Sanctus – The long awaited report into the new seat makeup of the post-federalisation House of Deputies will be announced tomorrow by Secretary for Devolution, Ben Jackson, with the recommendation the House be made up of only 460 seats – a drop of 339 seats from the current number. It will be the smallest House of Deputies to be in existence since the body was formed in 1974.
The drastic reduction in numbers will not come to a shock, however, to most politicians, with the Government admitted during the bill stage of the federalisation, as well as during the referendum, that the House would lost up to 50% of its seats. The 42% reduction is not quite as large as indicated, but it will still mean that each new Deputy elected after 2023 will see their constituency population average increase from around 600k to over 1.1m people.
With the report yet to be announced, it’s not yet known which specific constituencies will be changed, but with numbers this large, the amount of constituencies unchanged will be rare indeed. In the first state elections last year, there was a mass exodus of experienced and long-standing Deputies to run for seats in the new parliaments now associated with their newly designated home states, and of course local communities. People like Madeline Chalke, a 20+ year veteran, but perpetual backbencher, of the SCP decided to run for her local State Parliament seat of City of Tory – not only did she win the seat, but she became head of the state SCP party and is now Glorionis’ first Premier, now holding far more power and influence than she did as a backbencher in what is now the federal parliament.
This “rags-to-riches” story was commonplace in 2020, and the raft of by-elections that had to take place last summer to accommodate all the empty seats left behind by these stalwarts resulted in too old, or too inexperienced, politicians basically keeping their constituency seats warm until this new boundary report essentially abolishes them, or merges them into constituencies likely to be contested by those wishes to remain in the federal parliament.
It’s hard to ascertain what the new makeup of the House will look like in 2023 – there’s still 18 months to go – but it’s less likely we’ll see people in the front benches of each party lose their seat in a shock defeat in a new constituency. The casualties will be these new backbenchers – but then again, that was the point of the parties running who they did in pointless, expensive, but sadly constitutionally mandated by-elections to fill seats that would within 3 years be abolished.
New politics, huh.
JOEY SESSIONS, Political Editor
