Territory representation, yet again

The question of territory representation is back on the agenda in Australia, with the release yesterday of the final report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM). (For previous posts on this issue, see here, here and here.)

Every three years the JSCEM holds an enquiry on the conduct of the previous federal election and makes recommendations on possible changes to rules and procedures. It’s a good opportunity for a review of how things are working, but it’s also a chance for the government of the day to float some trial balloons, putting forward changes that preserve an element of deniability if they’re not favorably received.

Last time around, three years ago, the then Coalition government used the report to suggest a number of quite radical changes that were never heard of again – including at least one that would have been very worthwhile, the introduction of optional preferential voting. That’s now firmly off the table, since it’s not in the interests of the present Labor government; instead, most of the contentious sections of the report are about reform to political donations and expenditure caps.

But an earlier section of the report discusses equity of representation, and includes the following recommendation (No. 2): “that the representation of the territories in the Senate be increased from two to four Senators each.”

This is an extraordinarily bad idea, and especially so for a committee (and a government) that claims to be concerned about equity. The biggest inequity in the Senate is the huge disproportion between the representation of larger and smaller states; increasing representation for the territories, each of which is smaller than the smallest state, would make the problem worse, not better.

Some figures will illustrate the point. The 76 senators currently represent a population of a little under 26 and a half million (March 2023 estimates), or not quite 350,000 people each. But the Australian Capital Territory, with 467,607 people, and the Northern Territory, with 254,139, have two senators each, a representation of 233,804 and 127,070 people per senator respectively. In other words, the territories are already over-represented, with better representation than four of the six states. Yet the JSCEM proposes to double their representation!

A Gallagher or least squares index on the current scheme of representation gives a figure of 18.0 (where larger is worse, and zero is perfect fairness); adding four more territory senators would increase it, to 18.5. The territory senators would represent fewer people than the senators from every state except Tasmania.

The committee admits these facts, but comments, no doubt correctly, that the intent of territory representation, introduced in 1974, was not “to grant territory representation based on population.” But in a striking non sequitur it then argues that “territory representation should be considered on a similar basis to the representation of the smaller states in the Senate.” But why the smaller states? Why not the larger states?

As you might not be surprised to find out, there’s a political reason for this. Increased representation for the ACT would give Labor a political advantage. While four Northern Territory senators would almost certainly split two each, making no net difference, it would be harder for the Coalition to win two ACT senators than it currently is for it to win one: it would need 40% of the vote after preferences as against the present 33%.

Last year the Coalition failed to win a single ACT senator,* but that was the first time that had happened. With four seats at stake, a 3-1 split would be more common; in all but its best years, the Coalition would struggle to get a second senator elected.

No doubt that’s the reason why the Coalition members of the committee, in their dissenting report, strongly attacked this recommendation. Their positions do not otherwise show any great commitment to fairness or democracy, but on this point they are absolutely right, calling it “the greatest level of malapportionment since Federation.” It is especially sad to see the Greens, who are usually the best of the parties on questions of democracy, letting self-interest trump principle and support the recommendation.

I also think there’s something else going on apart from the partisan political interest. Government is largely about targeted benefits and diffuse costs; zero-sum (or negative-sum) situations are dressed up as positive social benefits because the costs are so widely distributed that the people who are paying them either don’t notice or aren’t affected enough to complain. That’s how taxation and spending work, but it also applies to representation.

If you’re a voter – or, even more so, a lobbyist or other stakeholder – in the ACT or the Northern Territory, an extra two senators would be really noticeable; your representation would very obviously increase. If you’re in New South Wales or Victoria, the loss would be too small to register: a NSW voter would find the share of the Senate represented by their vote falling from 0.0000033% to 0.0000031%.

But there are enormously more of them than there are voters in the territories, and that loss of voting power adds up. Representation is a zero-sum game; if someone is getting more of it, someone else must be getting less. The Senate already has a big problem of fairness. Let’s not make it worse.

.

* Teal-ish independent David Pocock got up instead. He is a member of the JSCEM and of course strongly supports the recommendation.