No doubling of ACT senate numbers despite Labor promises

There’s a clever line from a 1968 song by the late American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson* that goes: “Two can be as bad as one, it’s the loneliest number since the number one.”

He couldn’t have been thinking about how many senators from the ACT there should be in Australia’s Federal Parliament because the ACT didn’t have any senators at all until 1975.

And Nilsson likely didn’t even know (or care) if Australia had a Senate.

But the year the song came out is intriguing because it was in 1968 when Gough Whitlam, then the Leader of the Opposition, first introduced legislation to install senators in both the ACT and the Northern Territory.

His reasoning was simple: it was all about Australians living in those territories being properly represented.

“The Bill represents the culmination and consummation of the process of representation of the two mainland Territories in the Australian Parliament,” he said when introducing the legislation.

“For as long as the Australian Parliament is bicameral, it is in accordance with all our political tenets and instincts that all portions of Australia and all people of Australia should be represented in both Houses of the Parliament.

“It is proper that the governed should have a share in choosing their governors and calling them to account.

“The Constitution requires this as regards the States; it permits it as regards the Territories.

“We should not permit the position to continue any longer where residents and electors of the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory can choose representatives in one alone of the two chambers of this Parliament.”

It took another six years and a Labor government with Gough at the helm before the legislation (another version of it, at least) was passed in 1974.

The ACT had a population of 116,604 then, which doubled in size over the following decade.

Today, more than 470,000 people live in the Australian Capital Territory, but we still only have two senators.

But as Nilsson said (sang), two can be as bad as one.

And as the old truism goes, there is safety in numbers.

There is certainly better representation and greater accountability.

Every state in Australia is represented by 12 senators – even Tassie – while the ACT and the NT are stuck with two.

As Region reported last week, that isn’t about to change anytime soon despite Labor’s national platform committing to double each territory’s senate representation.

Region can now also confirm that those plans are firmly ensconced on the backburner while the Federal Government seeks an easier passage for other electoral reforms, including on political donations.

Labor hasn’t found bipartisanship on territory senate numbers and it is using that as an excuse to try less hard.

A Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Reform has recommended the increase and the crossbench is mostly in favour of it.

But the government won’t be acting on it before the next election.

Perhaps Labor will use next year’s federal election campaign to promise to double the ACT’s senate representation – just like they promised exactly that in the last federal election campaign.

Tasmania’s population is roughly only 100,000 more than that of the ACT, yet its senate representation is six times greater.

It doesn’t compute – 12 senators representing 570,000 people and only two senators representing 470,000 people.

The legitimacy of the presence of territory senators in the senate – which is, after all, sometimes known as the states’ house – no longer raises eyebrows, but Gough had a huge fight on his hands to get the nation to that point.

The legislation only passed following affirmation at a joint sitting of the two houses of parliament.

Two High Court challenges were then subsequently launched but thankfully failed.

Many at that time believed the introduction of territory representation to the Senate was a danger to the “federal balance” of the Constitution.

There are obviously those today who still recoil at the thought of giving those pesky territories too much say on Capital Hill.

If only there was someone in the Labor Party today with enough Gough-like determination to stand up to those parliamentarians who don’t care enough for fair, equal representation.

* Apologies for tenuously misappropriating Harry Nilsson’s lyrics.