The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday ran a story about the potential for an expansion of the number of seats in the Australian parliament.
I think there’s a strong case to make this change, and I made a submission to that effect to the current Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry.
Not only is the ratio of voters to each federal House of Representatives seat much higher now than it was when the parliament was last expanded in 1984, but there are a number of reasons to think that expanding the size of parliament would improve the representativeness of the parliament.
An expanded parliament would improve in a few ways: a larger assembly size is generally associated with more political diversity, it would specifically make the Senate more proportional, and it would help resolve a problem with the Senate tending to produce deadlocks because of the six members elected per state.
The Australian constitution doesn’t specify the size of the parliament, but it does put in place some rules that create a relationship between the size of the Senate and the size of the House.
The parliament decides the number of senators per state, and the number of senators representing the states (not including the territory senators) determines the House quota – which is set at a level so that the number of House members from the states is roughly twice the number of state senators.
So when parliament increases the number of senators, that produces an increase in the size of the House, usually twice as large as the increase.
This has happened twice. In 1949, the number of senators per state increased from six to ten, and the House increased from 74 to 121 seats. In 1984, the senate numbers increased from ten to twelve, and the House increased from about 125 to 148.
The Herald article lays out the evidence of the increased population since the last increase in 1984. The average population per House seat is now about 170,000, compared to 105,000 in the 1980s, 50,000 at Federation, and 92,000 per seat in the British parliament.
There is also a political science concept called the ‘cube root law‘ which observes that lower houses of national parliaments tend to have a number of members who are close to the cube root of the national population. The Wikipedia article helpfully includes those calculations for OECD countries. Australia ranks sixth out of 36th for the number of people per representative, and the cube root would suggest a House of about 294 members, not 151.
The Seat Product Model is an academic concept which takes the number of seats in a parliamentary assembly, and the average number of seats per district (magnitude), and finds that when those two numbers are multiplied together, they do a good job of predicting the effective number of parties in a parliament. Basically, increasing the size of a parliament tends to produce more political diversity, as does increasing the magnitude. I previously wrote about this concept in the context of Tasmania considering an increase in the size of its state parliament.
The SPM suggests that an expansion of the House would lead to more of a presence of smaller parties. An expansion of the Senate would produce an increase in assembly size, and an increased magnitude.
If House seats were smaller, it’s not hard to imagine that the Greens or independents could find themselves competitive in areas that are currently too small to elect an MP on their own. And of course the Senate would become more proportional if each state elected seven, eight or nine senators per election than the current six.
There would also be a short-term moment where a bunch of new seats would be created without sitting members, and that lack of incumbency might create a window of opportunity for parties outside of the major parties. But the change in the House would be subtle – the voting system still substantially favours the bigger parties.
I think a modest increase would see the number of state senators increased to 14 per state, and thus seven seats at each half-Senate election. This would increase the number of House seats to about 175 and I estimated the number of seats per state under that model in this 2022 post. You could also go up to 16 senators per state, and a House of about 200, or go even further.
I find it hard to imagine us going beyond this point at the moment, despite the talk of electing a House of 234 members.
There has been mention of wanting to expand the House until Tasmania’s electorates are in line with the size of seats in the rest of the country. This doesn’t particularly concern me. While Tasmania’s seats are much smaller on average, we are in the end only talking about 2 extra seats, which could be reduced to just one seat if the rest of the parliament was expanded sufficiently. Meanwhile Tasmania’s over-representation is much more significant in the Senate (and unfixable).
The number of senators representing each territory has no impact on the House, but I would imagine there would be a push to expand the number of senators per territory. I have heard suggestions for 3 or 4 senators per territory, or allocating territories the same number of senators as they have MPs (which would give the ACT a third senator but not give any extra to the NT, unless the House expansion was quite substantial).
The territory senators had consistently elected one Labor and one Coalition member at every election until 2022, when the Liberal Party lost their ACT spot to independent David Pocock.
