Despite supporting the move to increase the House of Assembly from 25 to 35 seats, neither the government or Labor will support the bill.

Despite Premier Will Hodgman said increasing the size of parliament was not a priority for the Liberals.

“Increasing the parliament would come at significant cost to the taxpayer, which has not been canvassed with Tasmanians by Labor or the Greens,” he said.

“If the Greens or Labor want to increase the size of parliament they should properly consult with the Tasmanian public and make their case rather than trying to rush legislation through parliament now which won’t even take effect until 2022.”

Labor leader Rebecca White said while Labor supported an increase in the size of parliament Tasmanians needed to be consulted.

She had earlier challenged the Premier to state his position after Speaker Sue Hickey supported the push in an opinion piece in Fairfax newspapers.

“The Tasmanian Parliament would function better with more members but there needs to be cross party support for it if it’s going to proceed,” Ms White said.

“There’s no doubt the parliament is struggling. You only have to look at the makeup of the current government frontbench, with one minister acting as both Police and Health Minister and another minister responsible for six different portfolio areas, to recognise the current governance problems.”

Ms White said the Greens’ bill had been rushed through and was too close to the end of the year.

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said it was not certain the bill would fail until the vote was taken.

“As the Speaker said what we need is courage, courage to do the right thing by the Tasmanian parliament and courage to acknowledge a shrunken parliament means poorer governance and a weakened democracy,” she said.

“Madam Speaker has reaffirmed the desperate need for a functioning House. Tasmanians would barely have to rewind a month for proof of that.

“Times have changed and we are in a stronger position economically.”

Former Liberal Premier Tony Rundle was adamant there was no need to increase the number of MPs in the lower house.

“It would be a mistake,” Mr Rundle said.

“I said at the time that Tasmanians were doing more with less and that was the reason we were reducing the number of MPs.

“The Greens claim they were the victims but the Liberals lost of a hell of a lot of seats because of the cut.

“When I go to social occasions in the North West by the time you invite local mayors, MLCs, House of Rep members, Senators and local MPs you have nearly as many politicians as guests invited by those running the event.”

Mr Rundle said if the population increased by 100,000 people it may be time to look at a bigger parliament.

“I don’t think their is much public support for it and if the Legislative Council decided to increase their numbers we could end up with 14 more MPs,” he said.

Mr Rundle rejected suggestions that ministers have too heavy a workload.

“Look at ministers in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland and the workload for a minister here is no greater than ministers in other states,” he said.

“What the parties need to do when seeking endorsements is to make sure candidates have real talent.

“All backbenchers should aspire to be ministers and if they don’t you have to ask what the hell are they doing in parliament.”

Former deputy Labor Premier and Burnie mayor Steve Kons agreed with Mr Rundle.

“Whether you have one MP or 100 it depends on their ability,’ Mr Kons said.

“It depends on their capacity. Some cope really well with the workload and others don’t.

“When it comes to elections, at the end of a day, it is a popularity contest and whether people like you.”

Mr Kons said the trend across the world was for bureaucrats to implement policy and that had nothing to do with the size of parliament.

Local Government of Tasmania president Doug Chipman said local government had no view on whether the size of parliament should be increased.

“It is not a matter that has come up as an issue for LGAT,” Mr Chipman said.

“We have had no complaints about access to ministers and no trouble with delays to legislation.”

Tasmanian Council of Social Services chief executive Kym Goodes said TasCOSS praised the “strong voice” of leadership that Speaker Sue Hickey had taken.

She said it was time to think about what sort of parliament would best serve Tasmanians for the next 25 years.

“The question we should be asking is what model does our Parliament  need to adopt in order to provide good governance, transparency of leadership and the ability for robust and responsible representation of the Tasmania people?” Ms Goodes said.

“Many parts of the world have strong representatives democracies with parliamentary models that ensure the voice of citizens is front and centre and the decision makers are able to act in the best interests of their communities and do the right thing by their citizens.”