Now the result of the ACT election has been declared, Labor Leader Jon Stanhope must start the serious task of forming government. Technically, he will not become Chief Minister until he is voted in by a majority on the floor of the Legislative Assembly on its first day of sitting. That is how it should be. The people’s house votes on who should lead the executive government and that leader should choose his or her ministers. There is no need for a Governor to “”call on” someone to “‘form a government”.
Mr Stanhope was in no position to do anything before now because he could not be sure who would make up the Labor caucus. Now he knows. He has the option of choosing four or five Ministers from among the eight Labor members. He should opt for five. That will leave the other three hard pushed to do all the committee work if the Assembly persists with the rule that Ministers should not serve on committees. That rule is right in principle, but as a practical proposition it causes difficulties in such a small parliament. The answer is to increase the size of the parliament. That might cause popular resistance initially, but governance in the ACT is suffering because of the smallness of the Parliament. There has been no increase in the size since 1989, despite a large increase in the number of people being represented and the size of the economy to be managed.
In the meantime, when Mr Stanhope casts around to shape his ministry, at first blush it seems that he will face a balancing act between opting for experience or opting for gender balance. The only females among his eight Labor MLAs are those elected for the first time at the election two weeks ago.
Mr Stanhope has wisely put aside the question of factional balance as a determining factor in selecting the ministry. Instead he has stated that he will select purely on merit. If he does that, he will find that the balancing of experience and gender should not be too difficult.
Of his eight MLAs, only two have ministerial experience: Wayne Berry and Bill Wood. But far from being a matter that would commend them to being selected for the ministry, in the case of these two MLAs their experience should cause Mr Stanhope to think twice before bringing them back to the frontbench. Mr Berry suffered a successful vote of no-confidence in him by the Assembly for his appalling handling of the Vitab affair which jeopardised the ACT’s TAB income. Mr Wood was Minister for Planning at a critical stage in the emergence of a territory administration of land use. He did not do a very good job. Indeed, it could be argued that he contributed to a lot of the poor planning that spawned the worst elements of Gungahlin and the dual-occupancy furore of later years.
Aside from himself and Ted Quinlan who obviously must be in the Ministry, that leaves two with Assembly experience but no ministerial experience: Simon Corbell and John Hargreaves. Neither inspires a huge amount of confidence, though Mr Corbell’s hard work at planning issues would give him the edge – and may be he should be in the hot seat to live up to some of him promises.
In short, Mr Stanhope can hardly lose by choosing one or both of the inexperienced newcomers: Karin MacDonald or Katy Gallagher. Like all new ministers they would be on probation and subject to the leader’s axe if they mess up.
No-one should be elevated to the ministry just because they are a woman, but equally no-one should be put in the Ministry just because they have been there before.