If there were 3 in each territory, the ACT would split comfortably as 2 to the left and 1 to the right, which in the short term would be a gain for the Liberal Party, but would also solidify the second left seat currently held by Pocock (although in such an environment a party like the Greens would have a much better chance at winning, and could be expected to replace Pocock when he retired).
The three NT seats would probably split 2-1 to the left, but that second seat would be competitive.
There are particular benefits to political competitiveness in the Senate if you expand to an odd number of Senate seats elected at any time. I’m going to come back to this topic in a blog post later this week, but in short, the 6-seat model tends to produce a 3-3 tie between left and right at most elections, which means the rare 4-2 split tends to decide Senate control. A 7-seat model would be much more decisive, with the more popular “side” winning the seventh seat in each state.
This topic also reminds us of some potential constitutional changes that would be related to the size of parliament.
Firstly, the constitutional “nexus” that links the size of the Senate to the size of the House. There was a referendum in 1967 which attempted to remove this nexus, which would have allowed the House to expand without increasing the Senate. The opposition was led by the Democratic Labor Party, who argued that this would be disadvantageous to minor parties. In the end the House expansion came alongside a Senate expansion in 1984, which has definitely helped minor parties, so they likely had a point.
But it is possible you could tweak the nexus, or pair the abolition of the nexus with the creation of a formula for House size and a guarantee of a decent size for the Senate.
There are also questions about how joint sittings after a double dissolution would work if the House expanded without a proportionate Senate increase, since it would increase the House’s share of seats.
There was also a defeated referendum in 1988 to move the House to four-year terms, and at the same time was to cut Senate terms to four years too. I don’t feel strongly about four year terms for the House, but a reduction in the Senate terms would have had a big impact on proportionality in the Senate and improved opportunities for minor parties (and likely would have accelerated the problems with group voting tickets substantially).
This will get nowhere unless s24 of the Constitution is modified.
I will offer few points / opinions.
Has the new house got a defined capacity? In other words was it built with this natural population increase and hence increased number of political representatives in mind? If so what is its capacity limit? If not will we need to build a new parliament at some time in the near future, or will we go back to conditions similar to the old Parliament House?
Would this not be a good time to stop and reassess the fundamental belief that the Senate operates as a States House. It hasn’t operated or voted along State lines since I don’t know when. Sure it acts as a House of Review, but that review only comes about through the voting system that allows for a diversity of representation.
I suppose my radical idea, which I know won’t be accepted, is that both houses are combined and the electoral boundaries are redrawn and based on voting similar to the current upper house, or something similar, provided it allows for a more diverse range of political representation. You could still get fairer representation without hugely increasing the number of parliamentarians. I am a big believer in regionalism, so regions would be my starting point for these boundaries based around communities of interest and these CoI should not have to align within State boundaries.
I still thing rural and regional communities get a rough deal, based purely on population number. I am not arguing that they get a greater political representation, but I think they need more back office support to help them service and represent the vast distances their political representatives have to cover.
All true Ben. But a small constitutional point: you say “roughly twice the number of state senators” – s 24 actually says “as nearly as practicable” twice the number, and the High Court has said this allows for variations of 1 or 2 from the mathematical target because of rounding in the apportionment between States, but no more.
And a thought re the nexus – the proposal to abolish it was hamfisted and deserved to be defeated. But the (almost) strict 2:1 ratio means the numbers in the Reps can’t be gradually increased – it has to go up in mighty leaps of about 24 at a time. A more sensible proposal would be to change it to “not less than twice nor more than 3 times” so that the number of Reps could be inched up as population increases and then when the ratio reached 3 they could bring in more senators, drop the ratio back, and start the inching-up process again. Just a thought…
Sabena, I am curious why you think we can’t expand the parliament without amending the nexus? An increase to 14 senators would be sensible.
“Would this not be a good time to stop and reassess the fundamental belief that the Senate operates as a States House.”
What do you mean by ‘reassess’? I don’t think anyone believes that, but it’s baked into our constitution and can’t be changed.
Yes John, I’m aware of the precise constitutional mechanism, but this article was already long enough and I didn’t want to get into that. I think saying “roughly twice” is correct.
