Wednesday 29 August 2007

Which Councillors are under worked

While this may be something of a futile exercise, it does prove interesting reading to a degree.

The table below shows, on the current Council Divisions, those voters enrolled, and how it varies per Councillor under the current 12 Divisional structure.

You will see, that there are some dramatic differences in the number of constituents per councillor. Cr Freebody's Division 4, for instance, has 22% less than the mean average, or 1361 less voters to represent.

Other noticeable differences are Annette Shepard's Division 12 with just over an additional 1100 constituents. Maybe they should be remunerated on a per capita basis!















If this same divisional structure was to be in place for 2008, and we now know that this is not to be the case, the graph shows the movements based on predicted population and providing a mean distribution of numbers.

However, in 4 weeks time, the State will announce the new 10 Divisional boundaries, based on a distribution of 8,186 voters per area. This would mean that the 6,278 voters in the current Douglas Shire, a northern Division 10, would extend from Cape Trib and extend south to encompass part of Clifton Beach.

This is an unworkable representative area, not only in terms of different areas, but a geographic challenge. It's a 2 and a half hour drive from top to bottom. I hope that the Commission would understand the uniqueness of this new Division and map it from, say Wangetti to Cape Trib. However, my guess is that some Uni Grad is using a CAD Mapping tool in some high rise in Brissy, and will merely pump out the new plans based on numbers, not even appreciating the nature of the region.

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