The ACT Assembly is expected to vote on Tuesday to swell its numbers to 25, with eight new seats at the next election.
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Labor and Liberal will also combine to divide the city into five electorates, replacing the current three, and clearing the way for the ACT Electoral commission to begin drawing new electorate boundaries in the coming months. The new electorates will each have five members. The seven-member electorate of Molonglo will be consigned to history, making it tougher for the Greens, minor parties and independents to win a seat in Canberra's Parliament.
The move from a 17-member Assembly to a 25-member Assembly has support from all sides of politics, and no dissenting votes are expected on Tuesday. A bigger Assembly has also been backed by inquiries over some years.
The new five-member electorates are more contentious, opposed by the Greens because they require a higher proportion of the vote to get elected than seven-member electorates. An expert reference group, chaired by Electoral Commissioner Phil Green, came down in favour of seven-member electorates as preferable to five, giving a more proportional result and not putting up excessive barriers to minor party election.
But Labor and the Liberals prefer five-member electorates, which are highly likely to guarantee them 10 members each of the 25 at the 2016 election, with the fight being over the final seat in each electorate.
Greens Member Shane Rattenbury will vote against the five-member electorates on Tuesday.
"The only people that benefit from a five-by-five model are the two major parties, the Canberra Liberals and ACT Labor, and that’s why they are supporting it," he said.
A "fairer and more democratic model" that would encourage diversity and broader representation, would be to keep the three electorates and increase the number of members in each to seven or nine, he said.
The bigger Assembly will bring substantially increased costs. For a start, new office space will be needed to accommodate the eight extra members - with a suggestion a ministerial wing could be located in a building nearby, at a cost of up to $7 million.
Then there is the cost of politicians' salaries and staff, which all up will be well over $6 million a year: each ordinary Assembly member costs more than $410,000 and each minister more than $1 million.
Plus eight extra members will mean more "administrative funding" paid out each year. Each politician gets about $21,000 a year to cover administration costs.
The Electoral Commission expects to call submissions on the new electorate boundaries in November.