Ben,
I don’t think the public would accept an increase in the Senate,at all.With proportional representation you are simply encouraging fringe parties with the likelihood that passing legislation will be more difficult
A quota of 1/8th is still pretty damn high. And I don’t think the public has strong opinions about the exact quota for the Senate. If there’s pushback it would be against an expansion at all, not specifically the Senate.
A practical and fair solution is to increase the senate for the territories by one or two each. The population growth of ACT and NT since 1975, relative to Tasmania, warrants a change. This would relieve some, but not all, of the malapportionment in the Senate and even the HoR, because fast growing states like QLD would be allowed more HoR seats as Tasmania’s HoR seats remains static.
The problem with having 14 senators per state is that it doesn’t address the Tasmanian problem of having a high senator to voter ratio, that is malapportionment.
Ben
By “reassess” I mean a whole root and branch rethinking of our Constitution. Hence my opening statement “I suppose my radical idea, which I know won’t be accepted” is my viewpoint that Australians are so conservative that they won’t ever contemplate changing the Constitution, even though many of the political problems we have today have their genesis in a Constitution that was written over 120 years ago when the world and its problems were very much different to what we are facing now.
The starting point for me is always – what is the problem we are trying to fix? As the old maxim goes “a poorly defined problem has an infinite number of solutions”. It just seems to me that we are trying to create solutions to problems, when we should be firstly critically examining the root cause of the problem and then seeking to address that root cause first. For me we have an old antiquated system that is no longer fit for purpose and maybe we should just bell that cat and ask the good people of Australia what short of representative system of government do we want? And by that I mean we should have a full and frank opening up about the pros and cons of each and every possible option (even those that fall outside the ambit of the current constitution). If there is merit and support for any such measure, then the good voters WILL vote for a constitutional amendment.
I believe the recent review of the Reserve Bank had a similar viewpoint (if I have somewhat appropriated it), in that differing opinions were NOT being put before the Board for their consideration. If we want change, then we have to change the narrative to show an alternative, not just meekly accept the status quo as though it is set in stone and unchangeable.
Most constitutional change is difficult. I would include in that category tinkering with the nexus or the overlapping Senate terms.
Some constitutional change is impossible. To fix the malapportionment in the Senate you would need Tasmania to vote in favour. It won’t happen. We shouldn’t let that stop us from increasing the size of the parliament as best we can.
Votante, increasing the number of territory senators will do nothing for the House, since the House quota is based on the number of *state* senators.
Ben, I was suggesting a small step which would make it fairer for ACT/NT voters and candidates. If there were 80 senators (four per territory), then theoretically there could be 160 HoR members since Section 24 says that it should be twice the number of the senators.
Since decreasing Tasmania’s HoR and Senate seat count is next to impossible, a more practical solution is to increase them on the mainland.
Votante, as Ben mentioned Section 24 refers to senators elected from the six states. Therefore, increasing Territory senators will have no impact on the size of the House.
But you do have a good point that for ACT with a population over half that of Tasmania, it probably deserves at least 4 Senators regardless of what number you give the other states.
The starting point is we have hr seats which have too many electors to increase the number of seats reduces this problem. Also would help with changing strange boundaries… eg cook whitlam Durack to something much more in line with community interests. This allows mps to better look after their voters .
The Senate should have an odd number from each state as it would enable a governing majority to sometimes occur which is good for sensible legislating that undertakes reform rather than being blocked due to whatever special interests lobby the cross bench.
As a voter from NSW, its is blindingly obvious that giving the Territories MORE Senators so they have a level of representation closer to that of Tasmania, is idiotic. They seem to be doing very well out of the current system and have a level of representation similar to that of the 4th and 5th most populous states (WA and SA).
Come back to me with that complaint once you devise a system where NSW doesn’t have 4 members of the House for every Senator…..
I think the SMH article states that the current Parliament House chambers could just about fit all Members and Senators in if the House was expanded by 48 and the Senate by 12.
