Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise to support the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Ensuring Fair Representation of the Northern Territory) Bill 2020 in the strongest possible terms. 'One vote, one value' is an important principle in our democracy, and we know that periodic electoral redistributions take place to make sure that this principle is maintained. But it is not the only principle that is important in Australian democracy. Indeed, given its growing population, should the current electoral redistribution go ahead in the Northern Territory, the very principle of 'one vote, one value' would be undermined because of the extraordinary number of people who would end up in the one and only Northern Territory lower house electorate.

Our Constitution enshrines a minimum level of representation for each of our states in the House of Representatives. The low population of a state may fall, but the number of seats in that state can never fall below five. Our founders knew that states have distinct interests and that those states must be represented not only in the Senate but also in the House of Representatives. Indeed, the point that has just been made is that states' interests are well served not only by the minimum of five lower house seats but also by the fact that there are 12 senators for each state—a luxury that the Northern Territory does not enjoy.

There are other principles that the Australian Electoral Commission applies when redrawing electoral boundaries, and they include community interests within electorates. That's an important principle as well. Our democracy recognises that people cast their votes according to what is important to them and their community, and the Electoral Commission recognises, and our Commonwealth Electoral Act is designed to recognise, that this can differ extremely widely between the city and the bush, between one part of the city and another, and between communities built around manufacturing or around a service sector or agriculture. Democracy is how we negotiate all of those different values and different interests. For that to work, they have to be represented in both houses of our parliament.

All of these important parts of making our democracy work will be disregarded if the Northern Territory has only one electorate. One single parliamentarian will represent nearly 250,000 Australians. It will be, by far, the largest electorate in Australia. On the figures for the redistribution from last year, the Northern Territory falls short of two seats by fewer than 5,000 people. If the Territory retains two seats, each of them will have more electors than any of the five seats in Tasmania. What's more, the Northern Territory's Department of Treasury and Finance predicts that, by next year, the Northern Territory's population will be more than 251,000 people. By the time the election is held, it will have even on the single criterion of population more than enough people to deserve two seats. If the Northern Territory loses a seat then in that election one Northern Territory vote will have one-half value. That is an extraordinary way for the current Electoral Act to override the principle of one-vote one-value.

Here in our nation we must look to the principles of democracy. Those future figures and the figures now are not even taking into account the significant barriers to enrolment in remote Indigenous communities. I myself know from experience in the Kimberley that there are many more eligible voters in many places around the country than are on the electoral roll. The Commonwealth government doesn't do nearly enough work in the remote communities of our country to get voters on the roll. This government makes it difficult for people who don't have ID and who move frequently to stay on the roll. This has a disproportionate effect on Australia's remote communities.

It's certainly well within the bounds of possibility that, if enrolment in remote areas matched the national average, the Northern Territory would be entitled to two seats right now. While I note that it is based on population, we need also to look very clearly at the enrolment levels of those communities. The representation of distinct interests of each jurisdiction that makes up our federation is clearly being overridden by reducing the Northern Territory to one seat, and that must be prevented. Other senators have made remarks about the huge distances that are covered in seats like Durack. Indeed, the Northern Territory would have the largest seat in our federation. It is absolutely extraordinary that this seat be taken from them.

I support the guarantee of a minimum number of seats for each state regardless of population because I absolutely agree that properly representing a state's common interests in parliament and caucuses needs a baseline number of members. Our democracy currently does not extend that same principle to our territories. It absolutely should. One of the reasons it absolutely must in the case of the Northern Territory is that it is by far a very distinct electorate and territory compared to the rest of our nation, which has large numbers of suburban seats. Representation of each state is made up of large numbers of suburban seats, whereas the Northern Territory essentially has a remote seat and a city seat. Here we're expecting even them to be rolled together. We cannot countenance the idea of the Northern Territory and all those remote voters being bundled together with a city seat when their voices are so incredibly distinct.

In what fundamental way is the Northern Territory different to a state besides the administrative and legal accidents of history—or perhaps should I say the racist accidents of history? The Northern Territory was not historically treated as a state, because of its low population size at a time when its population was not even counted. That was when the accidents of history actually occurred. The Northern Territory became a territory at a time when the Australian human population of the Northern Territory were not properly counted even as citizens. They may not even have been counted in a population census at the time these administrative decisions were made.

If we were forming the Australian federation today, wouldn't the chief ministers of the territories be at the table with the premiers of the states? When our nation mobilised to combat COVID-19—