One year ago this week, Elizabeth Lee became leader of the Canberra Liberals. It has been, in her words, “an enormous privilege to be a voice for our community” and “a great honour to serve as leader of the Canberra Liberals”.
“One year into the role, I think many Canberrans have started to get a sense of me as leader, and what I want to achieve for our city,” she said.
Ms Lee replaced Alistair Coe after the Liberals’ sixth successive defeat – a change the party presented as “a fresh new beginning”. Over the last year, Ms Lee has worked hard to change the image of her party, which Chief Minister Andrew Barr labelled “the most conservative branch of the Liberal party in the nation”.
Ms Lee is the first Asian-Australian leader of a political party, the Liberals’ first woman leader in 20 years, and with Giulia Jones forms the ACT’s first all-women leadership team. The Liberals have represented themselves as the champion of the underclass, seeking to offer bold, better, and more humane alternatives to Labor policies on health, education, housing, poverty, and Indigenous incarceration.
Some feel that the modern Canberra Liberals may even be closer in spirit to traditional Labor than Mr Barr’s government, which former Labor Chief Minister Jon Stanhope believes has become neoliberal.
Mr Stanhope told Canberra Daily earlier this year that – “difficult” though it was for him “to say as a lifelong supporter of the Labor party” – the Canberra Liberals showed “more empathy, more interest, and a greater propensity to actually deal with issues than the Labor party or the Greens currently do”.
The Liberals, he told the Canberra Times in April, had returned to Kate Carnell’s small ‘l’ liberalism, focusing on social policies which the government had neglected.
“After 20 years,” Ms Lee said, “this Labor-Greens government is out of touch.”
The community, she said, was concerned about the rising cost of living, poverty, the plight of businesses during the pandemic, and vulnerable Canberrans, including people in prison. During the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, she claimed, the government neglected vulnerable Canberrans; support for small businesses was inadequate and lacked respect; while East Canberrans in Oaks Estate and Symonston found it difficult to get vaccinated.
“We have listened, and we have brought those issues to the Legislative Assembly.”
The Labor-Green voting bloc, however, rejected many of those proposals: an investigation into racism at the Alexander Maconochie Centre (on behalf of the Aboriginal community); a poverty taskforce; housing stress relief (welcomed by community housing organisations); a small business ministerial advisory council (called for by those very businesses that feel the government has ignored them); and an independent investigation into the education system’s failing standards.
“It is clear Labor and the Greens do not have the appetite or the will to address these major failings,” Ms Lee said. “A lot of [government] decisions do not acknowledge, empathise or understand the issues Canberrans are actually concerned about.”
But the Canberra Liberals have also had their successes. The ACT, for instance, became the first jurisdiction to criminalise ‘stealthing’ (the non-consensual removal of a condom during sex), after a Bill of Ms Lee’s passed with unanimous support. The Liberals also believe the extra $80 million to maintain public housing budgeted over the next three years is due to their advocacy and lobbying on behalf of tenants, many of whom live in mouldy, flooded, even dangerous buildings. The Liberals and the government have drafted legislation to ensure tougher sentences for people convicted of domestic or family violence. Nicole Lawder’s motion to improve amenities on Lake Tuggeranong foreshore passed (backed by the Greens). Labor rescinded its plan to turn Cooleman Park into a carpark, an idea opposed by Jeremy Hanson, as well as the Greens. The West Belconnen green waste facility – announced as closing in July – has been kept open, partly due to a petition by Peter Cain. The ChooseCBR scheme is being audited, in response to Leanne Castley’s calls for a full independent review of the scheme’s integrity.
In other areas, Ms Lee said, the Canberra Liberals called for tighter bail laws for alleged offenders; drafted laws preventing developers unfairly cancelling off-the-plan contracts (a problem Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury is determined to fix); legislated for dementia-friendly design in the age-friendly city plan; fought for PPE for frontline health staff, including fit-tested masks; provided food relief for multicultural communities in quarantine; and advocated for “sensible” changes to restrictions on borders and non-essential retail during lockdown.
The Liberals have been willing to work with the government if they believe it is in Canberrans’ best interest, Ms Lee said; for instance, Territory Rights, sexual assault reform, pregnancy and infant loss, and lockdown health measures.
“We have demonstrated time and time again that while the Canberra Liberals will continue to hold the government to account, we will always look at initiatives, proposals, and policies on their merits, and support anything that is in the best interests of the community,” Ms Lee said. “It will always be about putting Canberra first.”
Shortly after her elevation to party leader, Ms Lee told Canberra Daily she was determined to win the 2024 election.
“We know there is much more work to be done over the next three years leading up to the 2024 election, but people can be assured that we will continue to stand up for all Canberrans, especially those most vulnerable in our community that have been left behind by this Labor-Greens government,” she said.
“I am confident that my team and I will continue to work hard to touch the hearts and minds of our community, and deliver a Liberal government for our city at the next election.”
