Australian Capital Territory general election, 2008

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This article or section contains information about a forthcoming election. Content may change dramatically as the election approaches.

The 2008 election for the for the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly will be held on October 18, 2008. ^[1] Election dates are set in statute to occur once every four years; the government has no ability to set the election date.

The governing centre-left Australian Labor Party, currently led by Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, will attempt to win re-election for a third term after coming to power in 2001. They will be challenged by the opposition Liberal Party of Australia, led by Zed Seselja, who assumed the Liberal leadership in December 2007. A third party, the ACT Greens, holds one seat in the Assembly, held by retiring MLA Deb Foskey.

The election will see all 17 members of the Assembly face re-election, with members being elected by the Hare-Clark system of proportional representation. The Assembly is divided into three electorates: five-member Brindabella (including Tuggeranong and parts of the Woden Valley) and Ginninderra (including Belconnen and suburbs) and seven-member Molonglo (including North Canberra, South Canberra, Gungahlin, and the remainder of the Woden Valley).

Following the 2004 election outcome, Labor held 9 seats, becoming the first majority government in the territory's history. The opposition Liberal Party held 7 seats, with the Greens holding a further one. The Liberal numbers in the Assembly dropped to six in December 2007 when former Shadow Treasurer Richard Mulcahy was expelled from the party and began sitting as an independent. The opposition would thus need to win a further three seats, on top of regaining Mulcahy's seat, to hold government in its own right. Should the Greens win a seat from Labor, they would probably obtain the balance of power in the Assembly, which they previously held from 1996 to 1998.

The Liberal campaign suffered early problems in February 2008 when a number of prominent Liberal Party and business figures, including popular former Chief Minister Kate Carnell and high-profile businessman and former party finance director Jim Murphy, relaunched the 250 Club, previously a Liberal fundraising group, as the independent Canberra Business Club. The new organisation pledged to support minor party and independent pro-business candidates in the election, citing their disillusion with both major parties and the need for a third political force in the Assembly.^[2]

Contents 1 Retiring members 2 Candidates 2.1 Labor Party 2.2 Liberal Party 2.3 ACT Greens 2.4 Independents and minor parties 3 References

[edit] Retiring members

• Wayne Berry (Labor, Ginninderra) ^[3]
• Deb Foskey (Green, Molonglo) ^[4]
• Karin MacDonald (Labor, Brindabella) ^[5]

[edit] Candidates

[edit] Labor Party

Labor has preselected candidates for all three seats in the election.

Ginninderra: incumbent MLAs Jon Stanhope and Mary Porter, indigenous dentist Chris Bourke, small business consultant Paschal Leahy and party staffers Adina Cirson and David Peebles^[6]

Brindabella: incumbent MLAs John Hargreaves and Mick Gentleman, former ACT Democrats president Wayne Sievers, former party staffer Rebecca Cody, nurse Joy Burch and community worker Tracy Mackey

Molonglo: incumbent MLAs Simon Corbell, Katy Gallagher and Andrew Barr, IT expert David Mathews, union official Louise Crossman, Eleanor Bates and former United States Airforce rocket scientist and environmentalist Mike Hettinger

The Labor preselection announcement was most notable for the surprise nomination of whistleblower, former police officer, and ACT Australian Democrats party president Wayne Sievers, who nearly won a seat in the Senate for the Democrats at the 2001 federal election. This makes Sievers the early favourite to succeed retiring Labor MLA Karin MacDonald. ^[7]

[edit] Liberal Party

The Liberal Party has preselected candidates for all three seats in the election. All six sitting Liberal MLAs are recontesting their seats.

Ginninderra: incumbent MLAs Bill Stefaniak and Vicki Dunne, Andrea Tokaji, Matthew Watts and former Senate candidate Jacqui Myers

Brindabella: incumbent MLAs Brendan Smyth and Steve Pratt, David Morgan, soccer identity Steve Doszpot and Audrey Ray.

