Parliament of Department of Parliamentary Services

Parliamentary Library RESEARCH NOTE Information, analysis and advice for the Parliament 29 November 2004, no. 23, 2004–05, ISSN 1449-8456

The 2004 ACT election

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Legislative The campaign Assembly election was held on 16 October 2004, a week State and territory election campaigns tend to be fought on after the Federal election. It was contested by the big ticket items of health and education. The 2004 77 candidates from 9 political parties and 9 independents ACT campaign was no exception. in 3 electorates—Brindabella (5 seats), Ginninderra (7 seats) and Molonglo (7 seats). Labor and the Liberals The Liberal Party’s campaign focussed on the Labor fielded seventeen candidates: 7 in Molonglo and 5 each in government’s alleged neglect of the health system. It Brindabella and Ginninderra. The Greens fielded presented the electoral contest as ‘a simple choice’ 7 candidates—3 in Molonglo and 2 each in Brindabella between the government’s proposed construction of a and Ginninderra—and the Democrats ran 2 candidates in $110 million prison, and the Liberal Party’s plan to each seat. redirect this money into the public hospital system. Liberals’ leader, Brendan Smyth, highlighted the increase Background in public hospital waiting lists from 3 488, when the The Labor Party, led by , won office in 2001 Liberals left office in September 2001, to 4 698 at the end with 8 of the seventeen Legislative Assembly seats. The of July 2004. Smyth argued that ‘money has to be targeted Liberal Party won 7 seats and lost office after 6 years in at more beds and more operating theatres to ensure we get 4 government. Several issues during Labor’s term in office rid of bed block’. The Liberals’ pledged to build four new were of potential significance in the 2004 poll: operating theatres and to fund a special surgical team ‘to reduce elective surgery waiting lists by thirty per cent in • the Liberals had replaced respected leader (and current the first year’.5 The Liberals’ campaign slogan was ‘Vote Federal Senator) in November 2002 as if your life depended on it’. with former federal MP Brendan Smyth; 1 member had retired and another was expelled, becoming an The Labor Party’s campaign employed the slogan ‘Getting independent on with the job’. Jon Stanhope’s campaign launch contrasted the government’s ‘responsible, considered and • in January 2003, more than five hundred homes were carefully costed election platform’, with the Liberals’ destroyed and 3 lives taken by bushfires. There had proposals which ‘would blow the projected budget surplus been strong community criticism of the government six times over’.6 Stanhope argued that his government was that residents had not been alerted earlier to the spending $161 million more annually on the health system impending disaster, that relief assistance was than was spent under the previous Liberal government.7 inadequate, and that the Coroner’s inquest had been Labor’s campaign launch pledged eighty additional beds in delayed public hospitals over the next 2 years, and an extra • in August 2004, , the Minister for $9.75 million for elective surgery. Its overall campaign Children, Youth and Family Support, was widely spending commitment in health was $53 million. criticised for failing to act on evidence of child abuse In education, the Liberals pledged optional separate core supplied to her department curriculum subject classes for boys, as well as a • the Planning Minister met strong recruitment drive for male teachers.8 Labor promised opposition from environment and community groups to $12 million for high school education ‘to increase the the government’s plans to build the Gungahlin Drive focus on pastoral care … and student welfare’—part of a extension. A group called ‘Save the Ridge’ raised the $48 million spending increase in education.9 necessary $50 000 to mount a legal challenge to the Campaign tactics ACT and federal governments for breaching federal environment laws.1 Gungahlin motorists were unhappy As with the federal contest, the ACT election campaign with the delay of the drive, and relied heavily on television and brochure advertisements. The overlap of the federal campaign meant voter fatigue • Corbell was also criticised in his capacity as Minister was a potential difficulty for ACT candidates in delivering for Health for the growing elective surgery waiting their messages. Many Liberal candidates ran their own lists. television advertisements, supported by flyers distributed These events led The Times to note on election by mail and in person. Labor’s candidates also ran 2 eve that ‘the major parties are in all sorts of trouble’. Still, intensive letterbox drops, although the Party’s television an opinion poll shortly before the election found forty advertisements focussed on the government’s three per cent of respondents could not nominate any achievements under Chief Minister Stanhope. Of particular 3 policy area where the Government had failed. note was the campaign of the former Australian Hotels Association Executive Director Richard Mulcahy. Mulcahy sent pre-recorded phone messages to

