ACT Election decided...

Barr might have the numbers, but in purely practical terms, he’s got a large chunk of voters that may not actually support him purely due to the fact he’s gay.

I doubt it, at least not so in people who might vote Labor.

If it was a green-labor Govt with a green minister I’d say they’d bump Corbell to Speaker.

If I was the greens I wouldn’t want one minister as they’d get crunched by the right in cabinet. I’d say either go all in and get two ministries or take the speaker and the best committees, guarantee supply and snipe form the cross bench.

All this talk of Bar using his numbers to take the Chief Minister’s job forgets that technically the assembly chooses the CM not the party so he’d need greens support, which I doubt he’d get over Katy.

Barr might have the numbers, but in purely practical terms, he’s got a large chunk of voters that may not actually support him purely due to the fact he’s gay.

Unless he can prove that there are major legitimate reasons for supporting, like if Katy Gallagher had a track record being inept as CM, it could go against him.

(Wanting the job and being the best available candidate for the job would be two seperate things)

Barr has the numbers. Even if he doesn’t want the leadership short term, he’d be silly not to get control.

If there’s to be a Green-Labor Govt, then he has to roll Gallagher or Corbell – otherwise he would have only one place in Cabinet despite majority control of caucus. If it’s a Labor Cabinet with Green support, then he has to either dump Corbell while Stanhope is Chief Minister, or roll Shanhope as leader (replaced by Gallagher or Barr) and bring in another right Minister into Cabinet. The same scenario applies in opposition, but Barr could go all out and roll Gallagher as leader after he waits a year to let Gallagher’s laziness show and waits for any honeymoon effect to rub off a Liberal-Green arrangement.

does anyone even know for sure if barr actually wants the job just yet?

if i were a betting man i’d be putting money on him biding his time for now.

On Barr vs Gallagher:

Considering the privileged positions of the Greens, and now the more disadvantageous position the Libs are in, the Greens getting an optimum outcome out of the Labor bunch is going to be harder.

If it was 7-3-7, Greens could make demands of both sides, play “Why don’t you and him have a fight” and then just side with whoever made the better offer.

Now, Libs have to sweeten their proposals further, and Labor can back off some, and push Katy for CM, if Stanhope isn’t likely as part of any deals.

I’d be interested in what they had to say, but for mine re: Barr for CM, he’s still got some years ahead of him, and we’ve only seen what he’s like in boom years so far.
If there are going to be bungles in bust-years, let Barr get some experience, but have someone else’s head be the one on the chopping block (of Accountable Minority Government Chief Minister) for sacrificing.

Then, if there’s yet another Labor term, he’s primed for action, or if there’s an ousting of Labor next time, he’ll be set for playing the role of Very Critical Opposition Leader.

fhakk said :

Katy Gallagher…relatively untainted…

It helped that she changed portfolios before the school closures (even though the work would have started under her stewardship). I guess you could props for that piece of forward thinking.

I’d much prefer Barr to be CM out of the current mob. Gallagher would be too busy dodgy responsibility to run the Territory properly whereas I think Barr has shown he can cop criticism but keep putting in the effort.

disenfranchised said :

The major parties now have time to reflect on the results. The truth is Labor was always going to come off a high point (9 seats in 2004). They knew a school closure policy would take some skin (but they felt it needed to be done). Labor should fast track the transition from Stanhope to Gallagher. Stanhope served the ALP well but has probably reached his use by date. Corbell and Barr are talented experienced Ministers. Whether people like it or not, nearly 20 years on into our political system in the ACT, Labor has become the main political party more in sync with the community than other political groups. It will be hard to wrest government from them. I doubt the Canberra Liberals will have the courage to do what is needed. If they are not careful they will remain a right wing christian pro life rump. Since the Carnell days they have conducted a purge within their own ranks against small l liberalism and paid the penalty. Don’t worry, when we in the community think we next need some rabid right wingers to save us, they are a shoe in. Without change, the Liberals risk becoming totally irrelevant. Garnering only 30% of the vote was NOT a good result. Equally getting less than the 2004 election was also NOT a good result. Isn’t there a message in a swing of just under 4% against you (from the cushy position of Opposition)?

