CITY SUBURBS SWITCH IN SWEEPING ELECTORAL BOUNDARY CHANGES:

SOUTHERN suburbs Woree and Bayview Heights will no longer be part of the Cairns electorate under draft state electoral boundary changes leaked last night.

The Electoral Commission Queensland’s new maps, which were due to be released at 9am today, reveal a plan to cut the geographical size of Treasurer Curtis Pitt’s seat of Mulgrave by about half.

Mulgrave will take in Woree and Bayview Heights at its northernmost tip and only stretch as far south as Deeral and Goldsborough, discarding conservative farming districts around Innisfail.

It previously extended from Yarrabah in the north – which remains part of the electorate – all the way down past Innisfail.

A new seat called Hill, between Hinchinbrook and Cook, will consume much of Mulgrave’s former southern area, beginning below Deeral and running south past Tully and Mission Beach.

Cairns MP Rob Pyne is not a fan of the changes.

“These boundaries aren’t in until they’re in,” he said.

Craig Crawford’s Barron River electorate has lost Brinsmead, Whitfield and Aeroglen to Cairns – no surprise, since he “always expected to lose about 5000 voters” in the shift.

“That would give ECQ the numbers needed to reduce the population of the electorate,” he said.

“I don’t think it changes the political climate of Barron River.

“I am very stoked that Barron River survives and that the name is still there.”

Robbie Katter’s sprawling seat of Mount Isa is renamed Traeger with new borders. Fellow Katter’s Australian Party MP Shane Knuth’s seat of Dalrymple is scrapped, partially taken over by Traeger.

Mr Pitt was in the Northern Territory last night and unavailable for comment.

His competition for Mulgrave, LNP candidate Robyn Quick, said her campaign tactics would not change.

“I’m still out there looking after the issues people are concerned about and that’s what I’ll keep doing,” she said.

The proposed electorate redistribution splits the state into 93 seats instead of the current 89. The draft is open to public comment until the end of May.