Do people think that after having had an even number of Senators elected at a half Senate election for 40 years now, moving to an off number will be resisted by the party or side of politics likely lose in the short term? or should we see this last 40 years as an aberration and acknowledge that an odd number is always better, for the reason Ben mentions.
It is very hard to get a 4-2 split and when it happens seems to have an out of proportion effect on our democracy. A 5-3 split would be easier to obtain (55.5% if my maths is correct, rather than the current 57% for a 4-2 split) and maybe even easier again with trend to lower votes for the two highest polling parties.
I tend to think that it was 49 years before Parliament first increased, then another 35 and now another 40+. To go only from 148 to 172 Members is a cop out, and we should go to straight to 192. With 1 less electorate officer per MP. Was the 1984 increase capped at a small increase because the Parliament building couldn’t handle anymore? If we were going to increase only by 24, we should have done so at least 15 years ago.
Ben, #1 this is an ideal topic for a Citizen’s Assembly!
There is a lot of merit to an increase, as that would be in our collective democratic best interest. But the problem at the moment is that the trust deficit in politics is so large, many lay people would assume that the fewer politicians, the better.
So instead of starting with a referendum with a specific change “Should the House be increased by X and the Senate increased by Y?”, we should start by asking a representative spectrum of Australian citizens a general question, like, “How should the parliament should be structured to serve the people?”
Ideally, the findings of the Citizen’s Assembly should be binding on the government for action – including the next steps such as a referendum, etc.
And some further comments:
2. Your argument for an odd number of senators to elect in each state is extremely convincing. This should be a priority consideration for an expansion.
3. While I don’t see the point of the states’ existence any more, I can’t see their removal being constitutionally possible. Instead, would it be constitutionally feasible to minimise duplication between federal and state levels? For example, all health and education services could move to the federal domain.
4. The increasing workloads of MPs should be met with an increase in minimum staffing levels.
5. If there’s to be any changes to the seating arrangements in either house, then we need a full renovation of each chamber with a semi-circular seating plan, a single main lectern (not two), and a randomised seating assignment. The binary and combative arrangement that we have at the moment has certainly past its use-by date. The whole parliamentary environment should be more favourable for respectful engagement and collaboration.
6. Fixed parliamentary terms would be a big improvement.
7. If the nexus was to be adjusted, then John Pyke’s broader ratio range sounds like a good idea.
This is exactly what I have been advocating for, and it’s great news articles are finally pointing it out, and the government is actually opening a committee to explore this.
Even if section 24 gets in the way of senate reform, can’t it just be modified by both houses? Or at worst, put to a referendum since it would be a constitutional change.
There is simply too many people per electorate now and it’s only going to get worse. The constitution could be amended where the senate doesn’t have to expand when the house does (The USA has 435 lower house seats to 100 senate seats) and the 5 seat rule per state could also be abolished.
I’m in favour of 14 senators per state, however the constitution could also be modified to make the senate proportional and give more populated states more senators and less populated ones fewer senators. This would be more democratic and reflect population.
The coalition would oppose these changes at first because for one it would mean more moderates in the party which might not bold well for the right-faction, and many in the coalition don’t want to change drastically. If you double the amount of seats in the house. You would have allot more new talent in the party that might call for drastic changes.
Great article Ben! The UK comparison is only helpful to a point given they have a different governing type to Australia. Australia has a system of federated States with the States still having a wide range of responsibilities and powers. This is not the case for UK. The US is probably a more relevant comparison given their state legislatures.
My proposed reform (that will most likely get nowhere) is:
– Expand the HoR nexus number from 144 to 180
– And then +1 Tasmania (They are still on 4.27-ish quotas)
– And then +3 ACT (3.35-ish quotas)
– And then +2 NT (1.58-ish quotas)
– Effectively 186 Seats
– 15 Seats per State in Senate (Territories do their own thing)
– All members of the senate elected at once (no staggered terms)
– Generally fixed 4-year terms (I believe 3 is too short but 5 is too long)
– Double Dissolution just becomes an early election
On a separate note, I believe that politicians are both overpaid and overworked. Both would cause them to become out of touch with society (in different ways!). I am happy with decreasing each politicians’ pay in exchange for less constituents and more staffers. Currently the base salary is 217k but I think reducing this to 140k is quite appropriate (It is still a lot in my eyes! Also I don’t think the travel/accommodation allowances are included in this figure.)
