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Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has launched a populist campaign against moves to add at least 40 MPs to federal parliament, after pressure from his own MPs to launch a Voice to parliament-style campaign casting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as out of touch.
At a party room meeting last week, Taylor and his MPs discussed the potential political benefit in running a public campaign against a proposal to expand the size of parliament, a month after this masthead revealed Special Minister of State Don Farrell was speaking to the Nationals about adding dozens of new seats in time for the next election.
Opposition MPs in that meeting compared the proposal with the 2023 referendum, which former leader Peter Dutton portrayed as an elitist idea that would entrench power in Canberra.
On Tuesday, Taylor said the opposition had commissioned Parliamentary Budget Office modelling showing the change would cost $620 million. In costing the proposal, the opposition has done more detailed examination of the idea than Labor, which was still in an early planning phase. Albanese had not yet committed to the policy.
The Coalition had initially thought Farrell was considering boosting the number of MPs after the next election, but it emerged in recent months that Farrell was pushing to pass laws as early as this year.
On Tuesday, Taylor came out hard against the proposal alongside Nationals leader Matt Canavan. Under previous leader David Littleproud, the Nationals had been open to working with Labor because the plan would reduce the size of enormous regional electorates.
“Australians are in a cost-of-living crisis. They’re in a fuel crisis. We have an economy that is not working for hardworking Australians. And the priority of this government, clearly, is to increase the size of the parliament,” Taylor said.
“We don’t need more politicians. We need a government focused on the Australian people.”
In last week’s party room meeting, MPs decided it was key to get the Nationals on board so that the Coalition could run a co-ordinated attack campaign.
Several Liberal MPs are privately in favour of raising the number of MPs – which has not changed since the 1980s despite the growth of Australia’s population – because it would allow the Liberal Party to regenerate with fresh blood.
But, as one shadow minister who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, “We are so desperate for a fight that we had to oppose this for political reasons.”
The Institute of Public Affairs, an influential right-wing think tank, is one of many civil society groups advocating for an expansion of parliament.
In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry, the IPA said a failure to send more MPs to Canberra would have “significant consequences for the health of our democracy”.
“With Australia’s population now exceeding 27 million, electorates are becoming excessively populous and geographically large,” it said in its submission. “[MPs] are increasingly distant from the communities they represent.”
“It also weakens the effectiveness of parliament itself, as a relatively small number of
representatives is expected to scrutinise an ever-growing executive government”.
Bob Hawke was the last prime minister to expand parliament, doing so in 1984, less than a year after his election.
Farrell’s spokeswoman said the Coalition was getting ahead of itself, as Labor waited for a parliamentary inquiry to make a judgment on the merits of adding more MPs.
“This is clearly not about the policy or issues; it’s about the internal audition for attention in the Coalition,” the spokeswoman said.
The Coalition’s opposition to the move makes it harder for Labor to pass any legislation through the Senate. Albanese and Farrell might still get a deal done with the Greens, which are open to the change, but the prospect of a scare campaign might dull Albanese’s enthusiasm.
Farrell is exploring options, this masthead reported last month, but is narrowing his sights on increasing from 12 to 14 the number of senators for each state, an overall increase in the size of the Senate by 12. The House of Representatives would add 24 seats, as the Constitution requires that the House have roughly twice as many MPs as the Senate.
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