Tasmania's federal map was redrawn on Wednesday, with the augmented Electoral Commission moving 114,157 electors, 27.63 per cent of the state's roll, between four of its five House of Representatives divisions and proposing to rename Franklin as Tongerlongeter, after the Oyster Bay nation resistance leader.
If adopted, it would be the first federal electorate in Tasmania named after an Aboriginal person. The commission is taking written submissions on the name until 11.59pm next Tuesday, July 21, with the boundary decision itself now settled in substance.
Franklin, held by Agriculture Minister Julie Collins since 2007, is redrawn to sit entirely east of the River Derwent, taking in Brighton, Glamorgan Spring Bay, Sorell and Tasman along with the rest of Clarence. Clark gains the Huon Valley and the remainder of Kingborough while losing Glenorchy to Lyons, and Bass takes in Break O'Day. Braddon is untouched.
Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope called it "a big change supported by the enrolment data" and by communities of interest. The scale is unusual: more than one in four Tasmanian voters will wake up in a different division.
Tongerlongeter, born about 1790, was a Poredareme man who led the Oyster Bay nation's resistance during the Black War before becoming a community leader at Wybalenna on Flinders Island, where he died in 1837. The commission also considered Mathinna, Woureddy and the suffragist Jessie Spink Rooke before settling on his name. Franklin has carried the name of colonial governor Sir John Franklin since 1903.
Both major parties opposed the renaming in their submissions, citing the seat's history. Collins would not go further than the party line on Wednesday: "I support the submission that the Labor Party made to the redistribution consultation process."
The commission's decision drew criticism from a different direction as well. "As we see often, when it comes to any decisions about Aborigines in this state, Aboriginal people are excluded," said Nala Mansell, campaign manager at the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. Historian Nicholas Clements, who co-wrote the Tongerlongeter biography with Henry Reynolds, told AAP he was "a fitting figure to honour" and had led "the most effective frontier resistance campaign in Australian history".
The redraw reaches well beyond Canberra. Because Tasmania's House of Assembly seats share the federal boundaries, an AAP analysis found about ten state MPs are displaced from their divisions, among them Tasmanian Labor leader Josh Willie, Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff and former Labor leader Dean Winter.
A public consultation session on the name runs in Hobart on July 31, and the commission's formal determination, with final maps, is due on October 8.
