If a week is a long time in politics, three decades is an eternity. ACT Labor, undefeated in the tourneys since 2001, dreams of attaining 27 years in power – but will the champion, current chief minister Andrew Barr, be unhorsed by one of the contenders in the lists? Some wear liveries of Green; the Liberals blue, their shields emblazoned with the fleur de Lee; others maroon, teal, orange… Of the 149 candidates, only 25 can succeed.
ACT Labor’s motto is “progressive, practical and proven”, while the Canberra Liberals promise “a fresh opportunity for Canberra”. It is a contest between the status quo on the one hand, and change and possible reform on the other.
Term report
ACT Labor this past term, Mr Barr has said, expanded Canberra Hospital, the biggest health infrastructure project in the territory’s history; legalised voluntary assisted dying; released a new Territory Plan for planning and development; began work on stage two of light rail; and introduced the Sustainable Household Scheme (saving Canberrans more than $51.6 million) and free preschool.
ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury, Mr Barr’s partner in government, is proud that the ACT is recognised as the most progressive jurisdiction in Australia and the first outside Europe to achieve 100 per cent renewable electricity. The government is now determined to achieve net zero emissions by 2045; already, the ACT has the nation’s highest uptake of electric vehicles, and is phasing out fossil fuel gas. Other Green achievements, Mr Rattenbury states, include rental reforms, raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility, and mental health services.
But Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee maintains that the government is arrogant, secretive, out-of-touch, no longer governs in the best interest of Canberrans, and refuses to be held accountable. The Liberals say essential services – the health system, housing, education, police, maintenance: areas where the ACT has some of the worst results in the country – have been cannibalised to pay for light rail.
Independents largely agree that the government is not listening to the community, and call for greater transparency and fiscal responsibility; most have committed to cost-of-living measures, housing, healthcare, transport, and bail and sentencing reform, as well as addressing the local needs of their electorates, which they feel the government has neglected. They appeal to many Canberrans who want change, but not necessarily the Liberals or any other major party.
Controversies and contentions
The government argues that light rail is a necessary long-term investment to limit traffic congestion as the city grows, and lower greenhouse gas emissions, and that light rail supports the construction of more housing. However, critics note that the government has not provided costings, while the original report recommended electric buses, which are cheaper, faster, more flexible, and more environmentally friendly. An independent report this year warned that light rail must not proceed, as it is slow, environmentally damaging, and expensive: “It would impose a substantial financial burden on Canberrans for many years to come.” Mr Barr has steadfastly refused to disclose the cost of stage 2, citing commercial interests, or to revise the business case, as the Auditor-General requested, but the Liberals estimate that it will cost more than $5.5 billion.
Poverty and disadvantage have worsened this term, while homelessness has escalated, due to a shortage of housing and high rent. Many believe the government response has been inadequate, or even contributed to the crisis.
At the start of 2021, the government “bluntly dismissed” – as former Chief Minister Jon Stanhope put it – the Liberals’ motion for a taskforce to investigate poverty, which he would have chaired, and which ACTCOSS had called for. The government argued that such a taskforce would “delay action and divert resources from initiatives that address the root causes of poverty in the ACT”. (A cost-of-living committee was eventually set up in 2023.)
Now, three-and-a-half years later, matters have worsened to the point that ACTCOSS recently warned: “We are witnessing the shrinking of our middle class.”
Five years ago, some 38,000 Canberrans (nearly 9 per cent of the population) lived below the poverty line; ACTCOSS believes even more have fallen into destitution. Poor households cannot pay for housing, food, and other essential goods and services, due to high inflation and interest rates. Parents go without food so their children do not starve, while pleas for food assistance have doubled within the last two years. White-collar workers – teachers, public servants and the like – in two-income households are seeking assistance from charities. The community sector cannot keep up with demand: because government resourcing is inadequate, they turn clients away, and some charities may soon close. This year’s budget contained relief measures, but ACTCOSS argued it did not address the crisis, while the Canberra Liberals complained higher rates and taxes would only add to Canberrans’ pain.
