Two people are groaning at the decision of former Raiders star Mal Meninga not to run for politics: Chief Minister Gary Humphries and lobbyist Richard Farmer.
And two people must be smiling: Opposition Leader Jon Stanhope and Meninga’s wife, Debbie.
Meninga’s decision probably ends Humphries’s chance of holding on to the Chief Ministership. The Liberals realistically can only expect to hold two seats in each of the three electorates on October 20. To govern, they would need the support of three minor or independent candidates – one in each electorate. The only way they could do that would be for the re-election of Paul Osborne in Brindabella and Dave Rugendyke in Ginninderra and for the election of another police-football independent in Molonglo. And the only person who could have done that was Meninga. Last election, now ABC morning-show host Chris Uhlmann (a non-ex-footballer and non-ex-policeman) stood for the Osborne-Rugendyke police-football alliance and got just 2.2 percent of the vote. You have to have been a noted footballer or cop (or both) to play on that team. So Hilary Black – who will be running with the police-football team in Molonglo on October 20 — will not get a guernsey.
Incidentally, even if Meninga had supported a capital L Government, his personal suggests he might well have been a small liberal on social issues such as drugs and policing.
That leaves Molonglo – and the overall fate of the election — wide open. Before yesterday a betting person would have backed a Humphries chief ministership with six Liberal MLAs and three police-footballers making a majority of nine in the 17-seat house.
So what is the situation now?
It is likely that the Liberals and Labor will get two each of the five seats in Ginninderra and Brindabella with the fifth seat going to Rugendyke and Osborne respectively. The Democrats have shot themselves in the foot for the fifth successive election in the ACT. This time they have refused a preference deal with the Greens and have a shadowy relationship with the Eros Foundation which represents the sex industry and are heavy promoters of gay and lesbian rights. Goodbye Democrats. And with them go the chances of the Greens of getting the fifth seat in Ginninderra.
There is a remote chance of one of the majors not getting a second seat in those electorates, but it is very outside. Even Labor headed by Wayne Berry in its best foot-shooting form managed 29 per cent of the vote in Ginninderra which was enough to get two seats. The major parties can be fully 10 percentage points apart and still get two seats each and never enough for a third, which will always go to a minor or independent.
There is a remote chance the new Nurses group might be a late upset in Ginninderra. No polling has been done recently – Datacol will be polling for The Canberra-Times in the coming week – so we don’t know.
So the election will come down to a Meninga-free seven-seat Molonglo electorate. Mostly likely, the two majors will get two seats each and the Greens Kerrie Tucker will get re-elected (she was third across the line last time).
That leaves two seats up for grabs. These will determine whether there is a Humphries Liberal minority Government or a Stanhope Labor minority Government. If Rugendyke and Osborne win, centre-left candidates would have to win both. Labor would have to be fancied for one (taking an existing Liberal seat) and the other (notionally replacing Michael Moore) could go anywhere now Meninga is out of the race. Canberra has elected Christian-family-values/socially right-wing candidates in past; but it also has a penchant for residents-rally/independent/Australia Party/Green-type candidates. Maybe the nurses.
In all, it makes for a very interesting election.
And the other area of interest is the duels within the parties. Bear in mind about 30 per cent of the Assembly does not return each electorate. Labor’s (ethnically communal) Vic Rebikoff has forced his partymate MLA Wayne Berry to be more active in the shopping centres. The Liberals (family-values-first) Vicki Dunne is giving MLA Harold Hird a scare.
In Molonglo, the Liberals MLA, Greg Cornwell, 63, a capital-T Tory, must be worried about younger female party colleagues — the everything to everyone Jacqui Burke and the intellectually bright Amalia Matheson. On the Labor side, once again the we-want-more-women factor could scare MLAs Ted Quinlan and Simon Corbell and the same couldbe said about Labor’s Brindabella MLAs John Hargreaves or Bill Wood.
Under the Hare-Clark system in the ACT it is more likely for an MLA to be tipped out by a candidate of the same party than one from another party.
Anyway, yesterday’s events have added a bit of spice to affair.