The Albanese government seems to have abandoned its plan to increase the size of the parliament and give us the one thing we do not need: more politicians. But the operative word is ‘seems’. The plan is still on foot because it is being examined by a parliamentary committee, generating leaks of submissions and speculation on its report. So, the plan is dormant rather than terminated.

But what is the plan? At the present there are 150 members of the House. The ALP plan is apparently to increase it by 28, making 178, a steal for taxpayers at a mere $620 million, as if we do not waste enough money already on useless government exercises. But wait, there’s more, because the plan is also to increase the size of the Senate from 76 to 90. Why? Because there is a pesky clause in our Constitution requiring that the numbers in the House must be twice the number of senators, a provision  that can only be changed by a referendum. Without a referendum, it has to be 89, and presumably they are throwing another one in, to give it the 90 required. Albanese would not dare to hold a referendum as, after the Voice debacle, he would not risk another defeat. So, the plan is to give us the worst of both worlds, a big increase in the House and another big increase in the Senate, the addition of 42 new politicians.

This gives rise to whether we need more politicians, to which the answer must be a resounding ‘No’. What we need are better politicians, not more. The main protagonist for the government on this issue is Senator Farrell, who does not seem to have enough to do in his Trade and Tourism portfolio to keep himself busy. He has advanced the homely and populist argument that the population has increased and that the number of politicians should also be increased so they can handle their weighty electoral duties. This is nonsense. Members of the House of Representatives already have four members of paid staff and access to the entire federal bureaucracy and if that is not enough to act as a postbox for constituents’ problems,  which is basically the work done by an elected representative, there must be something seriously wrong with the people being elected, rather than their number. When I was elected, I was allocated one member of staff, which was enough to provide adequate representation. It is also stretching credulity to believe that this proposal is being promoted for altruistic reasons. The far more sinister reason behind it is to enable a gerrymandered redistribution in the House that will give the Labor party a larger majority and make it easier for Albanese to launch his remaining plans for so-called reform.

When it comes to the Senate, the argument for more of the same is even weaker. The very idea that we need an extra 14 senators is ludicrous. Apart from pontificating, I wonder what the present lot actually do, let alone there being a need for more of them. New senators and members will simply generate a vast expansion of power, government control and spending.

Every new member of the House and Senate will be entitled to the same lavish staff entitlements as the present ones. The only way that can be avoided is to reduce the number of staff to which each MP is entitled. But there has never been a single example in recorded time of a politician who has voted to reduce his own entitlements. So there will be more staff, all pushing for new government schemes for their masters to promote. Moreover, MPs’ staff are notoriously drawn from the political parties themselves. Thus, more staff for more MPs means the taxpayer will be paying for a job creation program for the political parties who will provide the new members of staff.

MPs notoriously lust after positions on parliamentary committees, as this panders to their status and provides endless scope for publicity and self-promotion. Committees are the powerhouse of so-called reforms that inevitably expand bureaucracy, government power and the burden on the taxpayer and, remarkably, never seem to lessen any of these burdens. More MPs will therefore guarantee more committees and more schemes to expand the size of government and the bureaucracy. It will also guarantee more of every type of benefit, including travel and office accommodation.

If the public has not yet been more vocal on this issue, it is because not enough publicity has been given to it and the assertions by the Labor party have not been challenged. But like the Voice campaign, when the issue and its implications are explained, the public will state plainly that they do not want it. When it is dropped, it will be a monumental defeat for Albanese. Accordingly, such a proposal is manna from heaven for an opposition that is looking for a real issue where it can generate public support.

So I hope that the Coalition will see this issue as an opportunity to reflect the community concern so ably demonstrated by the South Australian election and the rise of One Nation, that people do not want more politicians; they want better ones, not alienated from the people like a vast new bureaucracy, but reflecting the real needs and concerns of the people.

To give him his due, opposition leader Angus Taylor has said the Coalition will oppose this expansion of political power. But he should do more. The Coalition should declare that it will legislate a Citizens’ Charter, including an embargo on more politicians and reducing their staff and benefits. To show that it really wants these guarantees to enhance the democratic process, it should also commit to using the Commonwealth’s power over treaties to bring to an end the racist Aboriginal assembly set up in Victoria, truly a black parliament. That should put some life into the Coalition and might just re-activate the verve and life it had when it defeated the Voice.