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The Australian CapitalTerritory Election of 20October 2001Jim ChalmersPublished online: 09 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Jim Chalmers (2002) The Australian Capital Territory Electionof 20 October 2001, Australian Journal of Political Science, 37:1, 165-168, DOI:10.1080/13603100220119092

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Australian Journal of Political Science,Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 165–168

CommentaryThe Australian Capital Territory Election of

20 October 2001

JIM CHALMERS

Australian National University

Australian Capital Territory elections represent a peculiar mix of local council-stylepolitics and a broader, leadership-centred and State-like contest. The ACT’sHare-Clarke electoral system, the relatively small number of electors and the arrayof parties make for interesting polls, with the results not known for at least a weekand the � nal make-up of the government in doubt until negotiations with represen-tatives of the minor parties can be � nalised. Add to this the political uncertaintycreated by recent world events, the concurrence of a federal election campaign andthe Australian debut of electronic voting, and the ACT election of 20 October 2001was sure to prove intriguing.

Electoral politics in the ACT are coloured by the prevalence of minorityadministrations . Indeed, since the Territory’s � rst election under self-government inFebruary 1989, the Legislative Assembly has remained under minority control(Warhurst 2000a, 1). Governments led by Follett (Labor: 1989 and 1991–95),Kaine (Liberal: 1989–91), Carnell (Liberal: 1995–2000) and Humphries (Liberal:2000–1) all relied on the support of minor parties or Independents. Before the 2001election, non-major-party candidates had won 19 out of the 68 seats contested(Bennett 2000, 1). This prevalence of minority government has been attributed tothe Hare-Clark electoral system, a version of proportiona l representation. TheRobson Rotation system, which rotates the order of candidates on the ballot papersissued, ensures nobody is advantaged by a ‘donkey vote’, there is no above-the-lineparty voting, how-to-vote cards are banned at polling booths and terms are � xed atthree years with elections now held in October.

The two leadership contestants for the 2001 ACT election were the incumbentLiberal leader Gary Humphries and the Labor challenger Jon Stanhope. For bothmen it was their � rst chance to face the electorate as party leader, Humphrieshaving taken over the Chief Ministership from the successful but controversia l KateCarnell and Stanhope having replaced the unpopular Wayne Berry after Labor’s1998 electoral disaster (Warhurst 2000b). Humphries has been a member of theLegislative Assembly since its creation in 1989, while Stanhope was � rst electedin 1998. Both have legal backgrounds, and the Labor leader has worked as anadviser in the federal sphere, to both Kim Beazley and the former Attorney-GeneralMichael Lavarch. While neither leadership aspirant could be described as charis-

Jim Chalmers is a postgraduate student in political science in the School of Social Sciences, Faculty ofArts, at the Australian National University. He thanks John Warhurst for his assistance with thepreparation of this commentary.

ISSN 1036-1146 print; ISSN 1363-030X online/02/010165-04 Ó 2002 Australasian Political Studies AssociationDOI: 10.1080/1360310022011909 2

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166 J. CHALMERS

matic or inspirational, both are seen as steady, locally focused politicians incontrast to the � amboyant former Chief Minister Carnell. Datacol polls taken in thelead-up to the election showed a preference for Mr Humphries as leader, despitehigher levels of support for the Labor Party.

The leadership contest and the battle between the two parties with the potentialto form government provided only the macro-component of the election campaign.Recent ACT electoral history shows that the outcome of the battle between theminor parties and Independents would prove equally important to the outcome.Thus the leadership-focused major-party contest masked a minor-party battle thatwould determine the make-up of the Assembly and the political ‘colour’ of theadministration . In this respect the relative success of the Greens and the Democratswould be vital, as would the levels of support garnered by sitting IndependentsDave Rugendyke and Paul Osborne. Success for the Greens or Democrats wouldlikely point to a Labor administration , while the conservative Independents wouldbe vital to Liberal Party success. For those parties unlikely to win seats in their ownright—for example the Nurses Good Government, Liberal Democratic, CanberraFirst and Gungahlin Equity parties—the distribution of their preferences wouldnonetheless be vital to the outcome.

The two remaining sitting Independents both faced a dif� cult battle to hold onto their seats in the face of strong polling for the ACT Greens and AustralianDemocrats. The conservative Osborne and Rugendyke, ex-Canberra Raiders foot-baller and local police of� cer, respectively, were very nearly joined in the monthsbefore the election by the high-pro� le football legend Mal Meninga. That wasbefore Meninga, a close associate of Osborne, conducted a press conference toannounce his intention to stand for the Assembly only to change his mind halfwaythrough the media appearance to declare he was ‘buggered’ before pulling out ofthe race. This appeared amateurish and robbed the Independents’ cause of asigni� cant public � gure.

As can be expected in an electorate as small as the ACT, local bread-and-butterissues dominated the campaign. The Humphries government’s controversia l ‘freebus’ scheme for schoolchildren , and education funding more generally, was centralto the campaign, as was the contested battleground of the provision of healthinfrastructure. Economic management was also hotly debated, as Labor tried toremind voters of the Bruce Stadium � asco while combating the Liberal Party’schallenges to policy costings. Police and law-and-order issues also featured, as didplanning concerns such as the proposed extension of Gungahlin Drive and dual-oc-cupancy housing blocks.