Couldn’t agree more disenfranchised, its now time for the party to have a purge of the right. After this appalling election defeat the right of the liberal party needs to hang their heads in shame. This election should have delivered 8 seats to the libs, with Stanhope on the nose and a “fresh liberal leader”. Much sole searching needs to be done, and many questions asked. Here’s a couple to help them on their way.

1. Who allowed the ex president to run – the whole of the labor negative campaign material was about him?
2. Who didn’t fix their relationship with Jim Murphy et al? The management committee was elected last year on this particular point. (lost opportunity and money)
3. Who allowed people to run their campaign who hadn’t run a Hare Clarke campaign before. (did they ask for support from someone who had, like Humphries or Carnell, bet you they didn’t)
4. Why did they keep all the candidates away from the media. – If the electorate doesn’t know who they are they won’t vote for them.
5. Why didn’t they take notice of the CT poll which predicted 4 Greens? Stupid or just arrogant. You choose.
6. Will somebody be held responsible or will they claim some small victory and blame Richard Mulcahy or where the moon was in respect to their anuses. Or gee the electorate can be fickle can’t they. (Guess what you guys stuffed up and lost the unlosable election)

Just a begining for you, I bet you are smart enough to not answer these questions and come up with your own.

Lightrail wont happen.

Too expensive
The Feds say they produce too much greenhouse gases
Safe Labor federal seat.
will need a major upgrade of the bus system
Has “failed” in many other cities including Portland

Apparently Barr doesn’t want the CM job yet, or so I’ve heard.
Of course Peter Costello learned the ultimate lesson as far as not taking chances when they come up, so I guess we’ll see.

With Hargreaves going out to pasture as speaker (possibly), that frees up one spot in the Ministry, and assuming there is no Labor person worthy of filling it,(ie neither Jot nor Mary) there might be space in an ALP Government for one green minister. The real argument then will be over cabinet solidarity -with the ALP for and the Greens presumably against.

Michael Moore arranged a non-solidarity agreement as a Minister in a Liberal Government. But Labor is made of sterner stuff I think, and would want to lock the Greens as a team into supporting unpopular decisions through cabinet solidarity.

That’s why I’d suggest the Greens not go into Government, but support an ALP government by guaranteeing it supply. Otherwise they are odds on to alienate some of their supporters and possibly split among themselves with the Green Minister voting with the ALP and one or more of the other greens voting against.

I think the Canberra Times wrote that with the Right of Labor now outweighing the rest, Barr may be jostling for his power fix. In a way the Greens are balancing (if not tipping to the Left) the new faction split.

How disciplined is Labor? Is there a possibility we may see some factional knifings (anymore than we’ve seen so far) in the next term?

I think Stanhope will go within the next two years (either to take McMullan’s seat at the 2010 Federal election, or out of politics together.) Before Gentleman got rolled I would have said Gallagher would replace him as CM. But now with 4 right wingers and only 2 lefties, Barr might be a good chance.

If I were the Greens I’d be dictating to Labor who they would accept as CM, and to me that should be Gallagher now. Or maybe the Greens nominate Rattenbury, and Labor supports him, with Gallagher as deputy? A bit far fetched and likely to destroy the growing support for the Greens in a very short time as they would exercise power in the time of severe economic downturn. Besides Labor wouldn’t agree, as the largest party.

Maybe the Libs would, but that would see the Greens vote at the next election plummet since many people who were normally Labor voters voted Green to give labor a kick up the backside, not to have the Libs in power.

Assuming none of this far fetched fantasising comes about, I think the Greens would be better off on the cross benches where they’d be free to criticise and vote against Labor (other than on supply).

There’s a very good reason Katy Gallagher got that haircut on election night – she’s probably going to be in the big chair in the next year or two, if not sooner. Her vote increased substantially over the past few years(11.59% to 15.8%), one of the few MLA’s to get her own quota on first preferences alone. She’s been relatively untainted despite Jacqui Burke’s best intentions, and I suspect she’ll fill a similar role that Anna Bligh found herself in. Barr doesn’t have enough experience (and tainted by Towards 2020), Hargreaves is slowing down and Corbell is in no position after scraping through in Molonglo.