Many residents struggle to pay rent in Canberra, which has the nation’s second highest rental prices, let alone own a house, ACTCOSS and ACT Shelter have stated. Anglicare’s snapshot, published only yesterday, showed that there was not a single rental property that welfare recipients or minimum wage earners could afford. The Liberals have criticised the government for withholding land, which they say pushes rental prices up. Although Canberra’s population is bigger, there are fewer public housing properties today than in 1994; the proportion of social housing has dropped over the last 30 years from 12 per cent to just 5.7 per cent. (Public housing assets were allegedly sold to finance light rail.) Waiting lists for housing have surged by 40 per cent since 2020 and by 80 per cent since 2018. For the first time in ACT Shelter’s knowledge, more than 3,000 applicants – 5,000 to 7,000 people – are waiting, some for more than five years. Canberra Hospital staff are sleeping in caravan parks, while welfare recipients simply cannot afford to live in Canberra. Homelessness refuges and crisis services are consistently full, and having to turn people away every night. More people are sleeping rough, some within 100 metres of the Legislative Assembly, or couch-surfing.
The government’s Growing and Renewing Public Housing Program, while intended to add 400 new homes and replace 1,000 more, will not increase public housing stock in real terms, the Auditor-General has stated; because of population growth, the supply will decrease. It was under that program, too, that the government mandatorily relocated public housing tenants – a policy ACTCOSS condemned as “incredibly callous and cruel”. The government has, however, committed to provide 1,000 additional affordable rentals or public houses by 2025-26 and to release land for 21,000 homes by the end of the decade.
The available public housing is often poorly maintained. Earlier this year, the CFMEU accused the government of neglect, stating that maintenance contractors had left residents in “deplorable living conditions reminiscent of third-world countries”, with collapsing walls, faulty smoke detectors, and exposed wiring left unfixed for months. The CFMEU called this neglect an affront to Labor’s core values. In response, the government budgeted $530 million for new or improved public housing. But the problem is not new: three years ago, the Canberra Liberals urged the government to fix dilapidated public housing, citing elderly tenants left vulnerable because their locks were not repaired, ceilings collapsing from water damage, lights cutting out during rain, weeks without functioning cooking appliances, or severe mould infestations. At the high-density Kanangra Court in Reid, tenants even reported dead birds in the roof cavities and maggots falling from the ceiling.
While Canberrans starve, sleep on the streets, or endure barely liveable conditions, politicians enjoyed two pay rises (3.25 per cent in 2022, and 3.5 per cent last year). The Chief Minister’s salary alone increased from $360,202 in 2021 to $371,910 in 2022 to $384,928 last year – a pay rise of nearly $25,000 in two years.
Public hospitals, the Australian Medical Association said this year, “are performing below the standard our community should expect”: emergency department wait times have been the longest in the country for several years, waiting lists for planned surgeries have increased 30 per cent in the last two years, and several hospital units have lost training accreditation. Children have died in ACT hospitals of preventable illnesses; the AMA said paediatric emergency care was inadequate. Questioned, health minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said: “People die in hospital. It is part of delivering a hospital service.” ACT Health redacted a staff survey, releasing only positive comments while withholding negative material. The government refused the Liberals’ call for a Royal Commission into health. It has, however, budgeted $2.6 billion in health, including an extra $52.7 million for 60,000 elective surgeries and to expand operating theatre capacity, and $57.6 million to improve paediatric care.
Literacy and numeracy standards have declined. The government has committed $25 million to address those gaps, but the Liberals say the funding is insufficient.
The ACT has the highest rate of Indigenous incarceration in Australia, rising yearly. The government is big on symbolic gestures: Assembly proceedings open in Ngunnawal language, and there are acknowledgements of country galore (even for press briefings of half-a-dozen journalists). But the government in early 2021 rejected a call for an investigation into racism at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, Canberra’s prison, following a spate of deaths in custody, beatings, and humiliations; Julie Tongs, CEO of Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services, called the government’s response a cover-up, and called for then-corrections minister Mick Gentleman to resign. “This Labor-Greens government are progressive on selective issues,” Ms Tongs said. “Unfortunately, Aboriginal disadvantage isn’t one of them.” An Indigenous man died in custody in August, while another, transferred into a NSW prison against Winnunga Nimmityjah’s advice, killed himself last year.
“That Canberra, the national capital with the self-declared most progressive government and community in Australia,” Ms Tongs said recently, “should also be home to an Aboriginal community experiencing the worst outcomes in Australia in relation to areas as diverse as health, incarceration, homelessness, education and child protection makes a mockery of our perception of ourselves as a progressive and caring community.”
