Why we may need more MPs
THE 45th parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia will soon be over. On April 2, Josh Frydenberg will deliver what he must hope is his first rather than his only Budget.
Within days, Scott Morrison will advise Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove to dissolve the House of Representatives for an election that will be held sometime in May.
Hopefully, when the counting is finished, someone — someone! — will have won 77 seats, enough for a oneseat majority in what will be a 151-seat House.
Watching Theresa May at Westminster trying to navigate her Brexit deal through the 650-seat House of Commons, it is hard not to observe that 76 is not a lot of MPs from which a Prime Minister can choose a Cabinet, outer ministry and assistant ministers (as parliamentary secretaries are called these days). That’s not quite right, of course, because a PM can also appoint minsters from the Senate. But though there are 76 of them, fewer and fewer seem to belong to the major parties. The Coalition currently has 31, Labor only 26. That is unlikely to change much at the next election.
So, for argument’s sake, if Bill Shorten were to salute the judge by a short half-head in May, it might be the case that from a list of 103 people, he has to find 23 Cabinet ministers, a dozen or so junior ministers and another seven or eight assistant ministers. Plus a Speaker of the House of Representatives and a president of the Senate as well as two Whips in each of those Houses.
All of which is a long way of saying that once an Australian prime minster has put a line through the too old, too inexperienced, too stupid, too lazy, too drunk, too dishonest, too promiscuous as well as all those he hates, there isn’t a lot of choice left about who gets a job when the government’s majority is small.
In reality, a PM’s room to move is even smaller because they also have to make sure each state is looked after and that there are enough women.
Then there are committee chairs. There are currently 17 House of Reps standing committees as well as 21 joint Reps-Senate committees with chairs and deputies, all of whom are paid extra. Those jobs all have to be filled, too.
In an ideal world, of course, one would love to be able to say that every Australian MP carries a ministerial commission in their travel-on luggage in the same way Napoleon said every French soldier carried a marshal’s baton in his knapsack; but as even a casual observer of our national legislature would have to admit, that is not the case.
Does it matter? And if it does, would making parliament bigger make things better? Surely, I can hear you say, isn’t there a chance we would just get more of the same? I would argue that it does matter and even if we were to get more of the same — a depressing prospect, I concede — having more MPs to choose ministers from would be good for at least two reasons. The first is that it would make it easier for a PM to get rid of the incompetent and accident-prone.
For example, do you think Michaelia Cash would still be drawing a ministerial salary if there were 350 government MPs in Canberra?
The second reason is that a bigger pool of MPs would help to end the leadership turmoil that has given Canberra its reputation as the coup capital of the democratic world.
How so? Well the consequence of there being so few MPs to choose from is that once they are in, they know they can behave with virtual impunity.
Look at the photos of the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison ministries and observe the same smiling faces.
Sure, they’re in different jobs. But with exception of Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz, I can’t think of any ministers in the past five years who were dumped after a leadership change. Trying to shoot the leader has become a risk-free game any minister can play in the knowledge they are unlikely to get hurt.
Changing the leader in Westminster is a much more serious business. Getting a ministerial gig is much harder there.
If the leader who gave you your post is whacked, no matter how well you were doing your job, if their replacement needs your spot to reward friends and supporters, you’re out.
It’s time to make our electorates small again by making parliament bigger.
I … EVEN IF WE WERE TO GET MORE OF THE SAME — A DEPRESSING PROSPECT, I CONCEDE — HAVING MORE MPS TO CHOOSE MINISTERS FROM WOULD BE GOOD …