Stanhope will stamp his authority as top dog ASAP, and despite a nine percent swing will be insistent that the ALP has a mandate to lead. The Greens and the Libs have too many ideological differences to form government(think Burke’s push to evict Deb Foskey) but I suspect a few demands will be made of the ALP. From what I hear, Stanhope could be left with no choice but to stand down, if the Greens exercise their right to call the shots. Sonic might be looking for a way out, anyway. We’ve all heard the rumours about a juicy diplomatic post overseas, or perhaps a stint in federal politics.

Realistically, I suspect that the Greens will receive an offering of either being a minister or a speaker (possibly both), despite none of the 4 Greens ever holding office as an MLA. I personally think they shouldn’t accept a ministry, as it could be a poisoned chalice if handled incorrectly. Stanhope will probably leave of his own accord fairly soon, in a similar fashion to Beattie, Carr and Bracks.

But if there’s a move from the Greens to oust Stanhope, if they choose to play hardball, you will hear about it very soon. Probably on Tuesday/Wednesday following their next meeting with the major parties.

I think Labor will have a tougher time forming government with the Greens now there will be 4 members, they might find the Greens demands are pretty tough to meet as they will probably involve ministeries, and given the egos of the returning Labor members, I doubt they will be willing to give any up easily.

In any case I would expect that the Greens will still retain the right to vote as they see fit on any issues in the assembly. This will probably increase the likelyhood of a no confidence motion in stanhope succeeding as he is held accountable for his past decisions. It wouldn’t be surprising if the chief minister changed in the next 4 years.

What is the right, left and centre leanings of the elected libs? Any chance that a few of them could be tempted into a labor ministry? Not at all likely, but with the recent history of back fighting you never could say never…

What Thumper said, but it might be Barr.

Soolin said :

PS: I can’t see the Greens ever joining the Libs to form government, and with the last seat going to the Greens and the Libs with only six seats, I think we all know there’s zero chance of a Liberal Green alliance.

But it would be good to see the arrogant Stanhope brought down a notch!

with a 6-4 split you’d be looking at two ministries though, and an end to the ludicrous (in this setting) westminster conventions they hide behind.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of Westminster but ministers need to be accountable under it as a balance to the powers it provides them. The means resigning when they arse things up, and let’s face it that never happens anymore.

Anyway don’t forget how desperate Zed will be for a score, he might give away a lot of the farm to get it.

Areaman – I though Stanhope was unaligned, which is different to ‘centre’ is it not?

He pretends to not be in a faction but there is a whole “center” faction backing him up. Hettinger was an actual unaligned candidate and look at how well he did.

PS: I can’t see the Greens ever joining the Libs to form government, and with the last seat going to the Greens and the Libs with only six seats, I think we all know there’s zero chance of a Liberal Green alliance.

But it would be good to see the arrogant Stanhope brought down a notch!

paperboy said :

Here’s a tip.

If the Greens do decide to join the Libs to form an alliance Government (and with Jon Stanhope’s belligerent attitude to both the Greens and the electorate, who’d blame them) Stanhope will quit before the first sitting of the Asembly.

I’d like to see that! I don’t mind the rest of the Labor team, but I can’t stand Stanhope.

Here’s a tip.

If the Greens do decide to join the Libs to form an alliance Government (and with Jon Stanhope’s belligerent attitude to both the Greens and the electorate, who’d blame them) Stanhope will quit before the first sitting of the Asembly.

I wonder how differently, it at all, things would have played out, had the Motorists not run the full ticket. If they’d only run 2 in the north and the south and 3 in the centre, I just wonder what role the rev head preferences would have played

Areaman – I though Stanhope was unaligned, which is different to ‘centre’ is it not?

With all the attention on Molonglo and the Black Swan I forgot to mention the irony of Val Jeffery’s preferences helping get Amanda Bresnan elected in Brindabella! About 34% of his preferences went Amanda’s way.

One of the things that helped the Greens in Molonglo was Shane Rattenbury getting his quota on other preferences rather thna green ones. This maximised the efficiency of the in-group preferences. Now of all the people in all the electorate, who do you think it was that provided Shane’s final push over the line? Who selflessly sacrificed themselves before Elena so that her votes would maximise Caroline’s chances? Gary Kent, come on down! Let this be your legacy after your sterling efforts in the lead up to this election. Not forgetting Mr Mulcahy who earlier in the count also contributed hansomely to the Greens cause with 577 odd preferences.

