The people of the ACT go to the polls this time next week to elect two things: a state-level government and the equivalent of a local council.
The ACT is the only place in Australia that does not have local councils. That function – gutters, garbage, rates and roads — is done by a Minister and department at the state level.
So the results of the only two independent opinion polls should not be so surprising. The Stanhope Labor Government is to lose its majority status and have to rely on the Greens for support on the floor of the Legislative Assembly.
The Canberra Times Patterson poll done two weeks ago has the result as Labor 6, Liberal 6, Greens 4 and one undecided. Six Labor and four Greens gives 10 seats in the 17-seat house.
The University of Canberra School of Journalism poll has Liberal 7 (the same result as in 2004), Labor six or seven and Greens three or four. Again six or seven plus three or four gives 10.
Both polls had other minor parties and independents as inconspicuous blips on the radar.
It seems that the Greens, not the Liberals, are to be the beneficiaries of Labor’s fall in popularity. (Indeed, I think the result will most probably be two Greens replacing the retiring Labor Members and the Libs getting the same number of seats as in 2004.)
I must declare an interest here. I teach journalism at UC and was very much involved in its poll. However, it was very much a student exercise whereas the sheer resources of The Canberra Times enabled it to engage a professional polling company which could take a bigger sample, so its poll is more reliable.
Nonetheless, I doubt very much whether the Greens will get a second seat in Molonglo, for several reasons.
At present the Greens have one seat in Molonglo. Both polls say the Greens will get a further seat in each of the electorates of Brindabella and Ginninderra, at Labor’s cost. That result seems, therefore, extremely likely.
The Canberra Times poll gives the Green two seats in Molonglo. The UC poll suggests that seat is a toss up between the Greens and Labor.
The UC poll was taken a week later, so there might have been a change in voting intention. But more importantly, people behave differently when confronted with a ballot paper than answering a phone poll.
I suspect that what we are seeing here is not so much a sudden green-environmental awakening in the ACT, but rather voters saying they don’t like Jon Stanhope and his Government as much as in 2004 and the Libs have been squabbling madly and we have not had much of a chance to test their new young leader. The only other visible option is the Greens. The UC poll had a 10 percentage point swing to the Greens (nearly doubling their 2004 vote) and The Canberra Times poll had them doubling in each electorate.
That seems to me to be a default vote rather than an earned one. As such it is probably fragile and some of it could go back to the majors, or other minor or independent candidates.
The other difficulty for the Greens is that if they fall below the second quota on primary votes, they will need some preferences to get over the line. Those preferences come from two directions: over-quota from elected candidates and preferences from eliminated candidates. In the ACT the Greens have a long history of failing to get either form of preferences in the numbers that you would expect from the first preference vote.
That maybe because the Greens are a love ‘em or hate ‘em lot. So they get the first preference of keen supporters, but last preference or no preference from a lot of other voters.
Indeed, when you cast your eye down the Act Electoral Commission’s full vote-distribution spreadsheet, it is remarkable how few preferences the Greens picked up as candidates were excluded or had their over-quota distributed during the count.
If I were a betting man, and I am, I’d wager a good bottle of red that the Greens will not get a second seat in Molonglo.
Thirdly, at ACT and Federal level promising Green polling has often not sounded in results. Federally, frequent predictions of a Green senator in every state have never come off.
All that said, it will not make much difference, because Labor will need Green support whether there are two, three (most likely) or four of them.
Therein lies the importance of the ACT having local government melded into its state government. A Green theme is: think locally, act globally. That makes them more relevant at local and federal level than at state level. Planning and construction are the bread and butter of local government. What development goes where at what environmental cost are key questions for local government.
The question will be whether a minority Labor Government will risk alienating the Greens it relies on to retain government over a myriad of development issues. Former Tasmanian Premier Michael Field once told me that when he had a compact with the Greens they were utterly intransigent on development and environmental issues and made his government unworkable. But perhaps Labor here can run a risk because the Greens are hardly likely to support the Libs for the remainder of the fixed four-year term.
In some respects, though, minority government will have advantages for both Labor and the people of the ACT. The Stanhope Government has got into a bit of strife over accountability, openness and consultation. The Greens are commendably strong on these points and will pull any government up on them and save the Government from itself.
The other thing that might come out of a 7-7-3 result, or something like it, is a reconsideration of the size of the Assembly. I suspect Labor will lose the appetite it gained for five five-member electorates after it won three seats in each five-member electorate in 2004. Three out of seven (43 per cent) is better than two out of five (40 per cent).
Maybe, after next Saturday we will have to accept that majority government is a one-off and that minority will be the usual position. And that is not remarkable given the ACT Government is a local government as well. Most local governments in Australia do not work on the basis of permanent majorities in local councils.