Ben was joined by Frank Bongiorno and Chris Monnox to discuss the history of Australia’s federal parliament being expanded, in 1949 and 1984. We discuss the motivations for these changes, the positions taken by the parties and why it happened when it did. We also discuss efforts to break the ‘nexus’ which links the size of the House to the size of the Senate.
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The NO case in 1967 for the nexus referendum was formulated by the Democratic Labor Party and some influential conservative Liberal Senators like Reg Wright. Their concern was the downgrading of the Senate and their populist pitch was that it would open the door to “far more politicians”. This was a very potent factor for the NO vote. Today a similar referendum, if supported by both ALP and Coalition, could be scuppered just as easily by One Nation recycling the “more politicians” argument.