Incumbent MPs
- Yvette Berry (Labor), since 2012.
- Tara Cheyne (Labor), since 2016.
- Vicki Dunne (Liberal), since 2001.
- Elizabeth Kikkert (Liberal), since 2016.
- Gordon Ramsay (Labor), since 2016.
Geography
Ginninderra covers the majority of the Belconnen district in north-western Canberra, including the suburbs of Aranda, Macquarie, Bruce, Page, Scullin, Florey, Latham, Higgins, Macgregor, Charnwood, Melba, Spence, Fraser, Evatt, McKellar, Lawson and Dunlop.
Redistribution
Ginninderra expanded north, taking in the northern Belconnen suburbs of Evatt, McKellar and Lawson.
History
The electorate of Ginninderra was created in 1995, when the ACT electoral system was changed to introduce multi-member districts for the first time.The seat covered almost exactly the same area from 1995 until 2012, having undergone two minor redistributions prior to the 2001 and 2012 elections.
Ginninderra has always elected five MLAs. Labor has always won two seats, and the Liberal Party has also won two. The fifth seat has alternated between Labor and a succession of crossbenchers.
In 1995, the fifth seat was won by Greens candidate Lucy Horodny. In 1998, she lost that seat to independent Dave Rugendyke, running on a social conservative platform with former rugby league player Paul Osborne.
In 2001, the seat instead went Roslyn Dundas of the Democrats.
In 2004, the seat went to Labor’s Mary Porter, giving Labor three out of the five seats, which helped give them majority government for the only time in ACT history.
In 2008, the third Labor seat was lost to the Greens’ Meredith Hunter, one of four Greens elected across the territory. In 2012, Hunter lost her seat to Labor’s Yvette Berry.
The 2016 election produced a status quo result, with Labor holding three seats and the Liberal Party holding two.
Candidates
- A – Shooters, Fishers And Farmers
- Matthew Ogilvie
- Oliver Smith
- B – Democratic Labour
- Helen Mcclure
- Ian Mcclure
- C – Climate Change Justice Party
- Oksana Demetrios
- Sok Kheng Ngep
- Jonathan Stavridis
- D – Animal Justice Party
- Carolyne Drew
- Lara Drew
- E – Sustainable Australia
- Paul Gabriel
- Mark O’Connor
- F – Belco Party
- Vijay Dubey
- Chic Henry
- Angela Lount
- Bill Stefaniak
- Alan Tutt
- G – Liberal
- Peter Cain
- Robert Gunning
- Elizabeth Kikkert
- Kacey Lam
- Ignatius Rozario
- H – Liberal Democrats
- Dominic De Luca
- Guy Jakeman
- I – Greens
- Jo Clay
- Tim Liersch
- Katt Millner
- J – Labor
- Yvette Berry
- Tara Cheyne
- Sue Ducker
- Greg Lloyd
- Gordon Ramsay
- Ungrouped
- Mignonne Cullen
Assessment
Two Labor seats and two Liberal seats are safe here. The Liberal Party may harbour ambitions of winning a seat here if they were to do very well, but it’s unlikely. This electorate is probably the Greens’ best chance of winning a third seat off Labor, on top of their seats in Kurrajong and Murrumbidgee.
