No surprises with AEC electoral redistribution for Queensland where Katter’s Kennedy continues to eat into the Cairns southern suburbs.

The Redistribution Committee proposes altering the current boundary of the electoral division in the southern suburbs of Cairns by following Skeleton Creek from the southern boundary of the locality of White Rock through to the corner of Hardy Road and Robert Road in the locality of Mount Sheridan, and continuing west along the Mount Sheridan/Bentley Park locality boundary to Alfina Street. From Alfina Street the boundary deviates north from the locality boundary to take in a section of development in the locality of Mount Sheridan that is connected by road to Bentley Park. The boundary then deviates west to join the Lamb Range/Mt Sheridan locality boundary, following this westward and south then along the Lamb Range/Bentley Park and Lamb Range/Edmonton locality boundaries until meeting with the existing federal boundary in the south‑western corner. The proposed Division of Leichhardt will transfer electors in the localities of Bentley Park, Edmonton, Mount Sheridan, Portsmith and Wrights Creek in the Cairns Regional Council local government area to the Division of Kennedy.

Leichhardt is in the position of sharing a boundary with only one other electorate which is Kennedy. Consequently with demographic changes in recent distributions Katter has successively eaten into the southern suburbs. There probably could have been some expectation that previous annexations of the southern suburbs would provide a population growth demographic to Kennedy to mitigate this trend but apparently not much if anything.

Australian Electoral Commission

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