The ACT has the fewest police and the lowest funding for policing per capita in the country, as well as the lowest clearance rates for crime and lowest satisfaction of people who had contact with police – the result, the Liberals say, of the government cutting $15 million from the budget in 2015. The government has maintained that the ACT cannot be compared to bigger jurisdictions, and that the community feels safe, but police have reported being overworked, under-resourced, and burning out. Although the government committed $107 million last year to recruit 126 police over five years (after rejecting several Liberal motions for more resourcing for police), critics argue this will not cover the attrition rate.
The justice system has faced criticism for releasing serious offenders on bail who commit more crimes. When justice reform advocate Tom McLuckie’s e-petition for a review of bail and sentencing – the second most supported in the ACT’s history – was presented to the Assembly, the government rejected it, while Mr Barr reportedly turned his back on Mr McLuckie and other supporters of the petition, not acknowledging their presence. The government set up a law reform and sentencing advisory council, but Mr McLuckie believes its report on dangerous driving will do little to improve matters. Shane Rattenbury claims the ACT is on track to reduce recidivism 25 per cent by 2025, but police officer Mark Richardson, an Independents for Canberra candidate, says that reoffending has increased; he claims that the data Mr Rattenbury quotes is misleading, as it only tracks those who return to prison, not those who reoffend. Mr Richardson and the Belco Party also argue that the government has not invested enough in rehabilitation.
Other problems
Small businesses complained of the slow rollout of grants and hardship schemes during the 2021 lockdown, despite warnings the delays could be the “knockout blow”: many waited weeks or even months for payments, and some shut down or relocated.
Labor’s ties to the CFMEU have come under fire, with allegations of favouritism by deputy chief minister Yvette Berry’s office in awarding a tender for the Campbell Primary School modernisation project to a company the CFMEU favoured, rather than to the preferred tender, which was on bad terms with the union. (Ms Berry has denied any knowledge.) Many Labor MLAs have close ties to the CFMEU, while the ACT was the only jurisdiction in the country not to suspend affiliation with the union following revelations of crime and corruption in other states. It has not accepted any donations from the union since, however.
The government rejected Canberra Liberals motions for a dedicated parliamentary committee on integrity (the ACT is the only jurisdiction in Australia without one), and for a Freedom of Information bill that would have required the government to release cabinet documents within 30 days (as in NZ and Queensland), rather than after a decade.
The forcible acquisition of Calvary Hospital was controversial. The government said Calvary was the best site for a new, bigger and more modern $1 billion northside hospital, and took it over, despite Calvary having 76 years to run on its lease. Calvary maintains it was not consulted; staff complained they were not notified but only found out on social media; the Liberals condemned the takeover as “undemocratic [and] potentially illegal”; Catholics were appalled, and the Canberra Business Chamber said it set a worrying precedent.
The ACT was the first jurisdiction in Australia to decriminalise hard drugs, including ice and heroin. The government and community organisations argue that treating drug use as a health issue makes it easier for addicts to seek medical help, but the Canberra Liberals have accused Labor of “pushing a radical drug agenda”, while the police and bereaved families are concerned it will encourage drug use and increase crime rates, and that drug treatment services are under-resourced. The US state of Oregon, whose policy was similar to the ACT’s, has recriminalized drugs – the “progressive and libertarian policy obsession” was “a public policy fiasco”, the New York Times reported.
ACT Labor vs Canberra Liberals
To address the housing and cost-of-living crises, Labor has promised 21,000 more homes by 2029, including 5,000 more affordable rental dwellings, bringing the Housing ACT property portfolio to 13,200 homes by the end of 2030. They would spend $150 million to upgrade schools, and recruit more teachers. Besides building the northside hospital in Bruce, they would hire 800 more healthcare workers. Labor would extend light rail to Woden, procure more zero emissions buses, and provide cheaper energy through the Big Canberra Battery Program. Building projects include a 30,000-seat stadium in Bruce, a bigger theatre, an aquatic centre in Commonwealth Park, and more police stations, as well as $120 million in suburban infrastructure.
The Canberra Liberals have promised a $65 million cost-of-living package, and to lower rates and cap increases. They would deliver 125,000 new dwellings by 2050 (including in the Kowen Forest commercial pine plantation), and 2,000 more social and affordable homes. They would commit $98 million to improve literacy and numeracy, refurbish schools, and provide more support for teachers. They would hold a Royal Commission into the healthcare system, build walk-in centres with GPs, remove payroll taxes for GPs, provide 70,000 elective surgeries, and boost funding for Winnunga Nimmityjah by $2 million. They would overturn hard drug decriminalisation laws, review bail and sentencing, recruit more police, and introduce tougher penalties on crime. They would stop light rail at Commonwealth Park, and instead have a public transport system running on electric buses. They would reinvest taxpayers’ money into suburbs; and build a new northside hospital, a city stadium, and a national convention centre.
