Blue Mountains residents are used to being represented in Canberra by one MP but a Liberal Party submission to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) would see the villages split into three different electorates.
If adopted, the proposal would see all towns east of Sun Valley move into the Liberal-held electorate of Lindsay while towns from Linden west to Mt Victoria would move into the National Party seat of Calare (which includes Lithgow, Oberon, Bathurst and Orange). Voters in Faulconbridge, Springwood, Winmalee, Yellow Rock and Hawkesbury Heights would remain in Macquarie, currently held by Liberal MP Louise Markus.
Submissions by the Labor Party, National Party and The Greens propose to keep the boundaries for Macquarie largely the same.
The Liberals submission claims Springwood and Winmalee "have more affiliation with the Hawkesbury than they do with the Lower Mountains" and residents of both towns "regularly travel to Richmond for their larger shopping requirements".
It also suggests that moving 27,964 Upper and Mid Mountains voters into Calare would help raise the projected enrolment quota for the western NSW region to the required level in a way that "allows a minimal change scenario to occur in regional NSW".
Labor's spokeswoman for Macquarie, Susan Templeman, told the Gazette the only change to Macquarie sought in Labor's submission to the AEC was to include 3749 voters in Londonderry who are currently within Lindsay.
"We believe that the Blue Mountains should be kept as a whole and remain within the existing electorate of Macquarie," Ms Templeman said.
"The Liberal Party's suggestion to slice and dice the Mountains three ways shows a complete lack of understanding of how we interact as a community.
"Whether they are going for the bits in the Mountains that vote for us [Labor] or not, I don't know - they have to explain their intentions.
"If you only have that little slice of the Blue Mountains [Faulconbridge to Hawkesbury Heights] left in Macquarie, that would become subservient to the northwest of Sydney, which is a very different community.
"And while the addition of Riverstone [to Macquarie] means Louise Markus would finally live in her electorate, it doesn't make for a reasonable representation of the Mountains' interests."
When asked what she thought of the argument in the Liberal Party's submission that Springwood and Winmalee residents have a closer connection with the Hawkesbury than the Lower Mountains, Ms Templeman said: "I live in Winmalee and I just look at that and think, unless something has changed dramatically in the last 15 years, I can't understand that logic - it makes no sense".
Blue Mountains Ward 3 Labor councillor Mick Fell, a Springwood resident, told the Gazette it was important the AEC treats the Blue Mountains as a region so issues from bushfire management to water quality can be addressed in an efficient and co-ordinated manner.
"We have a commonality of interest between our towns and villages - we do not relate as closely to the north or south," he said.
Federal Member for Macquarie Louise Markus declined to comment on the submission, instead referring the Gazette's inquiries to the office of the state director of the Liberal Party, "as the submission was prepared there".
A NSW Liberal Party spokeswoman told the Gazette that given the abolition of a seat is required in NSW, there has to be adjustments to boundaries.
"It is a statewide redistribution in which the requirements of the Electoral Act must be met in every seat," the spokeswoman said.
"Our detailed reasoning is set out in our public submission."
The AEC is accepting comments on the submissions until 6pm on June 5 and will release a report with its recommendations by the end of September.
For more information, visit www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2014/nsw.
