When the Institute of Public Affairs and the left-wing Australia Institute agree on a policy, it’s likely a meritorious one that deserves consideration.
It’s a reminder of how broken our political system has become when a proposal to increase the number of members of federal parliament was killed off by the Prime Minister late last month after the Coalition dared the government to publicly support it.
Sensible people in the Labor and Liberal parties have supported an increase, as the number of voters per federal seat – almost 121,000 – has become absurdly large, making a mockery of the idea that MPs share a deep connection with constituents. There’s been no significant increase in federal parliamentarians since 1984, despite a near doubling of the population.
Then Liberal MP James Stevens in 2024 asked the Parliamentary Budget Office to cost an increase of 24 new MPs and 16 senators. Labor minister Don Farrell has been promoting a similar change too.
Representation isn’t the only argument in favour of change. Committees with odd numbers of members are logically able to produce clear majorities, yet our half-Senate elections make only six Senate spots available in every state (and four for the territories).
Whatever the trials and tribulations of individual parties, those of the right and left in Australia enjoy the support of about half the electorate, which tends to produce impotent 3-3 voting blocs. Half-Senate elections of seven or nine senators per state would make the upper house more likely to produce ideological majorities – and more quickly.
Significantly more members and senators would help transform the parliament from a costly rubber stamp for the government into what it was meant to be: a check on power and a forum for a genuine exchange of ideas.
Section 65 of the Constitution mandates that the number of ministers “should not exceed seven in number … until the parliament otherwise provides”.
It’s a great shame that second part was included, because the number of ministers and hangers-on dependent on government largesse has exploded, ensuring no backbencher dares criticise the government for fear of ruling out a potentially lucrative promotion.
While our question time has become a stage-managed joke, in the UK’s 650-member House of Commons MPs in the cheap seats routinely rise to slam senior members of their own party – the ratio of ministers to backbench MPs is tiny.
Meanwhile, in Canberra, the ratio is ludicrously large. In 2019, for instance, I wrote a column that pointed out how 96 of the 104 Coalition members of the federal parliament were ministers, former ministers, committee chairs or deputy chairs, or holders of some other parliamentary office that bumped up their salary.
Comically, more than 40 per cent of Coalition MPs were ministers given the Morrison government’s previous slim election victory.
Angus Taylor warned that expanding the parliament would cost $620m including all associated staff and travel costs. But that was over eight years, and amounts to a farcically small share of the $786bn the federal government plans to spend this financial year alone.
The National and Liberal parties apparently didn’t think to make their support for any increase strictly conditional on permanent budget savings, a move that doesn’t inspire confidence in their ability to slash the budget by far more than a relatively paltry $78m a year.
Educated proponents of the prevailing number of seats might well quote the great conservative writer Edmund Burke, who famously told voters in the late 18th century in Bristol that their representative in London “owed you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion”.
Naturally, members of parliament should think for themselves and be prepared to persuade their constituents of what he or she believes to be right. But surely Burke assumed MPs would at least know what their constituents’ views were to begin with.
Rapid population growth in the cities relative to the regions has created numerous vast federal seats larger than most European nations, making it practically impossible, and even dangerous, for MPs to attempt to meet voters. Durack in Western Australia is larger than France and Spain combined.
Moreover, as urban seats become larger and larger, they necessarily become more similar to each other, neutering the whole point of a Westminster system that is meant to give different regions and suburbs a unique voice.
The modest increase currently on the table would still leave the federal parliament critically smaller than its peers. Canada’s federal lower house includes 341 members, for instance, while New Zealand’s has around 30,000 voters per member.
Perhaps fearful of the direct financial impact of One Nation’s rise, the two major parties recently got together to legislate a massive increase in their claim on the public purse. Soon the per vote taxpayer-funded subsidy of political parties will jump from around $3.50 to $5, the biggest increase ever.
The IPA and the Australia Institute probably would not agree on that outrageous gouge. If only the two parties had chosen instead to conspire on something that would both benefit them as well as the voting public.
Alas, for now that seems too much to ask.
