Voting starts on Monday in the Australian Capital Territory election, with election day to be held on October 17.
Voters will be electing twenty-five members of the Legislative Assembly across five electorates using the Hare-Clark proportional voting system.
You can now read the guide to this election.
The current government is led by Labor’s Andrew Barr, with one Greens minister. The current Assembly includes twelve Labor MLAs, eleven Liberals and two Greens.
The Liberal Party is very close to winning a twelfth seat in Murrumbidgee. Indeed you can argue that the increase in the Liberal vote in this electorate has turned the second Greens seat into a notional Liberal seat. But it will be a lot harder for the Liberals to win a thirteenth seat to win a majority and form government (likely in Yerrabi in the north).
You can click through to read each electorate’s guide here:
You can also use the following map to click on any electorate, and then click through to the relevant guide.
I will be back in a week or so with an ACT election preview episode of the podcast, and I will be live-blogging on election night, so stay tuned.
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Well I will have a go at predicting the election seat by seat
Brindabella – if there is Liberal heartland in ACT it is here. Will the Greens having a very progressive person as their no 1 candidate hurt them in this conservative area. I predict – status quo
Ginninderra – this is Labor heartland in the ACT but seems to get ignored. Will be interesting with the Belco party but I think status quo
Kurrajong – the inner part and progressive part of the ACT. I think it may be 4 left and 1 right. Whether Labor or the Greens pick up the seat who knows.
Murrumbidgee – a lot of new voters in this area and a mortgage belt. The new tram line and upgrades to the hospital and CIT should help Labor. The Greens were the surprise picking up the last seat. Maybe it will be status quo – 3 Left and 2 right
Yerabi – Labor built the Tram line. Big loss in vote of Meegan Fitzharris – would have been the next Chief Minister in a Labor Government. Suggest status quo = 3 Labor 2 Liberals
Overall then is 13 Labor (assuming the Kurrajong) seat turns Labor
2 Greens
10 Liberal
Regardless how it falls it should be a Labor victory, at the end of the day it will be at least a majority left Government.
So is the election a forgone conclusion with Rattenbury stating that the Greens will not enter into Government with the Liberal Party. Looks like another 4 years of Labor and Greens
Not quite James. The Liberals have a path to majority – gaining the notional Liberal seat in Murrumbidgee back off the Greens, gaining a seat in Yerrabi (off the theory that the strong ALP vote last time was a light rail one off), and not losing any others.
Labor have a path to majority by gaining a 3rd seat in Kurrajong, Murrumbidgee or Brindabella (off the Liberals) and not losing any others. Not an easy feat but Brindabella was surprisingly close last time in an electorate where Labor were supposedly on the nose.
An independent doesn’t need that many votrs to get up so Fiona Carrick (Murrumbidgee), David Pollard and Fuxin Li (Yerrabi) and Bill Stefaniak (Ginninderra) can’t be ruled out. Historically non Green minor parties have supported the Liberals, and whoever forms government shared BOP is a very different dynamic to sole green BOP.
However yes the most likely outcome is another term of Labor/Green
I went seat by seat and get 11 ALP, 10 LIB, 4 GRN, that’s from taking in leanings what I thought be most probably scenario. I think I’m being like a polling company and too generous so the Greens. I really do see this as a status quo election of ALP/GRN Government. There are many close final seats in each race, but I really don’t see how the Liberals can get government this time unless there’s a big swing on. My 2 cents worth 🙂 bring on the election. [unfortunately all those I know in canberra are Labor voters…so really can’t gauge how it’s going down there without some bias]
People think Labor wins these elections by default but both of the last elections were close.
2016 was won by a light rail swing in 1 seat, and the personal popularity of a Greens candidate allowing her to narrowly beat the Liberals to the final seat.
In 2012 it was a pure tactical error. The “motorists party”, a Liberal ally/front group got a strong enough vote, largely at the Liberals expense, in Ginninderra to be excluded after the 3rd Liberal, but didn’t get enough Liberal preferences to win. Seems like history is repeating itself (with Chic Henry running again for the Belco Party.
Covid makes it harder to argue for change, but the Canberra Liberals have a path to Victory, have formed government in the past and could very well do so in the future. They however probably need:
* A moderate/compassionate conservative leader (Coe is far right)
* An unpopular or conservative ALP federal government in power
* The Greens at a low ebb
At the last ACT election the swings were all over the place – to Labor in Yerrabi, to the Greens in Kurrajong, to the Liberals in Murrumbidgee, against all three in Brindabella and not much of a swing at all in Ginninderra. Where the swings happen could make a big difference to the results. That plus the lack of polling makes it difficult to predict what’s going to happen. I agree with John that ACT elections are not a foregone conclusion – if Labor can win state elections in WA and Queensland, then the Liberals can win territory elections in the ACT. Frankly I think the Liberals struggle in ACT elections because they tend to run bad campaigns and weak candidates (with some exceptions). That said, they face an extra challenge this time because the COVID-19 rally-around-the-flag effect will probably assist the incumbent government as it appeared to in the NT election.
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