On another separate note, would this be a cynical move by Albo to make the Liberals implode? Their talent pool right now is VERY shallow (to the point where Michael Kroger wanted to install Tony Abbott as a senator), so this increase will force more Liberal members (not necessarily higher share within parliament) and thus force the party to put some talentless (and sometimes downright offensive) people from the party in the parliament, thereby further tarnishing their reputation?
The reason I started thinking was because I remember Trent Zimmerman (My previous local member) laments quite often on The Guardian about some of the (offensive) preselections.
“…however the constitution could also be modified to make the senate proportional and give more populated states more senators and less populated ones fewer senators….”.
Stop it Daniel, you’re making me hurt with laughter!
Ben
I just read your JSCEM submission and maybe I was too strong with the “idiotic” jibe before but I still don’t agree with the push for more Territory Senators. It’s a fact of history that the Territories didn’t have the status of Colonies as at Federation and thus weren’t part of the grand bargain that was and is Federation. Tasmania is a highly specific case and to even use it in comparisons is pointless and unjustifiable. We must remember that Tasmania was the second colony founded – it has a status more than just it size.
The Territories are lucky to have the two Senators they get – look at Washington DC for a comparator.
On a geographic sense, ACT is still in practical and economic terms still quite a part of NSW. For the town of Yass to have to share 12 Senators with the rest of NSW but Canberra to have 4 all to itself, just doesn’t pass the pub test.
Brilliant article as always. Thanks for all the work you do. I am really curious to see how this issue would play out in the court of public opinion. It’s easy to see that the frame of reference most people have towards this issue is something to the extent of… we don’t need more politicians, we need common sense blah blah etc. This is disappointing when we consider the number of benefits an enlarged parliament could bring.
The suggestion by some commentators that territory representation in the Senate can be increased and thus avoid the problem of s24 of the Constitution is flawed.
There was no territory representation until 1975, following the decision in Western Australia v Commonwealth (1975) 134 CLR 201 which was delivered on 17 October 1975.
The Court divided on whether s122 of the Constitution authorised territory representation under the Senate(Representation of Territories) Act 1973.McTiernan,Mason,Jacobs & Murphy held it was valid,Barwick,Gibbs and Stephen held it was invalid.
Mason J in dismissing concerns about increasing territory representation by swamping said this:-
” Two matters remain to be mentioned. The first is the grim spectre conjured up by the plaintiffs of a Parliament swamping the Senate with senators from the Territories, thereby reducing the representation of the States disproportionately to that of an ineffective minority in the chamber. This exercise in imagination assumes the willing participation of the senators representing the States in such an enterprise, notwithstanding that it would hasten their journey into political oblivion. It disregards the assumption which the framers of the Constitution made, and which we should now make, that Parliament will act responsibly in the exercise of its powers. (at p271)
26. Furthermore, such significance as the plaintiffs’ argument may have is diminished when it is appreciated that the Constitution provides no safeguard against the pursuit by Parliament of a similar course at the expense of the original States in allowing for the representation of new States in the Senate. Although s. 7 provides that equal representation of the original States shall be maintained in that chamber, neither the section nor the remaining provisions of Pt II of Ch. I place any restriction on the number of senators which Parliament may accord to a new State as its representation in the Senate. Here, again, the assumption is that Parliament will act responsibly. (at p271)”
The proposals put by some commentators here ignore those remarks,and if the Parliament adopted them,the constitutionality of the Act would undoubtedly be challenged and the decision could be overturned.Even if it were not overturned,the High Court is likely not to allow unrestricted use of the power under s122 to alter the essential characteristics of the Senate as a state house.