Would it be a bad thing if, hypothetically speaking, four of the five ministers came from the same electorate?

4 right, 2 left, 1 center

Does anyone know how the factional ALP numbers stack up?

Why would the Greens want to be in government? Chairing their committees of interest.
Making sure that business goes to those committees. Being a major influence.
What’s slightly bizarre is that their power comes from Labor/Liberal being committed to opposing each other at every turn.

I am not a Labor supporter but I have to say I admire Barr. He handled a tough policy decision in his portfolio (school closures) well. He weathered a real storm in 2006. He met with angry Canberrans and tackled the issue head on. It was not, as some said, political suicide for him. Barr has also been up front about being gay from Day 1. Given that there have been debates about recognition of same sex relationships in the Assembly, I respect his openness. Good on him. He is talented and will be a major political player over the next decade.

With the Greens placing Barr into the Chief Minister role, the public can have their scalp, but retain the government with the party that clearly did get a larger vote than any other (sorry Zed but the numbers are against you now). And the ALP would have the rejuvenation that they so clearly need to boot.

You’ve raised this stupid idea before Al. Like I said then Barr is both from the right of the ALP and not very popular, so it would be against the green’s interest to try and use up their political capital getting him the CM’s job.

The major parties now have time to reflect on the results. The truth is Labor was always going to come off a high point (9 seats in 2004). They knew a school closure policy would take some skin (but they felt it needed to be done). Labor should fast track the transition from Stanhope to Gallagher. Stanhope served the ALP well but has probably reached his use by date. Corbell and Barr are talented experienced Ministers. Whether people like it or not, nearly 20 years on into our political system in the ACT, Labor has become the main political party more in sync with the community than other political groups. It will be hard to wrest government from them. I doubt the Canberra Liberals will have the courage to do what is needed. If they are not careful they will remain a right wing christian pro life rump. Since the Carnell days they have conducted a purge within their own ranks against small l liberalism and paid the penalty. Don’t worry, when we in the community think we next need some rabid right wingers to save us, they are a shoe in. Without change, the Liberals risk becoming totally irrelevant. Garnering only 30% of the vote was NOT a good result. Equally getting less than the 2004 election was also NOT a good result. Isn’t there a message in a swing of just under 4% against you (from the cushy position of Opposition)?

Interestingly, people seem to have pretty much got their first preferences up.

In Brindabella, the full preference and first preference results matched.

In Ginninderra, Mark Parton’s 1st preferences of 3797 just pipped Mary Porter’s 3765, otherwise the front runners on 1st prefs all got in.

In Molonglo, the candidates elected followed the first preference votes for all except Frank Pangallo, who at 3538 first votes, bettered Caroline on 3337 and Jeremy on 3264.

So anyone who’s been expressing concerns about the Hare-Clark system would have to be pretty happen with that. And for any candidates likely to be further down the line (let’s face it – anyone other than incumbents) it also underlines the importance of chasing more than just a “vote 1 me” line.

And I repeat what I’ve said elsewhere – the number of people elected without a full quota speaks volumes for the number of people out there who tossed away their chance to affect the final outcomes. It may be that many didn’t feel they could send their vote the way of any of the remaining boxes.

But I’d reckon that a major proportion of the exhausted votes were merely people following the HTV recommendations that most candidates sent out in the mailouts, which almost all seemed to indicate to vote for their mob only (or in Katy’s case her only – unless you found the fine print) then nobody else.

I think this is where the electoral commission will need to focus their educational campaigning next time around.

We know how fond of Andrew you are in Gungalin ,since he has promised you everything and his mother in law. Those of us in the south know his limitations and would consider your proposal for Andrew as ludicrous. This man is well out out his depth in Planning not to mention Education and to even consider him for leadership is ridiculous.
As Woden spans two electorates we struggle to get any representation in the assembly. Even the Chief Minister doesn’t know where Woden is, thinking that Weston is a part of Woden in a recent talkback session on the Radio.
You have nothing to fear from four Greens in the assembly, maybe you’ll get that beloved light rail you have been dreaming of and a Government department so that people in Tuggeranong can spent more time travelling to and from work.