What kind of political party goes 19 years and six elections without a win? In an election where some voters weren’t even alive the last time there was a Liberal government, the ACT Liberals not merely failed to dislodge the Labor-Greens coalition under Andrew Barr but went backwards, likely losing a seat in Canberra’s inordinately complex electoral system.
Part of the reason is that during those 19 years, the Canberra Liberals have gone from being a pragmatic centrist party under Kate Carnell and Gary Humphries to a clutch of bitter right-wingers led by the reactionary Alistair Coe, the only political leader in the country to oppose marriage equality, and Senator Zed Seselja, another marriage equality opponent and hardline anti-choice campaigner. Humphries understandably quit the party in disgust in 2014.
In the most progressive electorate in the country, the ACT Liberal Party is riddled with climate denialists, right-to-lifers, euthanasia opponents and even monarchists (a position that is beyond the pale even for Seselja, who is a republican).
It also hasn’t helped that for a majority of the time since 2001, Coalition governments has been in power federally, usually with an agenda of making life difficult for public servants. The current government has fought hard to suppress the wages of average public servants for the last six years.
Labor and the Greens have also run a competent territory government, including rolling out a major infrastructure project, the first stage of a light rail network — opposed by the Liberals — under budget though nearly a year late, and shifting the ACT to 100% renewable power while reducing power bills for residents.
But they have also gifted the Liberals an issue that, according to every political pundit, should have made the opposition’s job infinitely easier.
The ACT remains the only government in the country committed to the economists’ dream of a land tax system, with the territory part-way through a 20-year transition to replace stamp duty with land tax, which has meant rate rises far ahead of inflation while stamp duty has been cut by, to date, nearly half. The Barr government promised to cap future rate rises at 3.75% in coming years.
The reform has been broadly revenue neutral, according to a study commissioned by the government, and had delivered modest economic benefits. The study’s claim that it had led to a small fall in rents appears hard to square with the experience of many renters in Canberra in recent years, who have faced a tight rental market that has failed to keep pace with population and foreign student growth.
Despite the enthusiasm for the efficiency of land tax among economists and tax reformers, its adoption is regarded as politically toxic. Yet Labor and the Greens have now gone three elections committed to, or implementing, the program, and held office.
And it’s not for want of trying on the part of the Liberals, who have spurned the enthusiasm for land tax of some federal colleagues and campaigned hard against it at every election, even if the issue took a back seat to the light rail project in 2016.
Are the ACT Liberals really that hopeless, are ACT residents uniquely economically literate — or is land tax not as politically poisonous as everyone assumes?
Are the ACT Liberals really that hopeless,?
Yes they are. ACT residents voted for a republic, the ACT passed its own SSM legislation in 2013 (the federal government challenged the law in the High Court and it was struck down), 84% voted in the SSM postal vote thingie with 74% voting yes. As in many jurisdictions in Australia there is general support for voluntary euthanasia but Coe has also voiced his opposition to that, too.
The ACT Libs have moved steadily further right while residents support the separation of church and state. We have had front row seats in the grand opera that was Abbott’s reign of terror and now for the comic opera that is Morrison’s government.
We really were insulted by Coe’s daft stunts during the election campaign. And we hate being referred to as living in the Canberra bubble which the lazy msm has picked up, blindly following a Lib PM, big on announcements and completely lacking in action.
Like other Australians, we deserve better. And we vote for those who are better.
Yes, indeed. And we were well and truly smoked last summer, shocked and grief-stricken to see the deaths and damage caused by the bushfires across the SE of Australia. We want real climate action. Now.
We know we have been lucky to escape the worst of covid so far and really appreciate the public health expertise we have and a government that listens to experts and to its citizens.
Ignoring the howl of disappointment about their campaign lacking costed and credible policy proposals the ACT Liberals have blamed their defeat on covid. Let me just say that a huge number of Canberrans have close connections with family members in other parts of Australia and we are over covid being used as an excuse, a wedge or a deflection by politicians and the press.
With the fires there was terrible smoke pollution which made Canberra, usually the capital city with the cleanest air in the world, into the most polluted. That was followed by a huge and terribly damaging hailstorm on 20 January.
We were warned that climate change would bring more, and more extreme, weather events. January provided proof of those predictions.
The Libs blaming Covid for their defeat is absurd. Nineteen consecutive years in opposition and they still have not learned.
ACT residents are close enough to the action of the LNP government to have realised that this is not the sort of government they want.
“inordinately complex electoral system” – come on mate, it’s Hare-Clark. If the state with the lowest rates of adult literacy in the country (Tasmania) can wrap their heads around it, surely anyone can. Give me the nuance, intra-party differentiation and representation of Hare-Clark over the singe member nonsense we have to tolerate at a national level or the corrupt roulette game of Group Voting Tickets with which Victoria and WA are still saddled any day.
Good summary Bernard, but agree with Simon that inordinate is not the right adjective. GVT much worse and light years less democratic.
Yes Simon. I’m totally sick of imbecile journalists who seem to think first past the post voting (cf. the UK, the USA) is best because it’s simple. But they ignore that such simple voting systems can mean a person can get elected with 20% of the vote (say when there are 6 candidates), and can deliver a parliament with a 70% majority for a party that got less than 40% of the vote.
Preferential voting means a candidate has to get more than 50% of the vote for single member electorates, or the equivalent ‘quota’ in multi-member electorates. And multi-member electorates mean that legislatures are more likely to reflect the diversity of the population rather than be dominated by single issue parties interested in labour politics or neo-liberal capitalism respectively.
The ACT Liberal Party should change their name to the Dinosaur Party. Like a lot of Conservatives, they are stuck in the past, and simply do not like progression.
The Federal Liberal Party are not far behind their ACT colleagues either, and need a good clean out. Under Morrison they won an Election that they shouldn’t have, with Morrison virtually running the Campaign on his own, as he is a relatively good marketing man, and some of his colleagues may have lost it. They were also ably assisted by a successful fear campaign around Death Taxes, paid for by Palmer, and of course the force of the overwhelming cheer leading by the Murdoch Media.
Hi Peter M. Troglodytes is a much better description for these mongrels. Troglodyte: anyone thought to be primitive, insensitive or simply unintelligent. Latin from tne Greek ‘one who creeps into holes. Ref Macquarie dictionary. Regards The Old Bush Bhalkie
One thing I remember being mentioned in the campaign not spoken about above was the Liberal Party platform hinged on getting exiles in Queanbeyan to move back to the city as a source of revenue. That sort of wishful thinking as the centrepiece of a campaign?!
That was how they were going to pay for ‘Lower Taxes, Better Services’.
Their campaign was such an own goal, a simplistic attempt at jingoism might work on the national stage, but here in Canberra where a good chunk of us have fiduciary responsibility thrust on us, it never held water.