David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

After decades of people in the ACT and the Northern Territory fighting to have our territory rights restored—we fought to have the ability to debate and legislate on voluntary assisted dying; the Senate unanimously agreed it was time to restore territory rights—we have yet another attack on territory rights today, from Senator Cash.

In 1975 a deal was struck to give the territories two senators each. This was a political deal and essentially meant that the major parties each got a seat in both of the territories. But the decision did not address the core question of the appropriate baseline level of democracy for small jurisdictions: what is the appropriate balance between federalism and representative democracy? In our Constitution, this issue is addressed by smaller states, such as Tasmania, having equal representation in the Senate. They have 12 senators, the same as the bigger states. When it comes to the territories, we have only two. This is another example of the need to increase Senate representation for the territories so we have more people standing up for territorians. For people who live here—for someone who lives in Queanbeyan—we have less rights and we have federal senators who feel like they can reach into our democratically elected legislative assembly when they don't like decisions.

We have the Canberra Liberals' Leader of the Opposition, Elizabeth Lee, saying that, while she may not agree with the laws and that she'll campaign against them, she doesn't want her federal colleagues reaching into the affairs of the ACT. I would urge my fellow senators to take heed of her words and the rights of people in the Territory to democratically elect their own government and hold them to account.