Tarneit MP Tim Pallas will meet with the Labor Party in the coming weeks to decide which seat he will contest at next year’s state election, after losing part of his electorate in a redistribution.
Revised state electoral boundaries, finalised last week, include a new Werribee electorate which takes in Werribee, Wyndham Vale, Little River and Werribee South.
The redistribution adjusted the Tarneit electorate to cover the northern half of the Wyndham council area, taking in Truganina, Williams Landing, Laverton North and Hoppers Crossing.
Labor MP Jill Hennessy’s Altona electorate, the state’s second-largest, will lose Williams Landing, Truganina, Laverton North and Hoppers Crossing. Point Cook will remain in the electorate and will be joined by the new suburb of Point Cook West.
John Eren’s Lara seat will be moved south of Little River and will no longer cover Wyndham.
Mr Pallas, whose electorate office is in Werribee, said the new Wyndham-based seat would increase representation for the western suburbs.
He said he would make an announcement about which seat he will contest shortly.
Western Metropolitan Liberal MP Andrew Elsbury said the new Werribee seat recognised the enormous population growth in the west in recent years.
The Victorian Electoral Commission said the Werribee electorate, which existed between 1976 and 2002, was being reinstated because the Tarneit and Altona electorates were too big.
The commission predicts that even with the redistribution, Tarneit and Werribee will have too many voters within five years.
Under Victorian law, electorates should contain roughly equal numbers of electors, not varying by more than 10 per cent from the state average. The VEC predicts Tarneit and Werribee will be more than 10 per cent above the average by mid-2018.
The changes will come into effect at the state election on November 29 next year.
