There’s been a lot of talk about expanding the size of Australia’s federal parliament in the last few years. Some of us have been talking about this for a lot longer, but it has seemed feasible since Labor took power in 2022.
Expanding the parliament is well overdue, with over four decades passing since the last increase in 1984. An expanded parliament would bring the parliament closer to the people, reducing the number of people represented by each MP, and creating more space for diversity within the parliament. I explained my thoughts more fully in this 2023 blog post. You can also read a number of blog posts gathered at this tag.
There was some reporting yesterday about Don Farrell specifically asking the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ inquiry into the recent election to consider the question of expanding the parliament, along with the possibility of fixed four-year terms.
So for today’s post, I wanted to look at what would happen if the Parliament were expanded, and what would need to happen if the Parliament was to make a change to its numbers.
Just as a refresher, the number of seats in the House of Representatives is determined by the numbers of seats in the Senate. A population quota is set by dividing the population of the six states by twice the number of senators representing those states. That quota is then applied to the population of each state and territory to determine their seat entitlement after each election. A referendum was held in 1967 to break this “nexus”, and allow the House to grow without growing the Senate, but it was defeated.
The Parliament can simply change legislation to increase the number of senators per state, and this would cause the number of seats in the House to grow. The Senate entitlement was increased from six to ten prior to the 1949 election, and again from ten to twelve prior to the 1984 election.
Thirty-five years passed between the first and second increase. If the Parliament were to be expanded in 2028, it would have been forty-four years.
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As Australia’s population has grown over time, the average number of residents and voters in each electorate has increased. Expansions of parliament won’t completely undo that trend, but they can unwind it somewhat. The 1984 expansion made the average seat population lower than in 1972.
These are the two most modest, but also most likely, options: giving each state fourteen senators (an increase of 12), or sixteen senators (an increase of 24).
If we were to expand the Parliament by 12 Senate seats, this would reduce the average population back to 2016 levels. Expand the parliament by 24 seats, and we’d be reverting the average back to 2007 levels.
So how would these changes apply to each state? It seems likely that no there will be no change to state entitlements prior to the next election, if there is no Senate increase. So the twelve-senator model is the same as the status quo.
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The five biggest states all benefit under both scenarios in roughly the same proportions.
Tasmania, as an original state, is entitled to five seats despite only having enough population for three seats. Either of these expansion scenarios would bring Tasmania’s population up to four seats. A 14-senator model would solidify the current House numbers for the two largest territories, but a 16-senator model would see the ACT gain a fourth seat.
So if the government is serious about expanding the Parliament, what would need to happen next?
If there is a change in the number of seats in the House, that will have knock-on effects in changing each state’s entitlement. The entitlement is typically determined one year after the first sitting of the House. Assuming no change in the size of the Parliament, that will be determined for the next election in July 2026. Right now, it seems unlikely that this will trigger any redistributions.
But if the Parliament is expanded, it will trigger redistributions for the five largest states, and possibly the ACT. Tasmania is already undergoing a redistribution anyway, so redistributions would be conducted in every jurisdiction except the NT.
This would be the biggest burden on the AEC’s mapmakers since 1984.
During the last redistribution, I did some research into how long past redistributions have taken, and I found that the last round of redistributions did take quite a long time. For this post, I’ve also looked back at the 1984 redistribution cycle, to see how long things took back then.
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The start of the redistribution process in 1984 started roughly around the same time as it does nowadays, but it all happened much quicker. The whole process was finished less than 600 days after the previous election, despite the need to pass fresh legislation rebuilding the redistribution process.
In contrast, it now usually takes around 750 days to finalise redistributions. The last redistribution cycle took close to 900 days to finish.
I there has been an increasing burden on the Commission to conduct the redistribution process.
In 1984, across New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, there were 574 submissions across three rounds of public submissions. In those three states in 2023-24, there were 1987 submissions across four rounds of public submissions.
I don’t think the clock can be unwound, and I don’t think it’s possible to redraw electoral boundaries with the speed that was possible back in 1984. So if we are going to expand the parliament, the mapmakers will need time to get the job done.
There is reason to think that the scale of the job in front of the mapmakers during the last parliamentary term led them to being more conservative in redrawing the map – a topic I’ll return to in another post.
Creating another 25-50 seats will be a very significant change in how federal elections work, and the process can’t be rushed, and the public is entitled to have their say properly.
The JSCEM inquiry after the 2022 election recommended a further inquiry to consider whether the Parliament should be expanded. That inquiry didn’t happen in the last parliament, and the issue has been left unresolved.
If the government wants to move on this issue, they need to do it early in the term. The time is right, now.