Page 2022 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 August 2014
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placed on changes to the size of the Assembly by the Proportional Representation (Hare-Clark) Entrenchment Act 1994, and to recommend options for increasing the size of the Assembly, including the number of electorates and the number of members for each electorate.
In addition, I asked the reference group to undertake community consultation and provide an opportunity for making submissions. The reference group undertook their work very diligently and promptly. They published a discussion paper to assist interested members of the public to make written submissions to the review. The reference group did receive a number of written submissions from a wide range of Canberra citizens, community groups, experts in electoral law and other stakeholders across the community, including the YWCA, the Woden Valley Community Council—in fact, most of the community councils—and some of the trade unions.
The consultation process overall demonstrated I think a wide understanding of the issues being faced by this Assembly in terms of workload and the additional demands being placed on it compared to when it was established in 1989 and overall supported and increase in the size of the Assembly. A minority of submissions either supported the status quo or raised issues such as winding back self-government or, indeed, other models of government.
The reference group provided me with its final report on 28 March 2013. In its report, the reference group noted that 11 inquiries held between 1974 and 2012 touched on the issue of the size of the Assembly. Nine of these inquiries recommended that the Assembly should be larger than its present size and two, held back in 1990 and 1999, recommended the Assembly remain at its present size.
The reference group expressed a view that an increase in the size of the Assembly was warranted and pointed to evidence that demonstrated that the small size of the Assembly, and particularly the ministry, posed a significant risk to good government in the ACT.
The reference group recommended that the Assembly be increased to 25 members at 2016, consisting of five electorates each returning five members and that the Assembly be increased to 35 members at the 2020 election, consisting of five electorates each returning seven members. On the second part—the expansion to 35—I note the recommendation in the committee’s report into the electoral law amendments that there are options of dealing with further expansion for the Assembly if required. At this point I think the move to 25 members in 2016 is the most important matter to determine.
The reference group highlighted that the ratio of elected members to enrolled voters is the highest in Australia. Also, without the level of councils to represent the Canberra community, there is one member to 12,247 electors, with the next highest ratio being in Victoria, where there is one elected member per 4,480 electors. Even if you do not use that as a major consideration in a decision around expansion, it certainly has the ACT starkly ahead in terms of the numbers of constituents that each MLA is required to support. ACT voters have the lowest rate of representation of all Australian states and territories. Together these bills will contribute to providing an increased level of representation for ACT voters and give them a greater voice.
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