The emphasis on bread-and-butter issues permeated the media campaigns of thecontending parties, with the exception of the Democrats who relied heavily on theirmarketable federal leader Natasha Stott Despoja. The Liberal Party’s televisionadvertisements featured a Chief Minister getting on with the job and in touch withthe local Canberra community. Labor’s Jon Stanhope advertisements portrayed aserious and concerned leader passionate about hospitals and schools. These positiveappeals were coupled with negative advertisements reminding viewers � rst of theLiberal’s mismanagement of the Bruce Stadium redevelopment and then of thedeals done by the outgoing independent Health Minister Michael Moore. Thisformed part of a larger strategy of targeting Independents Osborne and Rugendyke.The Greens’ Kerrie Tucker featured prominently in her party’s television advertis-ing. Some of the individual major party candidates and Independents could afford

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THE ACT ELECTION OF 20 OCTOBER 2001 167

Table 1. Distribution of � rst-preference votes by electorate and party (%)

Brindabella Ginninderra Molonglo ACT total

Labor 43.97 42.82 39.31 41.72Liberal 31.86 27.92 34.13 31.64Greens 5.43 7.94 12.57 9.10Democrats 6.96 9.71 7.63 8.04Osborne 6.87 — — 2.04Rugendyke — 5.61 — 1.64Nurses 1.68 1.26 1.41 1.45Liberal Democrats 0.52 1.88 0.68 0.98Gungahlin Equity — 0.62 0.95 0.57Kaine 1.12 — 0.31 0.46Canberra First — — 0.85 0.35Others 1.59 2.24 2.16 2.02Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

their own television advertisements. A larger group utilised local print media suchas the Canberra Times and the City News, while others could afford neither formsof communication and resorted to mobile billboards parked strategically on Can-berra’s arterial roads.

For the � rst time in an Australian electoral jurisdiction , electronic voting wastrialed in the election. Voters were given the option of swiping a barcode, enteringa vote, then swiping again to con� rm their selection, at 80 terminals across eightpolling booths. A number of problems were encountered, with some barcodes notregistering properly, some computers ‘going down’ and the results taking longerthan anticipated on election night. Despite the glitches, though, the ACT ElectoralCommission has announced that electronic voting is here to stay. It remains to beseen whether Australia’s larger jurisdictions will follow this lead.

As vote counting began on the night of 20 October, a large swing to theStanhope-led Labor Party became clear. Two weeks later, after counting had � nallyconcluded, Labor had achieved a primary vote of 41.72%, compared with only31.64% for the Liberal Party, and constituting a signi� cant swing to Labor of13.8%. The Greens garnered an impressive 9.10% of the vote, just edging out theDemocrats on 8.04%. The primary votes won by the respective parties are listed inTable 1.

Despite Labor’s tally of � rst-preference votes, ALP representation in the newLegislative Assembly was limited to only eight seats, one short of an absolutemajority in the 17-seat chamber. Though the Liberals trailed Labor in the primaryvote by approximately 10 percentage points, seven of their candidates were elected.This left one seat to the Democrats’ 23-year-old Roslyn Dundas and one to theGreens’ leader Kerrie Tucker. Table 2 lists the candidates elected in each of theACT’s three electoral jurisdictions .

Importantly, � ve out of the six newly elected members are women, increasingfemale representation in the Legislative Assembly to 7 out of 17 members. Amongthe newcomers are young women such as the Democrats’ Dundas and Labor’sKarin MacDonald and Katy Gallagher. Thus the 2001 election saw great stridestaken towards gender equity and generational renewal.

A Stanhope Labor government will prove vastly different from its Moore Liberalpredecessor, not only because of the differences between the major parties but also

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168 J. CHALMERS

Table 2. Elected members of the Legislative Assemblyby electorate and party

Electorate Elected member Party

Brindabella Brendan Smyth LiberalJohn Hargreaves LaborBill Wood LaborSteve Pratt LiberalKarin MacDonald Labor

Ginninderra Jon Stanhope LaborBill Stefaniak LiberalWayne Berry LaborRoslyn Dundas DemocratsVikki Dunne Liberal

Molonglo Gary Humphries LiberalKerrie Tucker GreensSimon Corbell LaborTed Quinlan LaborKaty Gallagher LaborHelen Cross LiberalGreg Cornwall Liberal

because Labor relies on Left-wing support primarily from the Greens’ Tucker andalso from the Democrats’ Dundas, a situation vastly different from the previousgovernment’s reliance on the conservative trio of Moore, Osborne and Rugendyke.However, despite the change of government and the administration’s likely shift tothe Left, electoral politics in the ACT remains characterised by minority govern-ment and the inevitable horse-trading that follows. The lesson from the 2001 ACTelection is that neither Labor nor Liberal seems to have the capacity to governalone in the foreseeable future. The Hare-Clarke system sees to it that, even if aparty can convince 42% of the electorate to bestow on it their primary vote,majority government remains elusive.

References

Bennett, S. 2000. Government in the ACT—A Shift from ‘Westminster’? Canberra: Department of theParliamentary Library, Research Note no. 2.

Warhurst, J. 2000a. ‘The Australian Capital Territory.’ Paper presented to the Annual Conference ofthe Australasian Political Studies Association, Australian National University, Canberra, 4–6October.

Warhurst, J. 2000b. ‘Australian Capital Territory: Diminished Capital.’ In The Machine: LaborConfronts the Future, eds J. Warhurst and A. Parkin. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin.

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