A 25-member Assembly will force a redesign of the Legislative Assembly building. Ministers are likely to be moved to a separate executive wing and the London Circuit building is expected to be reconfigured to house eight extra MPs.
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The Liberal Party backed the boost in numbers from 17 to 25 this week. With both major parties behind the move it just needs a vote of the Assembly before it takes effect for the 2016 election.
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher sought an urgent briefing on Thursday on how quickly the Assembly could move to make the change official, which would allow Electoral Commissioner Phillip Green to begin drawing up the boundaries for the five new electorates and work to start on finding office space for the eight extra parliamentarians.
As is stands, it would be a struggle to fit 25 MPs in the building and Assembly clerk Tom Duncan has suggested finding a new building for the ministers.
No one is willing to speculate on where it might be but a possibility is the building directly opposite the Assembly on London Circuit that houses the Canberra Museum and Gallery on the ground floor and part of the first floor. But most of the first floor and the second floor is used by government agencies.
The refits are expected cost $4.4 million to $6.8 million upfront but after that the bigger Assembly is expected cost well over $6 million a year: each ordinary Assembly member costs about $410,000 and each minister just over $1 million. That does not factor in the big rise in members' pay being considered by the Remuneration Tribunal.
Liberal leader Jeremy Hanson said the vote among nearly 100 Liberal Party members on Wednesday night was about 60:40 in favour of a bigger Assembly, opponents concerned about the cost in a time of belt tightening and supporters believing, as he did, that it would mean better government.
The expert group that reported on the size of the Assembly recommended 25 for the next election, then 35 for the election after. The bigger Assembly would have seven-member electorates, which the group said would return a more proportional result - the number of seats more closely reflecting the number of votes for each party. Bigger electorates are where the minor parties and independents find their most fertile ground.
But Mr Hanson pointed out that the Greens had found success in five-member electorates, winning a seat in each at the 2008 election. And he said he would not support an Assembly bigger than 25 in the foreseeable future. "The Greens, I'm sure, would like that [a move to 35] because it makes their job easier but I don't think the electorate wants to go to 35 simply to make it easier to elect Greens," he said.
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher has also rejected 35 but welcomed the Liberal Party's decision.
"This is something that I think needs to happen, whilst it is probably not one that gets broad popular support in the community," she said. "I think from the point of good governance and looking forward to the issues facing the city, we need to move to 25."
Ms Gallagher will establish a working group to deal with "a whole range of housekeeping issues".
Work must soon begin on drawing new boundaries for five electorates. Logic suggests three will be based on the satellite centres - Tuggeranong, Belconnen and Gungahlin - with a central electorate around the city and another taking in Woden and Weston Creek, pushing a little further south.
The carve-up of the electorates will leave the seven Molonglo parliamentarians, including the two leaders, facing what could be a quite different set of voters at the next election. Mr Hanson lives in Weston Creek and could end up representing a constituency based south of the lake. Ms Gallagher lives in the inner north.
