Australian Capital Territory Election 2004
| ELECTION 16/10/2004 | ELECTION 20/10/2000 | ELECTION 21/02/1998 | ELECTION 18/02/1995 | |||||||||||||||||
| ALP | LIB | GRN | OTH | ALP | LIB | GRN | DEM | ALP | LIB | GRN | OTH | ALP | LIB | GRN | OTH | |||||
| BRINDABELLA | 3 | 2 | - | - | 3 | 2 | - | - | 2 | 2 | - | 1 | 2 | 2 | - | 1 | ||||
| GINNINDERRA | 3 | 2 | - | - | 2 | 2 | - | 1 | 2 | 2 | - | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | - | ||||
| MOLONGLO | 3 | 3 | 1 | - | 3 | 3 | 1 | - | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Total | 9 | 7 | 1 | - | 8 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 2 | ||||
| Helen Cross was elected as a Liberal Party member for Molonglo at the 2001 election but sat as an independent from 23 September 2002. Candidate lists below feature all Labor and Liberal candidates, listed in alphabetical order, and the best-performing minor party and independent candidates, in order of primary vote. Successful candidates are in bold; incumbents are marked with an asterisk. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PRE-ELECTION OVERVIEW Chief Minister Jon Stanhope's Labor Party goes into the October 16 election with eight members in the 17-seat chamber, governing with the consent of one Green and one Democrat. The balance consists of six Liberals and one ex-Liberal independent. The election will be the sixth since self-government was established in 1989 and the fourth since the original single electorate system made way for three electorates, two (Brindabella and Ginninderra) with five members and one (Molonglo) with seven, elected under the Hare-Clark sytem. The system's closest Australian relative is that for the Tasmanian lower house, sharing with it rotating ordering of candidates on the ballot paper so that candidates must compete for votes with party colleagues, in contrast to the otherwise similar Senate system where the parties determine the order of their lists. As Chris Uhlmann of the ABC notes, "it is hard to conceive of any set of results that does not add up to a return of the Stanhope Labor Government". The main source of interest is thus whether Labor can secure the one extra seat they need to become the ACT's first-ever majority government, with Ginninderra looking their best chance. One observer who is not backing such an outcome is Greens Senator Bob Brown, who has never been shy of making implausible predictions on his party's behalf. Brown has claimed that the federal election results suggest the Greens will increase their representation from one seat to four by winning one each in Brindabella and Ginninderra and two in Molonglo. Crispin Hull of the Canberra Times also assesses that the Greens will now "have left-field on their own" and are thus assured of a seat in each electorate, although to the Poll Bludger's mind a lesson of the federal election is that the Greens cannot count on making all the hay from the decline of the Democrats, who traditionally attracted support from those making what they perceived to be an ideologically neutral anti-major party vote. Hull also notes that a repeat of last week's voting patterns in Canberra would give Labor 10 of 17 seats, and provides the following instructive analysis of why there is no chance of this happening: Firstly, a lot of Canberrans vote for federal Labor for the purely selfish reason that they are federal public servants whose power and pay, they think, is improved by a federal Labor Government. But when it comes to local government they get as fretful as the rest of Australia, especially over rates - the local equivalent of interest rates. Secondly, in the ACT we have multi-member electorates ... So we have a name-recognition factor plus a 'my-local-member-helped-me' factor. It means quite a few people will have both Labor and Liberal candidates in their first five or seven preferences. In Molonglo in 2001, 8 per cent of the preferences of the first excluded Liberal went to Labor. BRINDABELLA
