Page 1824 - Week 06 - Thursday, 5 June 2014
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The move to increase the size of the Legislative Assembly to 25 members is consistent with the findings of an expert reference group chaired by the Electoral Commissioner into the size of the Assembly in 2013. The expert reference group’s report recommended that the size of the Assembly be increased, and it specifically recommended an increase to 25 members with five members returned from five electorates at the 2016 election. That report also recommended that the Assembly be increased to 35 members at the 2020 election.
In coming to this conclusion, the expert reference group sought community, expert and stakeholder reviews and received a number of submissions. The group took into account the fact that all other parliaments in Australia have at least 25 members and that all other Australian jurisdictions also have local government. In the ACT both state and local government functions are carried out by the Legislative Assembly.
The expert reference group further noted the wider range of roles and responsibilities exercised by the territory now that simply did not exist in 1989, the first year of self-government. Another factor taken into account by the group was the extensive range of services the ACT is responsible for but which are provided to residents in the wider capital region of New South Wales.
The expert reference group reported that the current small size of this Assembly and the executive poses a significant risk to good government in the ACT. To give effect to the committee’s recommendations to increase the Assembly to 25 members, two separate amendments are required. The first is this stand-alone bill, the Australian Capital Territory (Legislative Assembly) Bill, which will require a two-thirds majority to take effect. The Australian Capital Territory (Legislative Assembly) Bill is made under section 8 of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988.
The self-government act sets the number of members at 17 or such number of members as provided for by enactment. It requires that any enactment to change the number of members must be passed by at least two-thirds of the members of this place. Also, any law to which the Proportional Representation (Hare-Clarke) Entrenchment Act 1994 applies, including a law which changes the number of members of the Assembly, requires either passage by a two-thirds majority of members of the Assembly or by a majority of electors at a referendum.
This bill is short, with a single substantive provision. In that substantive provision, subsection (1) states that the act is made for the purposes of section 8(2) of the self-government act. Section 8(2) of the self-government act allows for the number of Assembly members to be provided for by enactment. Subsection (2) fixes the number of members of the Assembly at 25. Importantly, subsection (3) provides that the number of members fixed in subsection (2) applies to the Assembly constituted by members elected at a general election after the commencement of the act. In other words, the Assembly does not immediately increase to 25 members. I expect the Electoral Commissioner will be relieved by this. The next Assembly, the Ninth Assembly for the ACT, will have 25 members.
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