The Member for Fraser, Bob McMullan, has called for a third seat for the ACT. Mr McMullan represents the most populous electorate in the nation. The next most populous is the other ACT seat, Canberra, represented by Labor’s Annette Ellis. These two seats have an average of 109,000 voters. The Australian average is around 86,000. The ACT got just above the population mark for a third seat between 1996 and 1998 when the seat of Namadgi was created. Since then Australia’s average population growth has been higher than the ACT’s, so the ACT’s comparative population sits at a point just under the qualification for a third seat. The Northern Territory, on the other hand, has just got over the population mark for a second seat. Its two seats average just 55,000. The five Tasmanian seats have an average of 65,000 voters.
The result seems unfair – giving demonstrably unequal representation to ACT voters on one hand and Northern Territory and Tasmanian voters on the other.
The trouble for Mr McMullan and other disgruntled ACT electors is that the ground rules and the process of determining electorates in Australia are quite fair, given that Australia is a federation.
The process is as follows. Take the population of Australia and divide it by twice the number of senators representing states to get a quota. (The Constitution requires the House to be about twice the size of the Senate.) Divide the quota into the population of each state and territory to determine the number of electorates each shall get. If a remainder is over .5, a seat is added, if it under .5 it is ignored. At one point the ACT had 2.49 quotas and the Northern Territory 1.51. The ACT went down to two and the Northern territory went up to two. It is just a quirk of comparative population growth combined by the comparatively low populations of the territories that yields the uneven result. If we were dealing with a higher number of seats (say, NSW’s 50), the remainder would not have such a profound effect.
As for Tasmania, it gets a minimum five seats as an original state. That was part of the federal compact and should not be disturbed. There is little case for a minimum territory representation – particularly if it meant the Northern Territory would move to three seats. Any other way would involve some complicated formula prohibiting territory electorates being more than a certain percentage higher than the national average.
In any event a Coalition Government will not pursue the matter, because the extra seat would most like go to Labor. For the ACT to get a third seat, it must wait until its population makes it qualify under the existing rules.