COME the 2014 Victorian state election, residents of Swan Hill and Echuca will
vote as part of the same electorate, following the release of new electorate
boundaries yesterday.
A report from the Victorian Electoral Boundaries
Commission (EBC) detailing the redistribution of Victorian state electorates was
tabled to Parliament yesterday.
The existing electorate of Swan Hill will be
abolished, and will be redistributed within the Mildura, Murray Plains and
Bendigo East electorates.
A total of 15 electorates have been abolished, with
15 new ones created — only the districts of Gippsland East and Gippsland South
remain unchanged.
More than 1 million Victorians will now vote in new
electoral districts.
Under the changes, residents of Swan Hill and Echuca
will now vote in the newly established Murray Plains electorate, with towns
north of Wood Wood to be a part of the Mildura district.
In a submission to
the EBC, the Nationals party strongly argued against having Swan Hill and Echuca
included in the same electorate, stating that “although both [are] on the River,
[they] are very different and could not cohabit in a single division”.In
response to this concern, the EBC stated that their decision to include both in
the same electorate was based on the fact “both are on the Murray River, and are
partly reliant on river-based tourism”.
For more on this story see today’s Guardian (18/10/2013).