Labor has a tough fight on its hands. Elizabeth Lee is a more viable chief minister than Alistair Coe was four years ago. Mr Barr once called the Canberra Liberals “the most conservative branch … in the nation”, but under Ms Lee’s leadership, they have moved towards the political centre, presenting themselves as the party standing up for the working class and the disadvantaged, traditionally a Labor platform. At the start of 2021, former Chief Minister Jon Stanhope told me: “It’s difficult for me to say as a member of the Labor party, it’s difficult to say as a lifetime supporter of the Labor party, but the Liberal party shows more empathy, more interest, and a greater propensity to actually deal with these issues [poverty and Indigenous disadvantage] than the Labor party or the Greens currently do.” (Their successes this term include a cost-of-living committee and a taskforce to address the teacher shortage.) Ms Lee sees the Liberals as a broad church, and is politically a moderate: she supported the Voice referendum, the voluntary assisted dying bill, and went to COP26 in Glasgow. There have been internal troubles within the Liberals: Ms Lee moved Jeremy Hanson to the back bench, and kicked Elizabeth Kikkert out of the party – but Ms Lee claims this shows she can make tough decisions.
The Liberals have targeted Labor with ‘not happy, Andrew’ ads and books on ‘Barr’s bogus budgets’. Mr Barr, Ms Lee claims, is “the worst treasurer that self-government has ever seen” – an opinion Mr Barr called rude and insulting – and broke at least 150 promises over the last dozen years. Since Mr Barr became treasurer in 2011, the ACT, once a net creditor, has incurred substantial and increasing debt and interest, Pegasus Economics reported. In that time, the ACT has not had a single budget surplus; its credit rating was downgraded from AAA to AA+ last year, and could be further downgraded if it does not improve; and its operating position is weaker than that of all other states and territories, and indeed all AA+-rated governments worldwide, S&P Global states. Financial mishaps such as an abandoned HRIMS project costing $76 million or the ex-CIT CEO paying a complexity thinker nearly $9 million have not helped.
For its part, Labor has accused the Liberals of threatening progressive gains – in Ms Lee’s view, “a mudslinging fear campaign”. Mr Barr claims the Liberals are dangerously right-wing, “so far right they are wrong”. He argues that they would undo access to abortion and voluntary assisted dying. Some Liberal MLAs voted against these bills, but Ms Lee promises the Liberals would not change them. Labor has accused candidate Darren Roberts of making “racist and offensive” comments on social media, while Mr Barr has called Peter Cain the most right-wing Canberra Liberal for a book he wrote some 20 years ago. (Mr Cain has repudiated the views he expressed in that book.) When the Canberra Liberals held their election campaign earlier this month, Mr Barr tweeted that the guest list included Peter Dutton, Scott Morrison, and Zed Seselja. None of those politicians attended. A Liberal insider said: “[Labor] are just trying to attack Elizabeth Lee by comparing her to conservative white men in the party.”
ACT Greens
The ACT Greens have made addressing the cost-of-living and “taking Canberra further and faster towards a fairer future” their election platform. They would solve the housing crisis by building 10,000 affordable public homes over the next decade, which they say is the biggest housing affordability initiative in the ACT’s history (cost: $2.2 billion). They would insource maintenance services on public housing, turn the Thoroughbred Park racecourse into a 5,000-home suburb, freeze rents for two years, and cap rent increases by 2 per cent. They would invest nearly $87 million to improve literacy and numeracy; $150 million to upgrade schools; and $20 million in student wellbeing. They would deliver more than 160,000 free GP appointments at four bulk-billing GP clinics, set up mental health walk-in centres, and offer free ambulances. They would take a “smart on crime” approach to reduce recidivism, including a $55 million “Breaking the Cycle” fund and raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14. Their $14.7 million drug harm reduction plan aims to de-stigmatise drug use and increase access to health support. The Greens promise to deliver light rail faster and maintain rapid bus services. The Greens also promise to make Canberra climate-resilient and protect the environment and waterways.