www.aph.gov.au/library 17 500 voters on the Friday night before election day. The ACT Legislative Assemblies are appointed for fixed four- messages—authorised by the Canberra Liberals’ divisional year terms. The newly elected government will hold power office—were part of Mulcahy’s big-spending campaign, until the third weekend of October 2008. which also included cinema advertisements. The Canberra Electronic voting Times noted, ‘it seems unlikely that any candidate, in any party, put in anything like the effort and money into the One of the most interesting aspects of recent ACT campaign as Richard Mulcahy did’.10 elections is the emerging use of electronic voting. It was trialled by the ACT Electoral Commission in the 2001 The result ACT election and again in 2004.15 Voters are given a paper The Stanhope Labor government was returned with 9 of barcode, which when swiped, brings up a ballot paper for the seventeen seats in the Legislative Assembly to form the required electorate.16 Paper votes are transferred to the ACT’s first majority government since the collapse of computer and combined with the electronic votes before the alliance government in 1991. The Liberals retained the computer program distributes the preferences. The 7 seats, the Greens retained a seat in Molonglo, while the advantage of the electronic option is that at the close of sitting Democrat and Independent Members both lost their polls at 6 pm, a sizeable proportion of the votes are seats (see Table). instantly available. In the 2004 ACT election, with electronic voting used in 8 polling booths, the result of Table around 27 000 votes (twelve per cent) was available at the Seats Votes (%) Swing (%) close of polls.17 Despite criticism that electronic voting Labor Party 9 (+1) 46.8 +5.1 does not leave a paper trail, ACT Electoral Commissioner Phil Green said it had worked well. Liberal Party 7 (-) 34.8 +3.2 ACT Greens 1 (-) 9.3 +0.2 1. R. Campbell, ‘Final bid by save the ridge to stop road’, Democrats 0 (-1) 2.2 -5.8 Canberra Times, 28 September 2004, p. 3. Other 0 (-1) 6.9 0.5 2. C. Hull, ‘Swing in Labor’s roundabout’, Canberra Times, The 2004 ACT election confirmed the benefit of 13 October 2004, p. 17. 3. B. Doherty, ‘Health top of voters’ list’, Canberra Times, incumbency as all major party incumbents were returned. 15 October 2004, p. 5. The election also continued the trend over the six elections 4. ibid. since self-government of the major parties increasing their 5. ‘Fixing our hospitals’, Policy Statement 2004, Canberra vote. In the 1998 election, the major parties won sixty Liberals, p. 1. three per cent of the vote and thirteen of the seventeen 6. J. Stanhope, ACT Election Campaign Launch Speech, seats. In 2004, the major parties won eighty two per cent Australian Labor Party, 11 October 2004. of the vote and all bar 1 seat (see Table). 7. ibid. 8. ‘Boys’ education: Creating a more supportive learning The Democrats were the major losers in the election. The environment’, Policy Statement 2004, Canberra Liberals. loss of its Ginninderra seat matched its poor performance 9. S. Hannaford, ‘Where the four major parties stand’, in the federal election. A Canberra Times editorial on Canberra Times, 15 October 2004, p. 20. Sunday 17 October commented: 10. Editorial, ‘Changing vision’, Canberra Sunday Times, 17 October 2004, p. 40. Labor’s good result is partly a result of the predictable 11. ibid. collapse in the Democrat vote … and also a reflection of 12. Editorial, ‘ACT vote sends no big signals’, The Canberra steady and cautious, if rather bland and diffident Labor 11 Times, 18 October 2004, p. 10. administration. 13. C. Hull, ‘Stanhope’s passion has won him a majority The re-election of key government ministers in spite of government and a rise in expectations’, Canberra Times, perceived policy failings was explained by an editorial in 17 October 2004, p. 2. terms of the Hare Clark system’s focus on personalities; ‘It 14. B. Doherty, ‘ALP wins backing for green policy’, is just as likely that the votes were as much judgements Canberra Times, 16 October 2004, p. 7. about the individuals on offer as on their specific 15. See L. Manthorpe, ‘Electronic voting in the 2001 ACT 12 election’, Research Note, no. 16, Parliamentary Library, policies’. Journalist Crispin Hull noted that Stanhope’s 18 June 2002. shouldering of blame after the fires ‘probably earned him a 13 16. D. Landon, ‘Electronic voting again on trial in ACT lot of support’. His bravery was also noted. The election’, Canberra Times, 1 October 2004, p. 4. Gungahlin Drive controversy was not significant in the 17. P. Malone, ‘Electronic votes will be good early guide to campaign. The ACT Labor Party won support for its results’, Canberra Times, 15 October 2004, p. 20. environment policy from the Conservation Council and the 14 Planning Minister was comfortably re-elected. The Dr Richard Grant Greens did not meet their pre-election aspirations of three Politics and Public Administration Section of four seats. Information and Research Service Majority government in the ACT is unlikely to have great Except to the extent of the uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in impact. Much of the government’s legislation was passed any form or by any means including information storage and retrieval in the previous Assembly with the negotiated support of systems, without the prior written consent of the Department of the Greens and the Democrats. Labor’s majority may Parliamentary Services, other than by senators and members of the increase public pressure for action to reform the public Australian Parliament in the course of their official duties. hospital system and community expectations for a more This paper has been prepared to support the work of Parliament using information available at the time of production. The decisive style of governance. views expressed do not reflect an official position of the Information and Research Service, nor do they constitute professional legal opinion. © Commonwealth of Australia 2004