In this respect the bar has been raised by the retirement of member Bill Wood, a veteran of the first ACT Legislative Assembly in 1989, who will take with him a name recognition that is very important in these elections. Incumbents John Hargreaves and Karin MacDonald are assured of re-election while the remaining Labor candidates, Mick Gentleman, Paschal Leahy and Rebecca Logue, appear from this distance to have about as much chance as each other of taking a third seat. To do this they will also need to overcome the two Greens candidates, Graham Jensen and Kathryn Kelly. Crispin Hull of the Canberra Times argues that Labor will need to substantially improve on the 44 per cent of the vote they received to win the third seat in 2001, when the non-major party vote split in several directions and petered out through exhaustion and leakage to the major parties. This time they will face a consolidated Greens vote. However, Antony Green notes that the 6.9 per cent vote for defeated independent Paul Osborne, who is not contesting this time, "is more likely to return to the major parties than to go to the Greens". There are also two sitting Liberal members who appear certain to be re-elected - Opposition Leader Brendan Smyth, who held the federal seat of Canberra for one year after the 1995 by-election that lit the fuse on the Keating Government, and Steve Pratt, the CARE aid worker who was imprisoned in Yugoslavia on spying charges in 1999. Assessment: Labor 3, Liberal 2. The Liberals performed better than expected here, but not well enough to be in contention for a third seat. Opposition Leader Brendan Smyth was easily re-elected with 21.4 per cent of the primary vote but fellow incumbent Steve Pratt performed disappointingly in only slightly outpolling party colleague Steve Doszpot by 6.1 per cent to 5.8 per cent, although the gap opened further after preferences. Labor's John Hargreaves managed a full quota in his own right with 17.8 per cent, and although his fellow Labor incumbent Karin MacDonald did less well with 8.3 per cent, she was still comfortably re-elected. The strongest performing of the Labor newcomers, Mick Gentleman, went on to win Labor's third seat from 7.4 per cent, fractionally higher than the combined vote for the disappointing Greens. Outcome: 1. Brendan Smyth (Liberal); 2. John Hargreaves (Labor); 3. Karin MacDonald (Labor); 4. Mick Gentleman (Labor); 5. Steve Pratt (Liberal). Click here for Australian Capital Territory Electoral Commission results GINNINDERRA
Assessment: Labor 2, Liberal 2, Greens 1. Labor ended up with a third seat at the expense of the Democrats, whose 4.1 per cent of the primary vote was exactly half of that achieved by the Greens. Chief Minister Jon Stanhope dominated the Labor vote with a personal total of 36.9 per cent. The other Labor incumbent, Wayne Berry, won re-election from a relatively weak 4.6 per cent, the third seat going to newcomer Mary Porter (3.8 per cent). Liberal Bill Stefaniak fell fractionally short of a quota in his own right but colleague Vicki Dunne did less well, holding only a modest lead on the primary vote over the remaining Liberal candidates. Outcome: 1. Jon Stanhope (Labor); 2. Bill Stefaniak (Liberal); 3. Vicki Dunne (Liberal); 4. Wayne Berry (Labor); 5. Mary Porter (Labor). Click here for Australian Capital Territory Electoral Commission results MOLONGLO
Assessment: Labor 4, Liberal 2, Greens 1. The only electorate in which the Liberal vote fell, no doubt due to the 2.9 per cent polled by Liberal-turned-independent member Helen Cross. Despite this they managed to defend the status quo from 2001, although the last-elected Liberal, Zed Seselja, only just finished ahead of a fourth Labor candidate, Mike Hettinger, and the outcome was in doubt until late in the count. Both Seselja (6.1 per cent) and the other successful Liberal newcomer, Richard Mulcahy (7.7 per cent), outperformed incumbent Jacqui Burke (5.9 per cent) on the primary vote, but she nevertheless retained her seat ahead of Seselja after preferences. Mulcahy reportedly ran an expensive, high-profile campaign, the Canberra Times reporting "speculation" he would soon move to contest the leadership. Labor's three incumbents finished well ahead out of the seven Labor candidates and easily retained their seats. The Greens went backwards on the primary vote (from 12.6 per cent to 11.5 per cent) and fell well short of their stated hope for a second seat. They nonetheless comfortably secured one seat, Deb Foskey having the edge out of the three Greens candidates seeking to replace the retiring Kerrie Tucker. Outcome: 1. Katy Gallagher (Labor); 2. Ted Quinlan (Labor); 3. Simon Corbell (Labor); 4. Deb Foskey (Greens); 5. Richard Mulcahy (Liberal); 6. Jacqui Burke (Liberal); 7. Zed Seselja (Liberal). Click here for Australian Capital Territory Electoral Commission results |