Independent MLA Michael Moore is to move in the Assembly next week for an increase in the size of the Assembly and for four-year terms to replace the current three-year term.
Both moves have profound affects for our democracy. This is aside from the fact the Mr Moore will be pre-empting a select committee set up by the Assembly to consider these issues among others.
At present it requires an Act of the Federal Parliament to change the size of the Assembly, but the Assembly itself can change the length of the term of the Assembly. Both these arrangements are unsatisfactory.
Tasmania recently changed the size of its Assembly from 35 to 25. That move was presented before this year’s election by the then Labor Opposition as a response to the then Liberal Government’s proposal to cut it to 30. The aim there had little to do with the optimal working size of a Parliament for Tasmania. It was more a conspiracy by the major parties to shut out the Greens by having five five-Member seats rather than five seven-Member seats. Minor parties and independents have a better chance in seven member seats. The conspiracy succeeded. The Greens’ representation has been cut from a typical four or five down to one and the Greens no longer hold the balance of power.
Mr Moore, who usually gets elected last in the seven-Member seat of Molonglo, should be careful that he does not shoot himself in the foot. His aim for a larger Assembly could result in three five-Member electorates and one four-Member electorate, for example, thereby reducing the chances of minor-party candidates or independents.
There are several arguments in favour of and against increasing the size of the Assembly. On grounds of population, each MLA now has a extra 25 per cent load from when the first Assembly met in 1989. If the Assembly were to be increased from 17 to 21, each MLA would have about the same number of constituents as in 1989. Against that are huge increases in technology, particularly in information and communications, that should make the MLAs task easier. E-mail, better fax machines, mobile phones, smarter software and so on make the tasks of getting messages to the electorate out and receiving and acting on messages that much easier.
The small size of the present Assembly means a small talent pool for the ministry, policy development, the Opposition frontbench and the committees Government. There is only one back-bencher available for committee work, Harold Hird. Even if Mr Hird had three times the capacity, that is still a very small talent pool.
Against that is the question of costs. Four more MLAs would cost a minimum of $720,000 a year, perhaps $1 million. It is about $3 or $4 per head per year. Would we get value for money? If those four MLAs contributed enough to public policy to generate that money in better public-sector efficiency or generate that value in social wealth it would be worthwhile. The electorate, no doubt, would be very wary of such a conclusion.
On balance there is some merit in increasing the size of the Assembly.
But there are compelling grounds to increase the term to four years. Four-year terms have been adopted in some states and during the election campaign they got some support in the federal arena. But no state, territory or the federal level has the unique advantage of the ACT: a fixed term. The trouble with the three-year terms federally and in the states is that the premiers and prime minister can call early elections, usually for purely tactical advantage. It has meant a practical truncation of the term to two and a half year. As a result many states have moved to a four-year term, and some have adopted strict regimes that make early elections very difficulty, usually at the behest of minor parties holding the balance of power.
With the fixed three-year term in the ACT, there is no need for any change. Four years is too long. There should be an opportunity for the voters to chuck out unpopular governments sooner than four years would usually allow. The argument that a government needs longer than three years to put in train long-term policies rather than responding to immediate electoral demands is arrogant and fallacious. Most voters are not as foolish as Mr Moore imputes. They can see if a government has a good long-term plan that needs another term. Virtually every government in its first term goes into the first election with a message along the lines of finishing the job. Nearly all get re-elected. Three years is an adequate time for a new government to put things in train and earn some trust for a second term and longer-term governments suffer no harm from the knowledge that they will be accountable every three years, rather than every four.
If longer-term governments were such a good thing, why have Australian Prime Ministers, for example, invariably called early elections of their own volition over the past quarter century.
Longer terms and more Members are matters of fundamental constitutional importance. They are too important to be left to the whim of the MLAs themselves, the people who have most to benefit. They are too important even to be left to the Federal legislature.
The term of the Parliament should not be changed without a referendum. Otherwise, what is to stop MLAs continuing their terms indefinitely? The size of the Assembly, too, should be limited, either absolutely or in accordance with some population formula, beyond which it would require a referendum.
And speaking of such things, if the Federal Parliament is thinking of divesting power over parts of the Self-Government Act to the ACT Assembly, it might be time to create an ACT Constitution or ACT Fundamental Law that lays down the framework of government, including, perhaps a bill of rights, that would require more than a vote in the Assembly to vary.