The new electoral boundaries of Queensland have been confirmed with the seats of Mount Isa and Dalrymple abolished and now mostly merged into the new seat of Traeger.
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The Queensland Redistribution Commission announced the changes on Friday redistributing the current 89 electorates into 93 electoral districts.
The original proposal released in February for public comment has been changed with the shire of Boulia now joining Winton and Diamantina in the seat of Gregory.
However the remainder of the old seat of Mount Isa covering the north-west and the entire seat of Dalrymple centred on Charters Towers have been combined into the seat of Traeger, named for the pedal radio inventor Alfred Traeger.
Shires covered in the new seat are Mornington (Island), Burke, Doomadgee (Aboriginal), Carpentaria, Mount Isa City, Cloncurry, Croydon, Etheridge, McKinlay, Richmond, Flinders and Charters Towers.
The Commission admitted the east-west reorientation of Traegar was “the more significant outcomes” of its work.
Traegar had “ lost much of the southern end of the electorate and extended significantly east”, the Commission said in its final report.
Traegar has lost much of the southern end of the electorate and extended significantly east
- Qld Redistribution Commission
It said enrolment statistics showed a clear drift in population from the western regions to the coastal areas, and more especially, to the south-east corner of the state with predictions this trend would continue.
“It was determined that the districts west of the Great Dividing Range should lie in an east-west direction (which) conforms largely to the major means of communication - the roads and rail lines,” the Commission said.
“Furthermore, a number of government departments have based their regional organisation along the same east-west lines.”
The news will come as a blow to the Katter Australia Party who currently hold both Mount Isa (Robbie Katter) and Dalrymple (Shane Knuth) seats and will likely see their representation in parliament drop to one.