Bigger need not mean better

Representative bodies in the Westminster mould serve a range of functions, from legislation, scrutiny of administration and redress of grievances, to provision of members of the ministry, the executive.

The ACT Assembly has structural problems on several of these counts. Because it is a party house, one important influence in a representative body, the government backbench, is virtually absent. Cabinet and caucus are almost, but not quite, coterminous. A similar predicament affects the opposition side; the party room is largely composed of frontbenchers. An enlargement of the Assembly - even a significant enlargement - might not have much more than a marginal effect on these structural features.

Indeed, the preferred remedy - enlargement - might not even be an advance. Because of proportional voting, the effect of enlargement may simply do no more than enhance the presently depleted crossbench.

The key problem, which the ACT authorities have failed to appreciate, is that the size and composition of representative assemblies is as much an art as a science.

The ACT authorities seem to think it is basically a question of arithmetic.

One big puzzle is the decision to entrust leadership of the review to the ACT Electoral Commissioner, Phil Green. There are three problems with this decision.

The first is that the commissioner, in an orthodox situation, would be a leading witness before such an advisory panel. Those responsible for electoral administration would be a major source of information, but that information has to be rigorously scrutinised.

Under this model, there will be inhibitions on rigorous scrutiny of this key stream of information given that the membership of the panel has not been drawn from the communion of saints.

Second, when the panel presents its report, the electoral authority should be a source of major analysis for the government, the Assembly and the public.

In this instance, as has occurred a number of times recently within federal government - the Henry tax review is a standout instance - a principal analyst will instead be a major and interested advocate. Indeed, in this matter, the electoral commissioner has for some time, unusually, been a very public advocate of a larger assembly.

And, third, the size and composition of a representative body is a parliamentary as much as an electoral matter. In this case, while the electoral side is prominently in charge, the parliamentary side does not even have a place in the team.

There are resident, in the ACT, quite a number of people who have had substantial experience in advising on these questions of parliamentary design in legislatures around the world. That is a source of learning upon which the review team needs to draw, but a body so limited in parliamentary matters might not be well placed to exploit it.