2016 result
| 2016 election | Redistribution | |||||
| Party | Votes | % | Quota | Swing | % | Quota |
| Labor | 19,494 | 41.4 | 2.481 | +0.8 | 41.1 | 2.465 |
| Liberal | 15,095 | 32.0 | 1.921 | -0.5 | 32.6 | 1.955 |
| Independents | 4,580 | 9.7 | 0.583 | +8.7 | 9.7 | 0.582 |
| Greens | 4,573 | 9.7 | 0.582 | -0.8 | 8.9 | 0.536 |
| Sustainable Australia | 1,105 | 2.3 | 0.141 | +2.3 | 2.3 | 0.138 |
| Canberra Community Voters | 814 | 1.7 | 0.104 | +1.7 | 1.5 | 0.093 |
| Liberal Democrats | 587 | 1.2 | 0.075 | -0.6 | 1.4 | 0.081 |
| Like Canberra | 450 | 1.0 | 0.057 | +1.0 | 1 | 0.059 |
| Animal Justice Party | 444 | 0.9 | 0.057 | +0.9 | 1 | 0.057 |
| Others | 0.5 | 0.033 | ||||
| Informal | 1,384 | 2.9 | ||||
Preference flows
We’ll fast forward to the final ten candidates, right after the elimination of two of the Liberal candidates:
- Vicki Dunne (LIB) – 0.768 quotas
- Yvette Berry (ALP) – 0.657
- Elizabeth Kikkert (LIB) – 0.640
- Paul Sweeney (LIB) – 0.620
- Indra Esguerra (GRN) – 0.605
- Gordon Ramsay (ALP) – 0.563
- Tara Cheyne (ALP) – 0.546
- Chris Bourke (ALP) – 0.501
- Kim Huynh (IND) – 0.482
- Kim Fischer (ALP) – 0.478
Fischer’s preferences flowed relatively evenly to the four other Labor candidates, pushing Cheyne and Ramsay into the top five candidates.
- Dunne (LIB) – 0.786
- Berry (ALP) – 0.760
- Kikkert (LIB) – 0.650
- Cheyne (ALP) – 0.652
- Ramsay (ALP) – 0.645
- Esguerra (GRN) – 0.631
- Sweeney (LIB) – 0.626
- Bourke (ALP) – 0.590
- Huynh (IND) – 0.496
Huynh’s preferences scattered, with Esguerra doing best from them, pushing her into third place.
- Dunne (LIB) – 0.825
- Berry (ALP) – 0.794
- Esguerra (GRN) – 0.718
- Kikkert (LIB) – 0.701
- Cheyne (ALP) – 0.695
- Ramsay (ALP) – 0.689
- Sweeney (LIB) – 0.658
- Bourke (ALP) – 0.622
Bourke’s preferences favoured his three remaining colleagues, particularly helping Berry pass a quota, and pushing Cheyne and Ramsay into third and fourth place.
- Berry (ALP) – 1.010
- Dunne (LIB) – 0.843
- Cheyne (ALP) – 0.840
- Ramsay (ALP) – 0.833
- Esguerra (GRN) – 0.755
- Kikkert (LIB) – 0.711
- Sweeney (LIB) – 0.671
Berry’s small surplus was distributed and then Sweeney’s votes were distributed, which elected the two remaining Liberals and leaivng Esguerra outside the top five:
- Dunne (LIB) – 1.119
- Kikkert (LIB) – 1.002
- Ramsay (ALP) – 0.857
- Cheyne (ALP) – 0.855
- Esguerra (GRN) – 0.765
Dunne and Kikkert’s preferences were then distributed, leaving the crucial count for deciding who would win the two remaining seats:
- Ramsay (ALP) – 0.872
- Cheyne (ALP) – 0.869
- Esguerra (GRN) – 0.780
The gap between the third Labor MLA, Cheyne, and the unsuccessful Greens candidate Esguerra, was 0.089 quota, or about 701 votes. If 351 voters switched directly from Cheyne to Esguerra this would have resulted in the Greens winning, but it should be noted that Labor was very effective at distributing their votes evenly between their candidates, and it’s likely a drop in the Labor vote would come from all candidates, so a bigger swing would likely be required.
Booth breakdown
Polling places in Ginninderra have been split into three parts: central, north and east.
Labor topped the poll in all three areas, ranging from 41.6% in the north to 42.5% in the centre.
