redistribution Commission hasn’t just rejigged electoral boundaries.

It has smashed and reshaped the electoral map.

The introduction of four additional seats, in concert with a shift towards the coast and a surge in the southeast corner’s population, are the catalysts of the carnage.

No party is unscathed, except maybe One Nation.

The new electoral map.

Environment Minister Steven Miles will be pitted against Opposition treasury spokesman Scott Emerson in perhaps the biggest clash of personalities. Miles may have to be parachuted into another electorate.

Opposition frontbencher Dale Last may have to take on Katter’s Australian Party’s Shane Knuth.

Labor factions will fight over the new seat of Bancroft north of Brisbane while LNP will have the same issue in Bonney, squeezed into the centre of the Gold Coast.

Meanwhile, long-serving MPs like Labor’s Jo-Ann Miller and the LNP’s Ted Sorensen sit in seats that suffered little change while Generation Next members of both parties face the scrap heap.

The new electoral map.

The parties were quick to say it will all be sorted. But make no mistake, the implications run deep and they affect every faction and alliance.

This will be a test of both Annastacia Palaszczuk and Tim Nicholls given the obvious threat to careers across the electoral map.

Meanwhile, Pauline Hanson will just plonk One Nation candidates no one has heard of into seats and carve significant support off both parties.

The next election will be when the real carnage occurs.