The Northern Territory will retain its current level of federal representation after Federal Parliament passed legislation on Wednesday night to protect the seats of Solomon and Lingiari.
In July, the Northern Territory faced the prospect of having its federal representation halved when the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) determined the jurisdiction was only entitled to one federal seat because of population decline.
If the AEC's determination was upheld, it would have left the Northern Territory — an area more than double the size of the US state of Texas — with only one seat in the federal House of Representatives.
But in legislation hailed by politicians across the political divide and passed through Parliament on Wednesday night, the Northern Territory will now retain what Country Liberals senator Sam McMahon called "proper representation".
"I am very pleased to announce that this bill, developed and introduced by the Government, passed through the Senate last week and has passed the House of Representatives," Senator McMahon said.
"One of the last things Minister Mathias Cormann did before leaving Parliament was to give me his word that this legislation would be introduced before Christmas and I thank Minister Simon Birmingham for upholding that guarantee to me."
Senator McMahon had said the Northern Territory losing a seat in Federal Parliament would be a "disastrous" outcome that would disenfranchise "some of the most isolated, disadvantaged, marginalised people in the world".
In July, shortly after the AEC's formula ruled the NT would lose a seat, Northern Territory Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy introduced a private members' bill to reverse the decision.
The bill was backed by Senator McMahon with support from Greens and Nationals MPs.
Senator McCarthy said the new laws would maintain a "strong voice" for the Northern Territory in Canberra.
The Electoral Amendment (Territory Representation) Bill — which institutes a "harmonic mean" method for determining the allocation of seats to the NT and the ACT — guarantees the Northern Territory two seats at the next election.
However, it does not permanently secure two seats for the jurisdiction.
"The proposed amendments in the government bill will restore the second seat for the Northern Territory immediately, and provide a fairer mechanism to allocate future seats in the House of Representatives for smaller jurisdictions that more closely aligns the average population per electorate in the territories to the national average," Senator McMahon said.
Without the new legislation, the Northern Territory seat of Solomon, which covers all of Darwin and some Palmerston suburbs, would have been merged with the immense regional seat of Lingiari, Australia's second-largest federal division by land size covering the rest of the Northern Territory.
In a speech in Parliament on Wednesday, Member for Soloman Luke Gosling thanked those who fought against "the unfairness of this redistribution".
"Most importantly, thank you to the thousands and thousands of Territorians who joined the campaign to protect their own fair representation," he said.