Any argument that there should be more House of Representative members comes up against the problem of an increase in Tasmanian senators (and there must be as the House seats are below quota).There are 2.4 senators in Tasmania for every MP.Why should that ratio increase?It can’t be said that the Tasmanian senators as a class have distinguished themselves,as is evident by their lack of representation in the ministry( 2 ministers,only one a senator).
Adding another Senator from the ACT is fair but unlikely to be championed in this term of Parliament because it would elect a Liberal Senator. Northern Territory population growth has basically flatlined at 0.4% and is unlikely to improve due to their economy. Once the State Government can’t afford to pay public service wages you’ll see more leaving. Keeping their second Member will be difficult unless the Feds draw a line under the minimum representation for Territories, much as Tasmania has as a Federation state.
Neil, moving to what would effectively be a unicameral system would be an absolute disaster – and Queensland is a good example of what happens without any process of review. Also the problem with regional and rural community representation is particularly marked in Queensland because there is currently a breakdown with electorate boundaries when it comes to “communities of interest” guidelines. Once you get to Noosa every major city heading north is split between multiple electorates. Take Dawson as an example – half of Mackay, all of the Whitsundays except for Collinsville (which is in Capricornia), most of the Burdekin and part of Townsville. A sensible boundary would be the council areas of Mackay and Whitsundays – and so on across Queensland. Hopefully this will be addressed in the next redistribution.
Peter, you could reduce the workload (and additional need for electorate officers) by simply taking email addresses away from politicians. Removing the expectation of a reply from any idiot with a spare two minutes and a grudge sitting on the toilet at 2 am would cut the workload significantly. While I wouldn’t expect everyone to write a letter (or make a phone call) you could be reasonably certain they’ve had to organise their thoughts beforehand.
Leon, the point of staggered terms in the Senate is to provide a brake on swings in the lower house. While there can be some quite dramatic movements on the House of Reps, an equal swing for the half-Senate has a lesser effect. While this can lead to an obstructionist upper house, it can also provide protection against a populist or single-issue wave.
Mark
I think you missed my (unstated) point.
Having both houses combined and then voted in on a multi-proportional basis would allow for greater diversity of representation and HOPEFULLY better consideration of legislation passed. There is NO guarantee that this WILL result in better legislation, in much the same way that having a Senate does NOT always result in better legislation. Your point is a false dichotomy.
I happen to live in Queensland (post-Joh years) and while it is not perfect, at least when a government is formed in the house – all responsibility and accountability falls on that party / parties. There is no-one else to blame but themselves. Witness the news today of the Greens holding Labor to ransom over rent control, simply because Labor needs Green support in the Senate to get its budget through. Notwithstanding where you sit on this matter – is this any less of a disaster?
On electoral boundaries I am agnostic. I mentioned regions because I come from a land use planning background and Queensland has a well developed series of regional plans (e.g. South East Queensland Regional Plan) and to my way of thinking they form a good basis for aligning Local / State and Federal planning for a given area with political representation; and they are sufficient large enough that they will fit in with a multi-proportional voting system that can deliver a diversity of representation.
@mark yore. addiing another senator will most likely elect another left winger. I think most people who did deals with pocock thought he might be independant but his track record is to side with labor and help them pass controversial legislation. im guessing he’ll be booted at the next election and the liberals will get it back. if he hadnt gotten in the scoialist legislation the governemtn has been passing would not have made it through.
@Sebena – very good analysis and the issues in the interpretation of 124 in the WA case. I haven’t read that case cited since third year law school but my recollection is the same as you described. The Majority said ok to territory senators but if you take the piss (or modern less vulgar term seems to be “doesn’t pass the pub test”) then we will revisit this.
The example that “wouldn’t pass the pub test” I remember from Uni where the HC might limit territory senators was the creation of new territories (or new states) from within existing states – eg New England, Riverina, Newcastle & Central Coast, Wollongong etc. with the residual state of NSW (ie Sydney) having 12 senators and then the new states and territories asking for more senators. If two each then there would be another 8 based on the above (ignoring the etc). Which would mean that NSW would effectively have 20 Senators.
