The Labor left comprehensively lost yesterday’s election.
True, Kate Carnell was a great media performer and did a pretty sound job with her Budget and economic planning in difficult economic times, but the rest of the Liberals, with the exception of Gary Humphries were hardly inspiring.
This should have been an unlosable election from Labor’s perspective.
John Howard’s Liberals had hacked into the town. Canberra is naturally Labor anyway, usually returning Labor members to federal parliament.
What happened? Labor has only 1500 members in the ACT. The left dominates the branches. It is virtually impossible for members of other factions to get pre-selection. The parliamentary party had no right member and only one from the centre.
The result has been a narrow base of policies and a narrow group to pick a leader from. People from the right or centre gave up trying to have an influence and were sick of the concentration on factional fighting instead of going out into the community to earn support and the vote.
Labor’s best leadership material — Terry Connolly and David Lamont — gave up and left the party to the left.
The electorate’s vengeance has been severe. The Liberals easily out-polled Labor, making it very difficult for the independents and minors to anything other than support Kate Carnell as chief minister.
The big winner in the election was the Hare Clark system. Without it, the ACT would have gone from massive Labor majority to massive Liberal majority, with pitiful Opposition’s of one or two members.
Aside from that, the Hare-Clark system gave many electors the chance to show their distaste for the Labor left while still voting Labor. In every electorate the left lost votes or seats. The Ginninderra the left’s Roberta McRae lost to the non-aligned Jon Stanhope. Wayne Berry’s vote dropped. In Brindabella, the centre’s Bill Wood out-polled former leader and left member Andrew Whitecross. In Molonglo, the right’s Ted Quinlan appears to have ousted Marion Reilly who is nominally non-aligned, but on the left side of it.
Last night there was some suggestion of a federal intervention in the form of an inquiry into Labor’s electoral performance in the ACT.
More likely there will be an internal intervention first. Look at the numbers. Stanhope and Quinlan will not support Berry. Whitecross certainly owes him no favours. Wood is non-aligned and has been bruised by the left in pre-selection battles in the past. That makes four in a caucus of six against Berry.
My guess is that he may not last as leader until the first sitting of the Assembly. Labor may then be able to regroup and be more electorally acceptable next election.
Ironically, Berry blamed the Hare-Clark system for Labor’s poor showing. He can blame it for his demise, and probably for a better Labor showing next time.
The Hare-Clark system has also benefited the Liberals. The electorate retired Trevor Kaine (at the age when federal judges are required to retire — 70). There were not many tears among some Liberals last night. In his place comes the younger form federal member Brendan Smyth. Some in the Liberal Party would have like to have seen one or two more compulsory retirements for younger more talented blood. Smyth is bound to go straight into the ministry presuming Carnell remains chief minister.
The performance of Michael Moore and the Democrats have become almost habit-forming. In now four elections Moore has come from behind to be last candidate in. And the Democrats, as usual, showed early promise and looked like getting a seat only to fail at the line.