Labor says it will push to double the number of senators for the ACT if re-elected. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher told ABC Canberra: “it’s certainly something we all support”.

The populations of the ACT and NT have more than doubled since they got their first senators (fifty years ago this year). While there is one ACT Senator per 227,000 Canberrans, the ratio in Tasmania is 1 Senator per 46,000 Tasmanians.

The Australia Institute has previously advocated for a ‘simple formula’ that would make territory Senate representation ‘proportionate to Tasmania’s population’. Doubling the ACT’s Senate seats would not achieve this, but it would be a big step in the right direction.

The Albanese Government was planning to increase territory Senator numbers in its first term but dropped the reform after the Coalition said it was opposed. Instead, the Labor and Liberal parties did a deal to pass rushed and unfair changes to Australian electoral laws.

A question for Senator Gallagher and the Albanese Government more broadly is: if they are going to continue to let the Opposition decide whether the territories are entitled to more Senators, it doesn’t matter whether the Labor Party “all support” the reform if they give the Liberal Party a veto over whether it happens.