Of course, this is what has happened with the NT and ACT as they were ceded from SA and NSW in 1911. Accordingly, SA and NSW have arguably got and extra two Senators compared with the other States due to them ceding territory to the Commonwealth. Although the time of the ceding of the territory and the granting of the senatorial representation was over 60 years apart.
Conversely, the Territory of Jervis Bay (population 300-400 and ceded to CTH Govt by NSW in 1915) does not have its own Senators but instead is represented by the ACT Senators. Apart from giving the Commonwealth its own deep water port, the start of a nuclear industry and reactor (Murray Beach car park is the foundations of the reactor), the main purpose of Jervis Bay is that all Military personnel are subject to the laws of the Territory of Jervis Bay on an extra-jurisdictional basis so that they are covered by Cth laws regardless of where an offence may be committed (most recently murder allegedly committed in Afghanistan by an Australian soldier).
Best
Pollster
@ neil flanagan can you link that thing about the greens and rent control?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-26/greens-vow-to-sink-housing-fund-seeking-negative-gearing-changes/102266434
@potatoes No, it won’t. Adding another Senator will reduce the quota to 25%. At the last election the primary votes were ALP 33.37%, LIB 24.80%, David Pocock 21.18%, The Greens 10.29%. No-one else got over 4.5%. Pocock picked up a huge chunk of the ALP, Green and LNP votes with swings against all three around 7 percent. Adding an extra seat would have been enough to push LIB into a full quota with the support of the UAP or leakages from other parties.
@Neil Flanagan The temptation when you have absolute power, irrespective of your best intentions, is to abuse it. I will point out that both the abolition of the Upper House (over the express wishes of a referendum taken the year before) and the weighted seat arrangements that produced a gerrymander were both the unintended consequences of ALP decisions. Without those changes the National Party wouldn’t have had the ability to abuse the system. I’d also like to point out that unicameral Parliaments tend to stack out the Committee system and then ignore them, something which is much more difficult to do with a bicameral system.
If you’re arguing for multi-member constituencies I’d probably look at the case more favourably – however they are also subject to mismanagement by tinkering. There are four different systems of voting for local government in Queensland at the moment due to decisions made by the ECQ and they produce wildly differing results. The other problem is the increasing centralising of decision-making in the South-East corner. As someone who is basically living between Brisbane and North Queensland it’s interesting how the attitudes in each are also moving further and further apart, especially on topics such as the Olympics.
With the Senate I’ve advocated that occasionally it makes sense for the LNP to support the ALP, if only to neuter the Greens.
@neil yea theyve been trying that for a while thought labor actuall caved. being a qld resident you have the unfortunate problem having no upper house as they voted themselves out of existence back in 1922 when labor had a majority now governement is left unchecked and unchallenged. and no governement has the will to brin it back since they all benefit from it. as a liberal voter i always vote other centre right parites beause no party should be left unchecked.
Mark, I can see why hiding MPs email addresses could be a tempting move to reduce workloads, but I wouldn’t want to see that change occur. MPs need to be accessible to their constituents if they are to be a decent representative. Besides, there would still be a huge workload from reviewing legislation, collaborating with experts and other MPs, meeting with constituents, etc…
Neil, you mentioned, “Notwithstanding where you sit on this matter – is this any less of a disaster?” It’s not a disaster at all. Labor and the Greens have each been voted in their respective positions to pursue their particular interests. Sure, democracy can be messy sometimes, but it’s in the public interest that only broadly acceptable policies are passed.
Also Neil, your earlier point, “what is the problem we are trying to fix?” is a very good one.
@Peter A little tongue in cheek, but as a former Senate staffer we used to get around 250 public emails a day (this was 2007-2014) of which less than 20 would be actually casework. That doesn’t include the vast amounts of spam. The rest were 1) general and occasionally specific abuse; 2) cc to everyone bulk emails; 3) out-of-area emails (mostly complaints which were forwarded to the respective local member/correct level of government); or 4) delusional ramblings (although most of those came by post). Unfortunately that got in the way of helping people with real problems.
