Joy Burch, welcome to the frontbench. Indeed, you may indeed be totality of Labor’s frontbench after the Assembly next meets.
Labor has only seven members. Take away the five ministers and a speaker and that you have a backbench of one. Presumably, that will be the newest member, Joy Burch. It is a bit silly.
True, Labor might not get the speakership. The Greens could easily vote for the Liberal Party candidate for the speakership and the Labor Party candidate for the Chief Ministership. That is what apparently happened in 1992, but we can never be sure because they were both secret ballots. But the number of votes was made public and unless some Labor people voted for the Liberal candidate for the speakership, Greg Cornwell, it meant that the Greens must have voted for him.
But even if there is a Liberal Speaker, the Government backbench would still only have two members.
It all points to the conclusion, dare we say it, that we need a larger Legislative Assembly. As it stands, the ACT is the most under-governed jurisdiction in Australia. Federal state and local, we have just 21 elected representatives for more than 300,000 people — a tad over 14,000 people for each representative.
The other extreme is Tasmania. It has 17 Federal representatives, 40 state representatives, and, can you believe, 205 local council representatives. That is one representative for every 1900 people — seven times the representation of people in the ACT.
Representation can be likened to foreign aid. It is all very well for a foreign-aid organisation to proudly trumpet that it only spends just 10 percent on administration. That might sound better than an organisation which spends, say, 30 percent on administration. But if the strained administration of the first organisation means that the aid goes astray, it does not help anyone.
The ACT Legislative Assembly covers both state and local government matters. Seventeen representatives is simply not enough. A larger opposition and, indeed, a larger government front bench might well have been able to hold the government to greater account and some of the fiascos of past four years — such as Gungahlin Drive, Rodium, school closures and the power station — might have been avoided. The extra MLAs would have been well worth the expense.
However, increasing the size of the assembly will not be easy. It requires both an assembly motion and a regulation promulgated by the Federal Minister for the territories.
An increase is supported across all of the political parties. However, the manner in which the extra MLAs are elected is a matter of serious contention.
Until the most recent election, Labor thought that an increase to 25 members with five electorates of five members each would be ideal. Based on the 2004 result, Labor could expect frequent majority government under such a system. After last Saturday’s result, Labor will be singing a different tune. Based on that result, Labor could expect just 10 members in a 25-member house. Based on the 2004 result, Labor could have expected 15 members in a 25-member house.
The Liberal party likes a seven-member electorates. In the past two elections it has got three of the seven members — forty three percent of the seats — with a vote count in the low thirties.
Until last Saturday, the Greens also liked the seven-member electorates. Typically they would get about 12 per cent of the vote and 14 percent of the seats — one seat in seven. In the five member electorates they would get up to 12 percent of the vote and zero percent of the seats. On a Saturday’s result, in the five member electorates, they got 20 per cent of the seats with about 13 or 14 percent of the vote.
So the Greens might change their tune, too. The Greens might suddenly start supporting five-member of electorates at the very time Labor becomes shy of them.
We have a serious impasse here. To get a larger assembly, we need a majority on the floor of the assembly and the concurrence of the Federal government. We also have to avoid disallowance of any federal regulation in the Senate.
An assembly committee has already investigated and come up with a split result.
We can rest assured that the political parties will put their own interests and chances of getting as many of its own members elected as possible well ahead of any public interest in having a larger assembly elected in the fairest way possible.
Population growth and the greater complexity of government over the 20 years of self-government suggests that an increase of up to about 29 members is warranted. There is no harm in having a mix of seven-member and five member electorates. Overall, the swings and roundabouts of such a situation can result in a fairly accurate correlation between percentage of votes and the percentage of seats.
We could have three five-member electorates and two seven-member electorates to give us an assembly of 29 members — still lower than the number of state representatives in Tasmania, which has a smaller economy than that of the ACT.
Last Saturday’s result demonstrated that the advantage to a political party rendered by either a five-member or a seven-member electorate can vary from one election to the next. That being the case, a mix of five-and a seven-member electorates seems to be the way to go.
There is a further consideration. The Proportional Representation (Hare Clark) Entrenchment Act requires a two thirds majority of the Assembly and a referendum to undo certain elements of the electoral system. We have to have an odd number of members in each electorate, five or more members in each electorate, no above-the-line party voting, and casual vacancies to be filled by a recount.
At the least the silly rule that requires people handing out how to vote cards on election day to be at least 100 metres from the polling place requires only a simple majority of the assembly to be expunged.
Unfortunately, it seems we are stuck with the count back method to fill casual vacancies. The next preferences of the votes of the retiring or dead member are used to determine who will fill the vacancy. It means we get someone who was not elected last time. It would be better to use the Senate system of getting the party to fill vacancies.
There is no harm in investigating ways to improve our electoral system. Humans are forever tinkering about to improve everything from mouse traps to Martian rockets. Why should the way we govern ourselves be any different?