The chair of the ACT Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Legal Affairs, Bill Stefaniak, called last week for public submissions on the size of the Assembly. His call comes at a time when the South Australian Parliament is under irresistible pressure to cut its numbers. That was one of the conditions put before both major parties by the Independent who won the balance of power at the last election.
But it also comes as the number of voters each MLA has to look after is increasing. According to a fact sheet issued by the committee, at self-government in 1989 there were about 10,000 voters per MLA. Now there are 12,934. We have also had our Federal representation cut recently from three members of the House of Representatives to two.
The fact sheet cited the ratio in Tasmania at 1:8221 (and falling) and in the Northern Territory at 1:4420. If local councils in those two jurisdictions are considered the ACT’s ratio is much worse.
But representation must be more than just a numbers game. The committee could as easily have pointed to NSW. There, 4.3 million voters share just 135 state MPs – or a ratio of 1:32,000. NSW has 12 federal senators, or one for each 360,000 voters. The ACT fares better. But then NSW has local government.
The larger the jurisdiction, the more the economies of scale. The smaller the jurisdiction, the less economies. A functioning Parliament needs a bare minimum to function. It needs a leader of the Government and several Ministers, a Speaker. A leader of the Opposition and several Opposition front-benchers and some backbenchers of major parties and cross-benchers to run a committee system to attempt to make the Government more accountable. On that scale, 17 is about the minimum – almost irrespective of how many people are being represented.
The other question is the talent pool. An electoral process – unlike a job-selection process – does not necessarily yield the best talent to run the ministries and the Government. Indeed, any electoral process (with so many on the selection panel and so many political triers) is almost destined to yield a talent pool with a fairly sizeable shallow end. The question is whether making a larger pool increases the deep-end quality.
In any event, irrespective of talent, half the Assembly is destined to be excluded from ministerial contention by sheer dint of the fact their party has not been elected as the majority party. With only 17 Members, it leaves slim pickings for the Chief Minister when forming a Government.
An increase is warranted.
Another good reason for increasing the Assembly is to get three equal seats. History has shown that the seven-member electorate of Molonglo has better reflected voter wishes than the five-member electorates. In five out of six contests in five-member electorates (two in each election since 1995), the two major parties got two seats each – a equal result despite large disparities of percentage vote. Seven member electorates would tend to better differentiate the major parties, while still giving a role for minor parties and independents.
It would not be sensible to “”save” the increase to 21 MLAs by taking local Government out of the Territory level government as in the Northern Territory and Tasmania. The ACT is a compact jurisdiction and can easily cope with doubling up these functions.
While an increase is warranted now, the ACT should be wary of any automatic increase based on voter numbers. As the absolute number of MLAs increases, economies of scale improve. For example, only one Speaker is needed, if the House is 17 or 35. Only one Estimates committee is needed, and so on.