One seat for village people

kathleen.skene@news.com.au ered after a public submission period.

The border will instead become the Nerang River, placing the whole park – and the River Gardens Caravan Park down the road – in the electorate of Gaven.

Gold Coasters will have 12 state politicians to vote in at the next Queensland election, with five local seats tweaked from the draft boundaries revealed in February.

The commission received 1546 public submissions to their proposal – including 2018 COMMONWEALTH GAMES HOST CITY complaints about Theodore being named for former premier “Red” Ted Theodore, who was implicated in the dodgy sale of mining land to the government in 1922. They are keeping the name.

Changes to draft seats in Logan had flow-on effects in Coomera, Theodore and Gaven, where electors were reshuffled to balance the number of people in each seat.

Voters in Bahrs Scrub, Windaroo and Bannockburn, in Mark Boothman’s soon-tobe dissolved electorate of Albert, will be taken into the new seat of Macalister instead of the seat of Coomera where the draft boundaries placed them.

As a result, some residents of the suburb of Upper Coomera will move back into the Coomera electorate from the new seat of Theodore.

The commission’s report said many public submissions objected to the renaming of electorates after people instead of basing them around the names of suburbs amid worries the names would be confusing.

Changes confirmed on the Gold Coast will include replacement of the seat of Albert and the addition of two new seats including Bonney, which takes in Biggera Waters, Labrador, Southport, Parkwood and Arundel. The new seat of Theodore will take in some parts of Helensvale, Oxenford, Upper Coomera, Maudsland, Wongawallan, Guanaba and Clagiraba.

The boundaries also affect the existing seats of Coomera, Southport and Broadwater.