You’ll notice most first responses these days come back as auto-replies saying that your email has been noted and will only be responded to if you’re a constituent.
Pre-email, people actually had to come into the office, phone or write a letter and then post it. This involved some level of engagement on their part and generally meant a higher proportion of actionable queries.
There’s an absolute fortune to be made for the first person to get a proper AI filter working on electorate mailboxes.
Mark, thanks for sharing your experiences. Yeah, it’s good to look for ways to be more efficient. (One only has to look at some banks or Centrelink for examples where “customer service” is increasingly difficult to access – it wouldn’t be popular with voters if MPs went down that path!) More broadly, the funding of a decent allocation of staff for MPs should be considered a reasonable and important investment in democracy, and a much smaller cost than making mistakes or making the wrong decision.
Prime minister needs to show leadership and intervene in the loss or a seat. This country is growing and population is increasing, how is it democratic that we are losing a seat? And there is nothing we can do at the ballot box because it seems all parties aren’t discussing it as an issue.
After the indigenous voice referendum, it’s time to talk about electoral reform, and before a republic referendum, because Australia is lagging behind in seats compared to other countries. We have the same number of seats as the Dutch parliament despite the fact they have 10 million LESS people.
@daniel T it’s because how the electoral act works seat quotas are determined by population and depending on how the population shifts in different states. It has moved in a way that several states are close to receiving another seat but not over the 50% mark by my estimation QLD is at about .48 or 48% of a quota. If the population shifts right the maximum seats could be as high as 153. This is not the first time seat numbers have gone backwards. As the constitution won’t allow for any more. So they will need to increase the number of senators. I reckon it’s time to increase to 4 per territory. Thereby allowing territory senators to serve the full 6 years and be elected on a half Senate election the same way. 3 senators in the territory will be unfeasible as it will be seen as gerrandering by the left.and will ultimately only benefit the greens. This will increase the senate to 80. And increase the house to maximum of 161. More senators in the states is not yet needed but will be the next step I. Future
I would prefer if the 144 seats as set out in the nexus is distributed among the 6 states not by a quota system but by using the D’Hondt system. Then Tasmania can be granted few extras to get up to 5, and the Territories can simply use quotas as we always have.
Having 0.49 quota excess will always have bigger effects in SA than in NSW/VIC in a quota system so that will be solved too.
But I prefer if the parliament expand anyway.
Another solution (which’ll never happen due to the constitution) I thought of is to increase the Nexus Number gradually until none of the 6 states will be losing seats between elections. This enables a gradual increase in HoR.
In doing so I want to enable the Senate to grow gradually by granting an extra senator (every 2nd time the HoR expands) to the largest state that haven’t been given an extra senator yet (i.e. NSW -> Vic -> Qld -> WA -> SA -> Tas). It may annoy Tasmanians a bit but the actual impact it causes them is negligible.
Btw this means some elections in a state will have 7 senators up for election while others will have 6 though.
Potatques
The nexus does not include the territories. That was struck down in 1977. Increasing territories senators does not affect the Reps.
Leon
The constitution clearly states that each state must have the same number of senators and then the nexus takes care of the Reps number. Only conceivable and realistic option is for senate to be increased to 14 or 16 per state. There is however leeway for how each state is divided internally so there could be 6 electorates now for example. Hard to see any government changing away from a whole state constituency.
@Redistributed
Purely for the of avoiding looking like an idiot (just in case I even need to do that), I did acknowledge the constitution will make the gradual senate hence HoR increase impossible though in hindsight I could have clarified that much better in my post.
I think the senate should be expanded to 18 per state.
IIRC this is the level at which Tasmania actually gets 5 seat quotas and therefore the house becomes much more proportional. 9 per half senate election means a quota is 10% – that sounds reasonable.
It sounds like a lot of politicians but compared to the UK or Canada or NZ we don’t have that many federal politicians per capita.
I don’t think you can say it gets “much more proportional” when we’re talking about the current House only being 2 seats away from the proportional allocation. It’s a minimal gain.
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