The Coalition’s promise to cut the number of MPs was an attempt to overturn what it considered a Labor gerrymander. Other views could explain this as a demonstration of a historically inward looking Liberal members limiting themselves to the Northern Beaches and only as far west as was necessary to form government, as previous Liberal-National governments had only wished to really have more control over projects and reallocation based not on need but pork barreling, with the reallocation of state funds and priority given to sitting government members' electorates from the first budget in 1988.