No more pollies for Canberra

For the last eight years the current ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope has been pushing for an increase in the size of the ACT Legislative Assembly from its current 17 members.

In 2005 a Select Committee he appointed recommended the number be increased, with ACT Labor favouring 25 members and the Liberals and Greens preferring 21.

No increase in the size of the Legislative Assembly can proceed without the approval of the Federal Territories Minister. In spite of intense lobbying by Stanhope and then Liberal leader Brendan Smyth, the Federal Territories Minister (under the Howard Government) refused to allow any increase.

With a Federal Labor government in power, Jon Stanhope has renewed his push to increase the size of the Legislative Assembly. However, aware of the electoral unpopularity of an increase, Stanhope will not give the people of the ACT a say. It will be arranged behind closed doors and imposed on the ACT electorate.

Below is an extract from the Newsletter of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia, March 2003. It reports the response of Jon Stanhope when independent MLA Helen Cross refused to support his plan for a larger assembly without first consulting the electorate.

“An irate Chief Minister, hearing that Mrs Cross would not support any increase without a referendum, announced on 19th November 2002 that his motion would not proceed. He attacked others for allegedly putting narrow self-interest before the public interest, which demanded a large increase (in the size of the ACT Legislative assembly)” 

Liberal Democratic Party objections to a larger Assembly

The LDP's policies are based on the principle that smaller, less intrusive governments serve the community better than large governments funded by higher taxes.

In the case of the ACT Government it favours a 'back to basics' approach that concentrates on essential infrastructure and services such as garbage collection, sewerage, water, electricity, roads, hospitals, schools and police.

Furthermore, with obvious exceptions (eg the police) it would leave the provision of these to the private sector as much as possible. The aim of the Government is to establish a regulatory environment that encourages positive community outcomes and active competition.  If public servants are not involved in the delivery of services, bureaucrats will only be required for regulatory functions. The tax burden on the ACT community would be reduced considerably.

A larger Assembly with an additional 8 MLAs would burden ACT taxpayers with salaries of around $1,000,000 plus their staff and costs. Additional MLAs are not required for the better delivery of services to the residents of the ACT. In reality, they would busy themselves finding ways to waste even more public money on ever more fanciful and unnecessary projects.

The LDP is opposed to any increase in the number of ACT MLAs and will seek to extract a guarantee from both Liberal and Labor parties that they will not attempt to increase the size of the assembly during the next 4 years.