‘Missed chance’ for seats

Matt Maloney | The Examiner | 17 November 2022

An inquiry process on a parliamentary model that provides for dedicated seats for Tasmanian Aboriginal people should have been included within the government’s House of Assembly restoration bill, Nelson independent MLC Meg Webb has said.

Debate on the government’s bill to expand the house from 25 to 35 seats briefly began in the Legislative Council on Wednesday.

Leader of Government Business in the Legislative Council, Leonie Hiscutt, said the move in 1998 to reduce the number of seats in the lower house meant Tasmanians had been represented by fewer members than ever before.

She said the population then was about 475,000 people, whereas today it was around 570,000 people.

“We need a House of Assembly that, through its representation of seven members per electorate, delivers scope and space for a broad range of views to be represented,” she said.

A 2020 parliamentary committee on the restoration of the House of Assembly recommended 35 seats be reinstated within the chamber and that a parliamentary inquiry be established to develop a preferred model that provides for dedicated seats in Parliament for Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Ms Webb said this second recommendation had been ignored in the government’s bill.

“While that preferred model may not have been identified and developed by this bill’s timeframe, it’s a shame that the recommended joint parliamentary inquiry was not at least established concurrently to ensure that important and as equally overdue work could at least have commenced and be in progress,” she said.

Debate on the bill will continue Thursday.

See more of Meg in the media.