Non-performing or poorly performing MLAs look out. The electorate appears to be on to you.
In federal and state elections a candidate in a single-member seat can only be defeated by a candidate of the other major party. In the ACT’s multi-member system, major-party candidates can be defeated by a candidate from their own party.
And that’s what voters did on Saturday.
If the protest against Labor sounded in votes for the Greens, the protest against the Liberals was exercised within. Liberal voters who were dissatisfied with the performance of their party could still vote Liberal, but not necessarily for a sitting Liberal.
This is the voter empowerment of the Hare-Clark system. It worked at the weekend.
Voters threw out two sitting Liberals in favour of new Liberal blood and humiliated another sitting Liberal by putting new blood above her.
In Ginninderra, Liberal Vicki Dunne – the second longest-serving sitting Liberal up for election – would have lost her seat had Bill Stefaniak not retired to the bench. She was out-polled by newcomer Alistair Coe three to two. That’s fairly humiliating.
And a lot of her vote is a Right to Life vote more than a Liberal one. Liberal pre-selectors should think seriously in four years’ time.
In Molonglo, sitting Liberal Jacqui Burke lost her seat to newcomer Jeremy Hanson who out-polled her more than two to one.
“Countback Jacqui” twice got her seat after losing at election time (in 1998 and 2001), but got the seat on countback when other Liberals (Kate Carnell and then Gary Humphries) retired. We don’t have by-elections in the ACT.
The count-back system is defective. Why put someone into the Assembly who has been rejected by the voters? The Senate party-replacement system works better. The ACT had that until 1995 and that is how Terry Connolly (one of the ACT’s best MLAs and later a judge) got in.
In Brindabella, soccer administrator and newcomer Steve Doszpot has given the red card to sitting Liberal Steve Pratt.
In every seat, Liberal voters have told their parliamentary “team” what they thought of their past four years’ performance. Not much. They want the squabblers and pushers of petty pet policy agendas out.
On the Labor side, Mick Gentleman, whose only significant contribution was a left-field proposal for unsustainable subsidies for household solar electricity generation, is likely to lose his Brindabella seat to Joy Burch.
But, to be fair, as a senior Labor source suggested on Saturday night, there might have been some sexism afoot. Minister John Hargreaves aside, the two female Labor candidates out-polled the two male ones.
Maybe voters are getting the hang of Hare-Clark. You can express your dissatisfaction with a candidate from your preferred party, but still give your preferred party your vote.