Anthony Albanese went further than he did days earlier, when he said he was happy with the size of the lower house.
"I have never been engaged for one minute about an expansion of the size of the House of Representatives," he told the National Press Club on Thursday.
He acknowledged it was not a uniformly held view, even in his party, as he made the comments in front of ACT senator and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who supports better territory Senate representation.
Special Minister of State Don Farrell had also said he wanted to wait for the inquiry to report before reviewing any changes, which now appear dead in the water.
Labor had pledged to expand the number of senators per territory from two to four in its national policy platform.
It's something independent ACT senator David Pocock is also pushing for, saying the point of the upper house was for equal representation.
States are entitled to 12 senators and territories have two.
That means Tasmania, which has 576,000 people - as at September 30, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics - has 12 senators, while the ACT has 486,000 people and two upper house members.
Any increase in the Senate would have to be accompanied by more MPs in the lower house, due to a proportionality requirement between the two chambers.
An inquiry into the 2025 federal election, chaired by a Labor MP, is reviewing expanding parliament to determine whether parliamentarians aren't able to adequately represent their growing electorates as the population increases.
"There's an argument about, when I was elected there was about 90,000 people, I think, in my seat, and now there's about 145,000," Mr Albanese said.
"I understand all of that, but in today's world ... I have to respond to the real world as it is, and the sort of campaign that would be run against an expansion of parliament would, in my view, be not healthy for our democracy."
His comments come after the coalition announced it would oppose any push to expand parliament on Tuesday, saying the government needed to be focused on cost-of-living pressures.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor put the cost of expanding parliament by 24 lower house MPs and 14 senators at $620 million, as calculated by the Parliamentary Budget Office.
He linked it to salaries, staff, travel and office costs over eight years.
Each electorate covers about 120,000 voters, and thousands more constituents not on the ballot, such as minors and non-citizens.
27°C