Submission by Sitting NT Federal Members and Senators to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Inquiry into the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Ensuring Fair Representation of the Northern Territory) Bill 2020 Hon Warren Snowdon, MHR, Member for Lingiari Mr Luke Gosling, MHR, Member for Solomon Senator Dr Sam McMahon Senator Malarndirri McCarthy SYNOPSIS This submission seeks to establish the need for the Commonwealth Parliament to pass legislation that guarantees the Northern Territory, including for this purpose the Indian Ocean Territories (IOTs) of Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands, a minimum of two seats in the House of Representatives. It argues that such a guarantee has precedent in the Constitutional guarantee that Tasmania has for a minimum of five seats in the House of Representatives, regardless of population. In doing so the submission highlights, for the purpose of illustration, the current anomalous situation that exists in terms of representation between Tasmania and the NT, and how the unfairness of this situation would worsen if, as determined by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), the Territory were to lose a seat. The submission provides background information on the history of the two seat issue for the NT. It provides a discussion on the unique nature of the Northern Territory and its diverse population. It highlights the fact that as at the 2016 census 25.5%of the population of the Territory are First Nations people and that they comprised 40.2% of the Lingiari population and 8.5% of the Solomon population. The submission argues that at a time when the nation is seeking to give prominence to the aspirations of 1 First Nations people, the impact of the decision to revert back to one seat in the Territory would drastically dilute their voice and representation from the NT. Similarly the submission argues that the reversion to one seat would also dilute the representation and voice of regional and particularly Northern Australia at a time when these voices need to be heard. It would also mean the dilution of the vote from the Indian Ocean Territories (IOT). INTRODUCTION We welcome The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) review into the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Ensuring Fair Representation of the Northern Territory) Bill 2020. On Thursday 18 June the Australian Bureau of Statistic (ABS) Media Release confirmed that as at 31 December 2019 the population of the Northern Territory was 244,800. As the JSCEM’s own Media Release1 indicated, ‘Analysis from the Parliamentary Library has projected the possibility of the Northern Territory losing one of its two House of Representatives seats before the next federal election, caused by its population falling below the entitlement quota for the second seat.’ This is now confirmed by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) media release of 3 July that a determination of reduced entitlement for the Northern Territory to one seat only applies immediately for the purposes of enrolment.2 1 Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) Committee to examine Northern Territory's representation in the House Media Release Issue date: Wednesday, 17 June 2020 2 Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) Media, Determination of Membership of House of Representatives, 3 July 2020 2 The advice from the Parliamentary Library was that the release of the ABS population figures as at 31 December 2019 the calculation for NT entitlement is as follows: The population of the six states is 24,845,330 This is divided by 144 (6 states x 12 senators x 2) to get the quota. The quota will be 172,537.0139 The population of the Northern Territory and its islands is 247,280 (NT 244,761, Christmas Is = 1,956, Cocos (Keeling) Islands = 563) NT’s entitlement will be 1.4332 This is rounded to one seat. Does the provision of adding twice the net undercount3 get the NT to 1.5 quotas? No. o Twice the net undercount is 7,440. o Adding this to 247,280 = 254,720 o This is 1.4763 quotas o NT would need an extra 4,086 people to get to the point where the addition of 7,440 (2 x net undercount) would get 1.5000 quotas Without legislating for a guaranteed two seats, representation in the Territory will always be at the mercy of ABS statistics and the requirements of the Electoral Act.4 BACKGROUND TO THE NORTHERN TERRITORY SECOND SEAT The Northern Territory first gained a second seat following a redistribution in December 1999, that determined for the 2001 election, the electorate of the Northern Territory be divided into the seats of Solomon (the urban area of Darwin and Palmerston) and Lingiari (the rest of the Northern Territory west to the border of Western Australia, south to South Australia, and east to Queensland, plus the IOT). 3 The net undercount is a post census enumeration survey (PES) which is conducted following the Census. An undercount indicates that the number of persons missed by the Census is greater than the number who were counted more than once. 4 Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, ss. 56, 57. The means of determining the number of Members is laid down in s. 48 3 Despite a submission at the time to the Electoral Redistribution Committee that the two new seats be aligned either side of the Stuart Highway from North to South, so both seats had all elements of the different communities of interest to be found in the Northern Territory, the Redistribution Committee chose instead to make Solomon an urban seat with an area of around 330 square kilometres, and Lingiari a regional and remote seat, including within it the IOTs with an area of around 1.34 million square Kilometres. In February 2003 the AEC determined that the Northern Territory was just 295 persons short of the population needed to retain its second House of Representatives seat. The effect of being 295 people short of the quota would have meant the halving of the Territory representation in the House of Representatives. That led to discussion and debate and a cross Party view with strong community support, including from the then NT Labor Government, that the Northern Territory should be guaranteed a minimum number of two seats in the House of Representatives. Part of the discussion then centred around the deficiencies in the population data from the Bureau of Statistics and used by the Australian Electoral Commission for its calculations on the distribution of House of Representative Seats. The Howard Government, aware of the contentious nature of the AEC determination, and after discussions with the Labor Opposition, referred the matter to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) for consideration and reporting. The (JSCEM) reported and made practical recommendations to deal with the immediate problem and also the problem of making manageable population estimates for the territories into the future. Firstly, that the statistics provided by the Australian Statistician for the purpose of making a determination were in the future to be the most 4 recent set of statistics in a regular series compiled and published by the Australian Statistician. Hence, the significance of the population data release by the ABS on 18 June 2020, which detailed the population as at 31 December 2019. That data is the most recent set of statistics and was used as the basis for the announcement on Friday 3 July 2020 by the AEC that as a result of these population figures, that the NT would henceforth only entitled to one Seat in the House of Representatives at the next general election. Secondly, JSCEM proposed that when the Australian Capital Territory or the Northern Territory falls short of a quota for an additional seat and the shortfall is within an error margin, the Electoral Commissioner is to recalculate the entitlement. The error margin times two was to be added to the Territory's population and the entitlement recalculated. These processes were followed in the redistribution that was announced by the AEC on 3 July, but the final calculation still meant that even under the amended formula the NT is only entitled to one seat in the House of Representatives at the next election. The population data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and used by the AEC showed that all states and territories, except the Northern Territory, had positive population growth over the year ending 31 December 2019. The population of Australia grew by 1.4% over the period while that of the Northern Territory fell by 0.4%. This fall in population in the NT was largely driven by a substantial fall in interstate migration where there was a net loss of 3,994 people. There was also only a small increase in net overseas migration of 535 people. The figures highlight the quandary that the NT finds itself in. For example, by using the comparison of the NT against Tasmania, which had at 31 December 2019 a population of 537,000 against that of the NT of 244.800. Tasmania had a population increase over the previous 12 5 months of 5,200, largely as a result of an increase of 2,635 in overseas net migration and 1,438 in net interstate migration. Yet, even though with over twice the NT population, its natural population increase was less than half of that of the NT. Tasmania’s natural population increase was 1,089 while in the NT it was 2,517. The issue of overseas and interstate migration is one that has bedevilled the NT over decades and is the primary reason why, in terms of estimating seat entitlements through the processes currently required by the Commonwealth Electoral Act, the NT will be at the margins for some time to come.