Independent Michael Moore would just as soon be out in the wilds of the Tamani desert or Cape York than weighing up whether Canberra is to be governed by a minority Liberal or minority Labor Government. He has none of the personal ambition that drives many politicians, but he has strong views and passions about certain subjects. They include euthanasia, drug-law reform, education, planning and to a lesser extent the role of the public sector. Superficially, one might think this would make it difficult for either major party to deal with him, but the major parties are lucky that one of Moore’s strong view is about open governance that makes concession-extraction unpalatable to him. In particular, he likes the Assembly _ the legislature _ to have a strong role, both as making the Executive accountable and in deciding key matters of public concern. On the accountability side, he has used his balance-of-power position with Liberal support to get machinery that exerts the Assembly’s power over the Executive. There are now a raft of provisions that make certain Executive acts “”disallowable instruments”. These include key statutory appointments and many actions by ministers. A minority Liberal Government may well rue the days in Opposition when it supported such measures. (And it now appears more likely than not that the Liberals will form minority government.) On the importance of the Assembly, he has a quaint 19th century view that debate on the floor matters and can actually persuade him to vote one way rather than the other.
This is infuriating for the deal-makers of the major parties, and, incidentally, the media who have to wait for the vote to know the outcome. Moore has made no bones about the fact that he regards personalities as very important in determining who should be Chief Minister. He said both before and after the election that the Hare-Clark system would result in people be elected on personal as much as party merit. He said also that his decision on who would be Chief Minister (and in effect it is now his decision) would be determined in part by who might take Ministries, as much as the stated policies of the parties. On this score, education and planning are crucial. Hypothesising for a moment, on the Labor side he might object, for example, to Bill Wood in either role because Wood tends to get driven by bureaucrats. On the Liberal side, he would object to Gary Humphries in education because of his school-closure history and would object to any “”white-shoe brigade” pro-development MLA in planning. That rules them all out bar Humphries, and perhaps the portfolio needs someone with a legal background given how ridden it is with process of one kind or another.
On issues, Moore is more comfortable with Labor on things like public-transport, social justice, human rights and the role of the public sector. For example, in the past three years he supported Labor and public-sector involvement against the Liberals and greater private-sector philosophies with respect to the TAB, ACTION and ACTEW and in favour of Labor’s position against move-on powers. He opposed Labor more on details within legislation than on big-picture things, especially striking down clauses that gave ministers wide powers. On planning and the built environment he will have trouble seeing eye to eye with both major parties and the Greens. Labor made a mess of planning and that was reflected electorally. Every person whose lifestyle was drastically affected by in-fill was a passionate advocate against the present regime with all their friends and relatives. Perhaps that can be said about the petrol issue.
Every garage owner and employee became a passionate advocate against Labor and that may have not been counter-balanced by people who voted for Labor because of cuts in petrol prices which people thought should have happened anyway. This, of course, is a political lesson for the Liberals if they form government. General restraint on rates and other revenue will be taken for granted, but any cut to a particular group’s lifestyle results in dangerous vote-changing advocacy in the pubs, clubs and around the telly at news time. On planning, Moore is against Liberal policy to effectively end leasehold with automatic free renewals of commercial and residential leases and their policy to cut betterment tax.
If a Liberal minority government is to effect these policies it will probably have to do it by administrative or budgetary, rather than legislative, act. But they may be able to act without Moore on planning. The Greens have a long-term view for higher density living, especially along public-transport routes. Who knows we might have an odd alignment of Liberal pro-development proposals and Green ideology to, in the words of the Greens policy, “”to produce a new city form”. On his pet projects of euthanasia and drug-law reform, Moore has had a hard time from Labor in the past three years. Indeed, early in the campaign _ before the logging trucks arrived at Parliament House _ , the Labor Party saw Moore as the greatest impediment to majority government and actively campaigned against him. If Moore does support Kate Carnell for Chief Minister, this would be a significant element in his decision.
The Liberals will have no difficulty with Moore on these issues. Unlike Labor they can declare a conscience vote and let the issue be decided on the floor of the House _ something Moore cannot argue with. On education, both sides have pledged no spending cuts. Moore, a former teacher, is determined on this. However, there is a question of how you spend the money. Moore will not like the Liberals’ combination of free school buses and more school-based management. It means schools can actively compete against each other for students (who travel across town free to the school of their choice). He would argue the disadvantaged schools would become more disadvantaged, depopulate and perish. The real stickler will be transport.
Moore and the Liberals agree that a light rail at this stage would be a complete waste of money and hurt ACTION’s only profitable routes. However, the Liberals’ plan to privatise parts of ACTION’s routes (though allowing for ACTION itself to tender) will arouse Moore’s suspicion. You can see it: Moore opposes privatisation; the Libs say they loose $27 million in revenue and so have to break other promises or rein in education spending; bitter recriminations; end of Liberal minority government. Moore will tolerate some privatisation in health, because the underlying public-sector involvement through Medicare cannot be touched by an ACT Government, but transport, milk, the TAB, ACTEW and other public-sector bodies are bound to be points of contention.
On open government, Moore and the Liberals share much common ground, especially greater roles for committees. Together they steered through the Hare-Clark system, prevented Labor’s attempt to rort it, and forced legislation for the entrenching referendum through the House. (Indeed, Moore suffered through “”wasting” campaign effort on supporting the Yes case.) There is great irony in the Hare-Clark issue. Under a single-member system the Liberals would have easily had majority government _ perhaps with as many as 13 of the 17 seats in this fairly homogeneous territory. And if Labor had got above-the-line party voting, the Moore Independents would have had a disciplined flow of Liberal preferences over the Greens and there would have been three Moore Independents in the House, rather than one and two Greens. But that is the unpredictability of politics. That said, I crave the indulgence of a quote from a column I wrote on December 27 last year that may explain why we are in this situation: “”But I don’t think voters will get enough information or bother to look at what they get in detail to make that judgment. Indeed, I’ll put my neck out and predict that at the February election at least two candidates from the fringe who are virtually unheard of now will get seats.” Welcome aboard Kerrie Tucker, Lucy Horodny and Paul Osborne. (Though admittedly Osborne was well known in another context).