Federal Government will legislate to ensure the NT always has two seats in federal parliament

THE Morrison Government is expected to push through legislation before Christmas to ensure the Northern Territory keeps its second lower house seat in federal parliament

THE Morrison Government is expected to push through legislation before Christmas to ensure the Northern Territory keeps its second lower house seat in federal parliament.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann confirmed the government will legislate to ensure the NT and ACT always have two seats each in the House of Representatives.

It comes after Nationals MPs threatened to cross the floor to ensure the NT didn’t lose a seat as the Australian Electoral Commission had recommended.

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Minister Cormann said they agreed with recommendations outlined by a recent parliamentary inquiry into the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Ensuring Fair Representation of the Northern Territory) Bill 2020.

“The Government agrees with the recommendation of the committee that the government should legislate to guarantee a minimum of two House of Representatives seats for both the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory,” he said.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann confirmed the government will legislate to ensure the NT and ACT always have two seats each in the House of Representatives. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“Government legislation will be introduced into the parliament with the intention of having it passed by the end of the year to ensure that both territories have a two seat minimum representation while avoiding the inequality in the treatment of the territories that is proposed in the Fair Representation Bill.

“The recommendation of the Committee for the Government to review resourcing available to Members of parliament representing large electorates will be considered as part of the upcoming review into the Parliamentary Business Resources Act 2017.”

Solomon MP Luke Gosling said this was a great outcome following months of pushing the government to protect NT’s two seats.

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It comes a week after renegade Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce broke ranks to support a Labor motion to prohibit the NT losing one of its two federal seats.

“We have this absurdity of so few people representing such a wide land mass,” he told parliament. “We would have one seat representing approximately 200,000 people.”