Labor’s plan for dozens more MPs could bring back Frydenberg

The Albanese government is pushing to add 40 politicians to parliament before the next election, as the Coalition splits over the issue.

Some Liberal MPs and strategists are privately keen to back the push to expand parliament because dozens of new seats could rejuvenate the Liberal party room, paving the way for the election of Bradfield candidate Gisele Kapterian and the return of Josh Frydenberg and Keith Wolahan.

However, the Liberal Party has revealed it would oppose the change on the grounds that more politicians were unnecessary. The Nationals told this masthead they were open to supporting Labor. The Greens are seen as likely to provide support in the Senate.

The opposition and minor parties were expecting Labor to spend this term reviewing the size of parliament, leaving any changes until after the election due in 2028.

Instead, Special Minister of State Don Farrell has started holding informal talks with counterparts to change the law so that additional MPs could be elected at the next poll. Bob Hawke was the last prime minister to expand parliament, doing so in 1984, less than a year after his election.

“[Since 1984] our population has almost doubled,” Farrell said. “With democracy under threat across our world, strengthening our institutions has never been more important.”

The case for expanding the parliament is that MPs are struggling to adequately represent their electorates. Lower house members represent more than 120,000 people on average, up from 66,000 at the time of the Hawke changes.

There is no guarantee Labor can move quickly enough to get a deal done in time for the next election.

Farrell is exploring options, 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.

Territory senators are not included in that calculation, which could take the number of new senators to 14, with an extra for the ACT and the NT. The House could expand by as many as 28 electorates under this model.

At least half a dozen seats would be created in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney, respectively. Former Liberal attorney-general George Brandis, among others, has claimed that increasing the number of seats in areas where the population is growing, largely in the cities, would advantage Labor. Election and polling analysts Peter Brent and Ben Raue have disputed this.

Given the Liberals and LNP hold only 34 seats after successive drubbings, the injection of fresh blood could mean more in a proportional sense to the opposition than it would for Labor with 94.

Yet, the Liberal MP who leads the party’s policies on elections and parliament, James McGrath, told this masthead, “we need better politicians, not more”.

“Another day, another example of this prime minister putting politics before people. Unless of course those people are wannabe Labor pollies,” McGrath, a former LNP campaign director, said.

The Nationals have told Farrell they would be open to passing the laws because the so-called “big six” electorates of Durack, Grey, Kennedy, Lingiari, Maranoa and O’Connor are all larger than most countries. Maranoa, held by Nationals leader David Littleproud, takes in 42 per cent of Queensland’s land mass, making it much bigger than Victoria and all European countries except for Russia and Greenland.

Nationals frontbencher Ross Cadell, a former director of the NSW Nationals, said rural voters deserved MPs who were better able to get to schools and sports clubs, and MPs needed smaller electorates to get around safely.

“If that means increasing the number [of politicians], we’re not against it,” he said.

A spokesman for Pauline Hanson’s populist-right party said it “absolutely opposes increasing the number of … parliamentarians”.

Positions of right-wing parties may not matter, however. Farrell would prefer to work with the Coalition for such a big change to Australia’s parliament, but the Greens are viewed as more likely to support the change.

The Greens, whose 10 senators can pass laws with Labor without the backing of other parties, were the only party that declined to comment on this story, but sources said they were open to talking to Farrell. Labor and Coalition figures expect the Greens would ultimately back the expansion because they could gain more senators and a more permanent foothold in smaller lower house seats in inner city areas, where the party’s vote is more concentrated.

An extra 10 parliamentarians would cost taxpayers more than $25 million a year in salaries and staff. Proponents of the change say the trade-off would be a reduced need for big budgets on staff, second offices and mail budgets if electorates were smaller.

The parliamentary committee that reviews elections, chaired by Labor MP Jerome Laxale, has been gathering evidence to support any potential move.

He said most of the witnesses to the committee – who are more likely to be reform advocates and therefore hold a bias – favoured change. “Access, responsiveness and being more able to participate in parliament’s committee and policy functions are often cited as potential positives of a larger parliament,” he said.

Hobart-based psephologist Kevin Bonham’s submission to the inquiry rejected the argument that expanding the parliament was a “a partisan stitch-up”. “All the arguments I have seen on this point are false,” he wrote.

“In particular, claims that Labor will be assisted by redistributing growth-corridor seats are false because almost all of them have recently been redistributed, outside Queensland where they are mostly occupied by the [LNP].

“If anything, non-major party candidates and the Coalition will benefit from electorates that are less sprawling and that are less likely to be occupied by Labor MPs, but the benefit would be slight.”

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