Australia already has too many members of parliament gobbling up my hard earned tax.Real reform would involve abolishing the state parliaments.Leslie

What Leslie said, while adding that the ACT has too many politicians anyhow. Anyhow, what about the referendum that came out against self government but the politicians went ahead anyhow? Sack that lot for a start.

How about some accurate comments on this issue (and this article) for a change:
• The ACT has less politicians per capita that anywhere else in Australia;
• The ACT already has only two tiers of government (Local and State are combined); and
• The decision to introduce self-Government to both the NT and the ACT was taken by the Commonwealth Government.

Our political system has always been based on (modified) proportional representation, but that principle is completely breached by the massive under-representation of residents of the NT and the ACT in the Senate.

I'd far prefer to see the constitution amended so that Tasmania lost half of its senators on the grounds that it is so anti-development and anti anything that can create jobs that it deserves less representation until it starts contributing more strongly to the Australian economy. I'd also reduce the number of ACT senators by half to reflect the Territory's near total dependence on the public payroll and its need to attract some private enterprise jobs. For the Northern Territory, I'd increase the number of its senators to 6, with the new positions to be filled by Indigenous people but whose salary is totally dependent upon the NT's Indigenous population displaying measurable improvements in health, education, law and order and similar statistics.