Labor stronghold Kurri Kurri has been removed from the seat of Paterson in a proposed boundary redraw which shapes as a blow to sitting MP Meryl Swanson.
The Australian Electoral Commission has published a draft redistribution of NSW federal seats which returns the coalfields towns of Kurri Kurri, Abermain and Weston to the Hunter electorate.
The proposed new electoral boundary runs north to south along the line of the Hunter Expressway.
Ms Swanson held the marginal seat in 2022 with a buffer of 3.3 percentage points after a 1.7-point swing to the Liberals, but losing Kurri Kurri would reduce her nominal margin to 2.6 percentage points.
Labor enjoyed a two-party preferred vote of 59 to 66 per cent at the polling booths around Kurri Kurri in 2022.
The redraw could have been worse for Labor after the Liberals also proposed moving the conservative retirement havens of Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest into Paterson.
The AEC's proposed redraw leaves those coastal towns, Lorn and Bolwarra in the Lyne electorate.
The draft redistribution shifts Muswellbrook and Denman out of the Hunter electorate and into Barnaby Joyce's New England division.
The proposed changes, if ratified, would result in Hunter losing about 30 per cent of its land area and splitting the twin coal towns of Singleton and Muswellbrook into separate electorates .
The proposed redraw leaves the Newcastle and Shortland electorates largely unchanged, though Shortland would pick up Glendale and Argenton from Hunter.
The changes increase Hunter MP Dan Repacholi's nominal margin from 4 to 4.8 percentage points.
The Newcastle and Shortland margins remain virtually unchanged.
The Liberals' 2022 candidate in Paterson, lawyer Brooke Vitnell, announced in May that she would not nominate for preselection this year.
The Newcastle Herald understands Housing Industry Association operations manager Laurence Antcliff is the favourite to win a Liberal preselection ballot.
The Labor, Liberal and National parties all lodged submissions with the AEC which proposed moving Muswellbrook out of the Hunter electorate to New England to keep both seats within the accepted range of projected voter numbers in 2028.
The Nationals went one step further by suggesting Singleton suburbs north of the Hunter River also shift to Mr Joyce's New England patch.
The AEC rejected this move and a Liberal request to shift all of Singleton LGA from Hunter to Lyne and for Hunter to annexe a large slab of western Newcastle, including Wallsend, Jesmond, Birmingham Gardens, Maryland, Fletcher and Elermore Vale.
The Liberals held Paterson through long-time member Bob Baldwin until a 2016 redistribution shifted Maitland and Kurri Kurri into the electorate and delivered Labor a 10.5 per cent swing.
Seats above voter quotas
Hunter and especially Paterson were forecast to exceed the maximum number of voters by 2028, while Shortland and New England would fall short of their quota.
Fast-growing Paterson, with an estimated enrolment of 135,000 this year, and Hunter are already 11.83 per cent and 8.74 per cent above average respectively.
Shortland has only 117,000 voters, 3 per cent below average, while New England has 115,000 and was projected to be 11 per cent below quota by 2028.
Newcastle does not require a change to its total enrolment as it is close to average now and in the five-year projections.
The AEC was forced to reduce the number of NSW seats from 47 to 46 and redistribute voter numbers in 40 divisions due to national population shifts.
The redistribution abolished independent MP Kylea Tink's seat of North Sydney and transferred its electors to Bennelong, Bradfield and Warringah.
The AEC is taking objections to the proposed redistribution up to July 12.
