Ginninderra – ACT 2024

Probably the Greens’ best chance of a new seat. Jo Clay has been a standout performer and results like Forest Lake at the BCC election suggest to me that Greens may yet be able to get the traditional suburban ALP vote (something they’d be figuring out as they seek to retain Griffith)

Liberals only winning 1 seat looms large – maybe if enough socially conservative Liberal voters are turned off by Lee and vote Belco party instead (with as much risk of it amounting to nothing as last time).

Elizabeth Kikkert has been disendorsed by the Liberals, seemingly due to alleged issues around donations and the mistreatment of staff.

@Oguh is she still running?

Kikkert has made no announcement about running – she is not going to join the Belco Party – which polled 9.3% of the vote in 2020. Belco Party could take the second Liberal seat

Bold prediction – there’s enough chaos on the right of Labor that 3-1-1 or 2-1-2 is the likely result. Kikkert, Belco Party, any 2nd Lib and Independents for Canberra will all fall victim to the “Ginninderra effect”.

Greens seem to have softly pivoted back to single lead candidates outside Kurrajong, so Labor 3 more likely than Greens 2.

Further bad news for the Liberals in Gininderra – one of their candidates is all over the Canberra times with not terribly salubrious media posts in his past. Elizabeth Kiffert has joined the Family first Party – no news yet on whether she will run but it seems likely

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/25/it-grows-this-anger-within-people-how-australia-treats-those-fleeing-humanitarian-disaster-depends-on-where-they-came-from-and-when?CMP=share_btn_url Kikkert running for Family First

With the Liberals’ multiple candidate problems here, I’d hazard a guess this is the best shot for a non Labor/Liberal/Greens win – seems like IFC or Belco party could have a shot. I’m sceptical about Family First’s chances even with an incumbent considering their far-right politics, but maybe I’ll be proven wrong!

This seat, not Kurrajong, could be the Liberals’ worst seat.

The rumblings within the Liberals could have a spillover effect. There are more ‘independent’ and right-wing parties, such as Belco, IFC and Family First, that can split the vote. Not all preferences from such parties will flow to the Liberals.

@Blue Not John, Liberals would be lucky to win two seats. You made sound claims that apart from 2 ALP, 1 GRN and 1 LIB, a seat may possibly go to either FF, IFC or Belco. It depends on preference flows. I still think that there’s a path to a second Liberal seat.

There’s a cohort who want to swing away from Labor but won’t vote Liberal. Labor have enough of a buffer to hold two seats.

Agree Votante
I think the Liberals winning a 3rd seat here is very difficult so they need to hold their second and hope the Belco party takes the seat from the Greens to be in a position to form government.

Nimalan – I think the Liberals could even ose their second seat to Belco Party or an independent – Kikkert the best Liberal vote earner in 2020 is running for Family First – this could be a train wreck on the conservative side with votes splitting every which way – a small increase in the Labor vote could see them with a chance of a third seat

Assuming Belco is a right-wing party, I should note that One Nation did better here than anywhere else in the ACT at the last federal election but even then there vote was only 3-5% max.

The best booth for One Nation in the ACT was actually in Kurrajong (though not the CBD part obviously): One Nation got 7.23% in the Oaks Estate booth located at Oaks Estate Community Hall in the seat of Canberra.

Oaks Estate is a small suburb of Canberra where 61.4% of the population is male (I have no idea what the most male and most female suburbs in Australia are but this would have to be up there among the most male suburbs). It is also fairly typical to the average population across Australia in terms of the top ancestries, with the top ancestries being Australian (24.8%), English (21.3%), Irish (11.7%), Scottish (8.3%) and Chinese (4.8%), however only 53.3% of the population was born in Australia while 3.5% were born in Afghanistan, 2.4% each in China and India, 2.1% in Pakistan and only 1.6% were born in England. Only 1.3% are Indigenous (the ACT doesn’t have a large Indigenous population). The median age there is 40. Though interestingly while 38.4% are non-religious and 24.5% did not state their religion in the 2021 census, 9.6% are Catholic and 9.1% are Muslim, while just 5.6% are Anglican. Only 55.5% speak English at home, while 2.4% speak Punjabi, 2.1% Urdu, 2.1% Mandarin, 1.9% Hazaragi and 1.9% Bengali; overall 22.0% of the population speak a language other than English at home.

Pretty interesting demographics for that particular suburb.

@ Nether Portal
I think Oakes Estates is a Public housing estate and very disadvantaged one of the few places in Canberra.

No change – despite the problems that the Liberals have endured with their people

With the count basically declared with Chiaka Barry winning the final seat in Ginninderra, is it possible that she is the first West African MP in any Australian Legislative Assembly? Someone factcheck if possible.

Sorry, to clarify I believe she is of African descent but her candidate page says she came to Australia from the UK.

@ James
Yeah i think she is of African heritage but not sure more details beyond that. There is a South Sudanese in the Western Australian parliament , Ayor Makur Chuot. There was also Senator Lucy Giuchi who joined the Liberals after being on the Family First ticket. However, they are both East African

@James I’m not sure where in Africa her heritage is from but given she’s British I would say she’s got heritage from an Anglophone (English-speaking) country in Africa (as opposed to a Francophone (French-speaking) or Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) one). Most British people of African descent are from Anglophone countries e.g Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, etc while in France they typically come from Francophone countries e.g Cameroon (there is an Anglophone minority in part of Cameroon though), the Congos, Morocco, Senegal, etc.