Molonglo: incumbent MLAs Zed Seselja and Jacqui Burke, former party president Gary Kent, former party staffer Giulia Jones, soldier Jeremy Hanson, Red Cross worker Belinda Barnier and Clinton White, media adviser to Stefaniak.^[8][9][10]

The party had earlier faced some difficulties with candidate selection. Troy Williams, the party's candidate for Fraser at the 2007 federal election, had intended to contest a seat in Molonglo, and had been reported as a potential strong challenger to ex-Liberal independent Richard Mulcahy. He withdrew on February 28, 2007, citing "personal and business reasons". The Canberra Times, however, reported that Williams' withdrawal had been due to a falling out with the territory's Liberal Party director.^[11]

[edit] ACT Greens

The sole Greens MLA in the Asembly, one-term representative Deb Foskey, is retiring at the election.^[12]

The party has announced their lead candidates for the three electorates:

• Ginninderra: Meredith Hunter, community worker and 2007 candidate for the federal seat of Fraser
• Molonglo: Shane Rattenbury, former Greenpeace official
• Brindabella: Amanda Bresnan, mental health policy worker and 2007 candidate for the federal seat of Canberra^[13]

[edit] Independents and minor parties

Ex-Liberal independent MLA and former Shadow Treasurer Richard Mulcahy will be recontesting his seat. He has raised the prospect of creating a new minor party in the wake of electoral changes passed by the Stanhope government in May 2008 which decreased the prominence of independent candidates on the ballot paper.^[14][15]

Frank Pangallo, the outgoing seventeen-year mayor of Queanbeyan, has announced his candidacy as an independent in Molonglo, and will be relocating to Narrabundah. Pangallo, well known as a maverick critic of the Stanhope government unattached to either major party, has been tipped to be in serious contention for the seventh and final seat there. ^[16][17]

A new minor party, the Community Alliance Party, has applied for registration. Led by Ric Hingee, an advocate for the victims of the 2003 Canberra bushfires, the party is campaigning around focusing government issues of basic services and infrastructure, suggesting that the ACT should be run more like a local council than a state government. This has included staunch opposition to the territory government's 2006-2008 round of school closures and development concerns, such as the proposed power station at Hume. While Hingee has been critical of the ACT government's support for gay civil unions and the Human Rights Act 2004 and is fiercely opposed to Chief Minister Stanhope, it has been reported that he would consider supporting the government in the event of a hung parliament if Katy Gallagher were Labor leader. The party has announced four candidates: former Democrat Senate candidate Norvan Vogt (Molonglo), Save Our Schools spokesperson Jane Tullis and prison officer Mike Crowther (Ginninderra) and IT worker James Sizer (Brindabella).^{[18][19][20] [21] [22][23][24]}

The Australian Motorist Party, led by Geoff Develin, has applied for registration for the election. The party is reportedly planning on running two candidates in each seat.^[25]

Another new minor party, the No Immigration Bridge Party, is reportedly planning to register for the election. The proposed party, led by yachtsman Tom Ruut, is opposed to the planned Immigration Bridge across the West Basin of Lake Burley Griffin.^[26]

Damian Heffernan, a local independent film-maker, is running as an independent candidate for Ginninderra. ^[27][28]

Conservative columnist Angela Shanahan, who writes for The Australian and previously wrote for the Canberra Times raised the prospect of running as an independent in March 2008. She proposed to run on a "back to basics" platform, specifically singling out gay rights and environmentalist policies for attack. She stated at the time that her decision to run would depend on the existence of financial backing to mount a campaign; nothing more on the matter has been released as of late May.^[29]

The Australian Democrats, who held one seat in the Assembly from 2001 to 2004, have had their ACT division delisted by Elections ACT and thus will not be contesting the election. Their lead Senate candidate from the 2007 federal election, Norvan Vogt, is contesting the election as a Community Alliance Party candidate. ^[30]

The rebel Liberal Canberra Business Club has announced their intention to support "pro-business candidates"; it is unclear whether they will endorse their own candidates, or support other candidates who have nominated.^[31][32][33]

[edit] References