Independent member of the Legislative Assembly Michael Moore has made a significant contribution to government in the ACT over the past 12 and a half years. Mr Moore announced yesterday that he would not contest the upcoming election for the assembly in October.
Mr Moore has been in at the Assembly since the beginning of self-government in 1989, winning four elections – always the last candidate to be elected in the ACT when it was a single electorate or last when he stood in Molonglo after the introduction of the three-electorate Hare-Clark system in 1995. Even though last elected, his influence has been profound.
There is a paradox about Mr Moore’s career. He has often been accused of being a single issue candidate, either directly or as part of a general criticism of independents and cross benches. Yet looking back over his 12 and half years it is difficult to see a single issue that he pursued that got on to the statute book intact. His greatest contribution has not been in a single issue politics. Rather, it has been in challenging the standard two-party model of Australian politics and in doing so helping develop the unique method of governance that we have in the ACT.
He did this in two significant ways. The first was to use his position as an independent on the cross-benches to great effect. The second was to join a government as a minister while remaining an Independent.
As to the first, in his early days, he displayed an astute capacity to place stated elements in Labor Party policy documents before the public and the Assembly. Often these were elements that the Labor Party would have rather left under the carpet as mere statements to appease one or other faction rather than policy to be actually implemented.
Also in the early days, Mr Moore stood virtually alone on the side of existing residents against a Liberal-Labor-developer coalition that often supported inappropriate development in Canberra. He used his cross-bench power to promote the Hare-Clark system, opposing the then Labor Government and even against the interests of his loose coalition of “Michael Moore independents”, the other of whom, Helen Szuty, lost her seat because of the implementation of Hare-Clark. He was also an effective user of cross-bench power in order to force more open government in the ACT, with improvements to things like freedom of information and more accountability by the executive to the parliament.
As time went on, however, his interest focused on health and drug abuse, in particular. He sought to minimise the harm of drugs (including tobacco). As that focus became more intense, he had less time for planning and open-government matters, even changing position (or selling out) on some stands. His passion for treating drug abuse as a health and education matter, rather than a criminal matter, led him to surrender a lot of his independence by joining the Liberal Government as Health Minister. He thought, quite sensibly, after the 1998 election and that having lost the pivotal seat in a crossbenches, the best way it to achieve his aims would be to join the Government. That was a unique experiment in governance in Australia, and a fairly successful one that should serve as a precedent. The ACT is such a small jurisdiction that the Government should draw on whatever talent is available in the Assembly. Mr Moore did not get his heroin injecting room in the ACT, but he made a significant contribution in getting many Australians, including legislators elsewhere, to widen their thinking about the drug problem.
Whether one agreed or not with his stands on planning, governance or health, it is hard to question the passion, stimulation and commitment Michael Moore brought to ACT politics, or his fearlessness in bringing new issues into the political arena. His contribution will be missed.