The Liberal vote ranged from 23.8% in the east to 33.1% in the north. The Greens polled around 9% in the centre and north, but close to 16% in the east.
| Voter group | ALP % | LIB % | GRN % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North | 41.6 | 33.1 | 8.6 | 11,592 | 22.0 |
| Central | 42.5 | 30.9 | 9.4 | 9,853 | 18.7 |
| East | 41.8 | 23.8 | 15.8 | 6,388 | 12.1 |
| Pre-poll | 40.4 | 35.4 | 8.4 | 18,969 | 36.0 |
| Other votes | 39.2 | 35.1 | 10.1 | 5,954 | 11.3 |
Election results in Ginninderra at the 2016 ACT election
Click on the ‘visible layers’ box to toggle between primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
Labor are really good at hanging on to 3 seats here. Kevin Bonham calls even vote splitting “the Ginninderra effect” for a reason, and in recent elections Labor have tried to lean into it with their campaigning, with candidates picking specific areas for campaigning. Yvette Berry is higher profile than the other 2 incumbents, but not by much.
The Greens will do better than last time if federal swings hold, and that’s with them barely campaigning in the Fenner half of this electorate. It’s not clear how much they’ll gain, and at whose expense.
Belco party got some media attention, have a relatively high profile leader (though “high profile” in ACT politics doesn’t amount to much), and are very well funded, but I don’t see them doing well enough to take a seat. I think they’ll be the SA Best/Territory Alliance of the ACT election. However the dent they make in the Liberal vote won’t come all back as preferences.
The Liberals are losing Vicki Dunne’s personal vote, but Dunne is still doing many campaign/policy announcements. An odd strategy that starves her potential replacements of profile.
If 3-1-1 (ALP-Lib-GRN) is ever going to happen, it’s at this election. Status quo or 2-2-1 are the more likely possibilities. It won’t change the outcome of the election at any rate.
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/act2020/ginninderra2020#comment-747083
The SA House of Assembly and NT Legislative Assembly both have single member electorate systems, making 3rd party entry difficult. The ACT Legislative Assembly has proportional representation in multi-member electorates, already allowing 3rd party representation (the Greens) and with some history of 4th party representation, opening a potential window for the Belco Party (I am not saying they will win, just they could). SA Best did win seats in the SA Legislative Council, which also has proportional representation.
@Tom what I meant was that they will underperform despite getting media nareatives as contenders. I don’t expect them to get anywhere near as many votes as TA/SAB. They’ll do better than the other non-Green third parties, but not by much. However they might do well enough to depress the Liberal vote; they are both running tickets of 5 (the ballot paper recommends preferencing to 5 though you can do more) and don’t appear to be trading preferences.
I have to say the Belco Party really has clouded my thinking here and Vicki Dunne retiring will hurt the Lib Vote. Firstly the possible scenarios I get are: 3-2, 3-1-1, 2-2-1, 2-1-1-1. Yes I got burned with TA in NT 2020 (should have learned from NXT-SA 2018, ONP-QLD 2017, etc) but see an outside chance that Belco gets a seat in the 4th scenario but quite a lot has to go right for them (decrease lib vote for starters). What is both a hindrance and a help to this is the extra parties running here, left (CCJP, AJP, SUST) v right (SFF, DLP, LDM). The left vote could split before it gets to the greens, or worse, drop the greens and/or alp vote.
This one is hard to call, but locked in is 2ALP and 1LIB. TOSS-UP for 3rd ALP, 1st GRN, 2nd Lib and 1st Belco. If I had to lean, 1st GRN /2nd LIB for a status quo.
The hinge seat here will probably come down to Labor and Greens once again, although the redistribution should help Labor. I’d be surprised if the Liberals are in contention for a third seat here seeing as they were a long way off winning the third seat last time, but it’s possible (there was a swing towards the Liberals in some of this area at the last federal election).
I think the Belco party has a shot, although I gotta say their slogan “keep the bastards honest” seems like a bit of a political cliché at this point. The biggest challenge for minor parties and independents in the ACT is that too many run, which makes it hard for any individual to consolidate a quota.