The ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, is to seek to increase the size of the ACT Legislative Assembly. There is a very good case to be made for increasing the size of the Assembly. The only real question is by how many and how should those members represent the ACT.
Mr Stanhope has favoured the minority report of the Assembly’s Standing Committee on Legal Affairs – that of Labor Member John Hargreaves – which says the Assembly should be increased from its present 17 Members to 23. The majority – Liberal Bill Stefaniak and Green Kerrie Tucker — has recommended an increase to 21.
Mr Hargreaves recommended four electorates of six, six, six and five members. The majority recommended three electorates of seven members.
Mr Stanhope and Mr Hargreaves justify their position by saying that it would be better to have 23 Members because 21 Members would not satisfy the pressures the Assembly is under. These include the pressure in the Executive, the under-representation of the electorate and the difficulty with the committee system.
These pressures are real, but they could be as well satisfied by 21 as 23 Members. An Assembly of 21 would provide an Executive of five or six and 15 backbenchers which could satisfy both committee and constituency duties.
At present, the 17 Members with an Executive of four is difficult. Committees require a great deal of work and it is difficult for four ministers to cover all the portfolios. However, even with 17 Members, the ACT is governed as well – perhaps better – than other states and territories. At self-government the ACT had one Member for each 10,000 voters. If that ratio were maintained, the ACT should have 21 Members, not 23. But Mr Stanhope argued that the ACT is still growing and some allowance should be made for that. However, population growth has slowed in the ACT. Besides, increased representation should occur when the population increases, not before.
One has to be suspicious of the call fro 23 Members in the six, six, six, five configuration. The concern for the overall number disguises a real political concern for having fewer members in each electorate. Labor obviously feels it can win three members in each of the six-member seats and two if not three in the five-member seat. Under this plan, independent and minor parties would be frozen out.
ACT electoral history shows, however, things are not so simple. The seven-member electorate tends to return members in closer proportion to voters’ preferences, at least until the most recent election. The major parties might well fear that with seven-member electorates there would be two minor-party Members whereas if there were fewer Members in an electorate there would only be one. But events are not so simple or predictable. The Hare-Clark proportional system is still developing. Last election, for example, voters appeared to rebel against independents and minor candidates, returning 15 major-party MLAs out of 17.
Three seven-member electorates has the advantage of equality of representation; a reasonable hurdle of 12.5 per cent of the vote for a minor party to overcome and, more importantly, a history of differentiating between the major parties – with the better of majors getting three seats, the worse getting two, and two for minor sand independents. Three seven-member electorates would be more likely to deliver an electoral statement of victory to one or other of the major parties (even if not an absolute majority of seats) which would lead to more stable government.
Perhaps the most compelling reason for 21 Members in three electorates of seven is that the entrenchment Act agreed by 65 per cent of people at two referendums said, “”an odd number of members of the Legislative Assembly shall be elected from each electorate”.
Labor’s six, six, six, five proposal smacks of a fiddling with the numbers for political gain.