The ACT has usually been a bastion of free-thinking, vaguely leftist politics for decades. Support for the republic, the heroin trial and euthanasia has been higher here than the rest of Australia.
Yet, voters have delivered one of the most right-wing parliaments in the country. With the result of the last seat in Ginninderra announced yesterday, we have seven Liberals and two Osborne independents forming a majority in Assembly, with no ameliorating influence of Michael Moore or the Greens needed. How is this so?
It is because the Labor Party did not deliver an electable alternative.
To quote a column published a day before the election: “”By excluding the mild Labor Right from Labor’s ranks over the past six years, the Labor Left might succeed in delivering the whole territory into the hands of the Christian real Right. A high price for ideological purity.”
Okay, I was chided at the time for daring to call the Osborne Group Christian Right. Fair enough. But they are certainly not atheistic left. At the very least they are socially conservative. Moreover, we should count the three grey cardigans in the Liberal Party as part of the Christian Right (non-athetisic left, or socially conservative) majority.
Kate Carnell is now the only social liberal in the nine-member government. (And for nearly all intents and purposes the Osborne Group will be government members, despite that twaddle we heard from Paul Osborne on election eve that he was open to a Labor Chief Minister other than Wayne Berry.)
Last Assembly Mrs Carnell could always tame the grey cardigans in her party by saying Michael Moore or the Greens would not wear whatever the latest socially conservative agenda item they are putting up. That argument will not wash now. All she can do now is say the electorate won’t wear it; and they know they owe their seats to her.
Even before the election results were fully known, Gary Humphries was talking about survelliance cameras. Move-on powers will be next. Mandatory minimum sentences will be floated, no doubt.
Expect greater police powers and no movement on pressing issues like drug law reform, let alone less pressing matters like euthanasia. I don’t expect the Osborne Group to make huge demands for tigher abortion laws or for prosecution of doctors under current abortion or euthanasia law, partly because they don’t really have the heart for it. They are not Falwell- or Robertson-esque. But more importantly, their (very astute) advisers know such a path would cost votes in this electorate. The Osborne Group is not so dumb as the Labor left. They will not sacrifice votes for ideology.
A lot of centre-left, usually-Labor people in Canberra will be angry at this result. The anger will be directed at the Labor left. But whether it translates into a reformation in Labor ranks is another matter. Who will join? Who will endure interminable meetings to get policy changes or pre-selection.
Electoral debacle for the Labor left will not necessarily translate into contrition or a change in conduct.
To quote that election eve column again: “”Well, whom will the ACT Labor Left blame this time, if the election is a fiasco as the polls suggest? My guess is anyone other than themselves.”