Leader Shane Rattenbury recently announced that the Greens would seek to lead government. Nevertheless, the Greens are the most vulnerable of the three major parties: far from gaining seats, they could lose as many as four. The Greens only received 13.5 per cent of the vote at the last election, and, while they are popular with young and progressive Canberrans, voting for them is no longer seen as a protest against Labor. The Greens, former MLA Caroline Le Couteur observed, “are seen as part of the problem … as just part of the ALP Government”. Tensions have grown between the partners in government. Labor MLAs reportedly find the Greens difficult to work with – Labor MLA Dr Marisa Paterson, for instance, has complained that fellow Murrumbidgee MLA Emma Davidson is more interested in “social media … [and] populist campaigns in other jurisdictions” than in ACT matters – while the Greens allege that Labor sought to create a political advantage out of Johnathan Davis’s resignation.
Independents
No independent has been elected in the ACT since 1998, but that could very well change this year. The Belco Party’s Bill Stefaniak has even floated the idea that, with enough numbers, the ACT could end up with an independent assembly, even an independent chief minister. Independents for Canberra (standing in every electorate), the Belco Party (in Yerrabi and Ginninderra), Fiona Carrick (in Murrumbidgee), or the Strong Independents (in Kurrajong) aim to sit on the crossbench; there, they would hold government accountable, judging policies on their own merits, rather than through party ideology. Smaller parties like the Animal Justice Party, the First Nations Party, or the Democratic Labour Party might have a chance, too, while Elizabeth Kikkert could be re-elected as a Family First MLA.
Word has it that Labor polls show a shift away from them towards independents. Labor has run a scare campaign against the independents, claiming that they would bring the Liberals to power (and probably stop light rail). Independents, however, have said that they owe no allegiance to any party; the Belco Party would support Liberals over Labor or the Greens, but promised to “keep them up to the task”.
A strong crossbench is much needed: many believe the 16-to-9 majority of this past term has not been good for democracy, allowing the government to pass any motion it liked, and ride roughshod over the opposition. Green (and even some Labor) MLAs, reportedly, privately supported some Liberal motions, but voted against them for party reasons. To quote W. S. Gilbert: “If they’ve a brain and cerebellum, too, They’ve got to leave that brain outside, And vote just as their leaders tell ’em to.”
Tempers on the campaign trail, hooligans on the hustings
With so much at stake for the parties, passions have run high. Elizabeth Lee, for instance, lost her temper yesterday with a journalist. Although Ms Lee has apologised, both the act and the timing, in the final days of the campaign, were unfortunate. For his part, Andrew Barr seemed furious during his recent leaders’ debate with Ms Lee, but refrained from making any rude gestures on television.
Some partisans have turned to petty crime. Canberra Liberal corflutes have been damaged: Mark Parton’s shredded; Ginninderra candidates Peter Cain and Chiaka Barry’s sliced in half; and Murrumbidgee candidates Karen Walsh and Amardeep Singh’s defaced with Nazi or racist imagery. One long-term Liberal volunteer called an incident a fortnight ago “one of the worst cases of corflute vandalism ever seen”. Labor and Green supporters, and even a rival Liberal faction, have been blamed. Retired Labor MLA Joy Burch said: “This is outright awful. Regardless of where you sit on the political fence, there is no place for this.” Likewise, the Belco Party accuses a Labor supporter of damaging their corflutes, and noted that the corflutes of all candidates except the Independents for Canberra were knocked over, damaged, or moved.
One Greens candidate, Harini Rangarajan, was videoed removing Canberra Liberals MLA Ed Cocks’s flyer from outside a house and replacing it with her own. “A poor judgement call,” Ms Rangarajan said. Ms Rangarajan sparked controversy for social media posts from last year comparing Jesus to Osama bin Laden (“a creative writing exercise”). Meanwhile, another Greens candidate, James Cruz, has faced scrutiny for decade-old Facebook posts in which he allegedly called for politicians to be “hanged in the street”. Like Mr Cain, Mr Cruz has disavowed his views. These incidents seem to be part of a broader tactic – by parties or their supporters from across the political spectrum – of digging up damaging material from candidates’ pasts.
By Saturday night, the election results should be known. Will Labor return to power, or will the Liberals take the reins of government for the first time since 2001? Or the Greens? Or the independents? Can one hear the sound of empires toppling? Time will tell; it always does. “Nothing lasts forever,” as Francis Urquhart MP mused; “even the longest, the most glittering reign must come to an end someday.”
