More confusion for election watchers in Victoria. First it was a draft set of new electoral boundaries being released during the federal election campaign — to apply to the next federal election, not the one we were just having. Now, the Electoral Commission having junked most of its initial ideas, there’s a new set of proposals to argue about, this time in the middle of the state campaign.

That helps to explain why Monday’s public hearing into the proposals was a pretty low-key affair. Neither the Greens nor the Liberal Party bothered to make an appearance — although my friend Sophie Mirabella, member for Indi, fronted to explain why her north-eastern country seat shouldn’t be made to extend to the outskirts of Melbourne. And while the ALP was there, its case was presented by Shane Easson, an expert from New South Wales. Either the locals have too much else on their minds, or there’s just nobody left in the Victorian office who understands these things.

Most of the debate about the revised proposals has been focused on areas that don’t have much partisan effect. I suggested that the commission should have taken more care to give voters north of the Yarra the same weight as those to the south, but the changes involved are relatively minor. What most upset people was the commission’s proposed boundary between McEwen and Calwell, which runs down the main street of Craigieburn, splitting it in two. The vast majority of the 278 objections received are form letters from disgruntled Craigieburn residents.

But Craigieburn is safe Labor territory however you cut it. The only way you can get much of a political advantage out of changing it is by a broad-brush rotation of territory through a dozen or so seats, ending up with an impact on Labor’s most marginal seat, Corangamite. Sure enough, that’s what Easson argued for, but it would be a very big ask and the political motive was pretty transparent.

One reason the proposed changes won’t have much effect is that this last federal election left Victoria with relatively few marginal seats. Taking the conventional definition of margins below 6%, there are only eight of them, four Liberal — Dunkley (1.0%), Aston (1.8%), McMillan (4.1%) and Casey (4.2%) — and four Labor: Corangamite (0.4%), La Trobe (0.9%), Deakin (2.4%) and McEwen (5.3%).

The original proposals would have made Corangamite and McEwen into Liberal seats, and Aston a Labor seat. Deakin, McMillan and Casey would all have become more marginal, Deakin in particular being almost line-ball. On the other hand, a Liberal-held seat, Murray, was going to be abolished and a new safe Labor seat called Burke created, so the net effect was slight either way. (Antony Green made detailed assessments at the time; unfortunately he doesn’t seem to have had time to do the same for the revised set.)

The commission now proposes to undo most of the large-scale changes. Aston and Corangamite would go back to pretty much the way they are now, Murray would be reinstated, and McEwen would become safer for Labor. Deakin is still anyone’s, but since its territory is relatively homogeneous no boundary change is going to make a huge difference — it only matters because it’s so marginal to start with.

The other change that was reversed was the proposed swap of territory between Melbourne Ports and Higgins — Higgins had been slated to gain a large slice of Caulfield while losing Prahran and South Yarra. But this aroused the ire of Michael Danby, member for Melbourne Ports, who complained that it would split his power base in the Jewish community. He now gets his wish, although the “party figure” who told The Australian Jewish News that it means “The Greens will never cross the Yarra” was probably being a little too sanguine.