Kate Carnell says ACT may as well not ‘bother with democracy’ after Labor, Andrew Barr’s election win
Former Liberal ACT chief minister Kate Carnell has lashed out after Labor won a seventh term in the nation’s capital.
Former Liberal ACT chief minister Kate Carnell says the Territory may as well not “bother with democracy” after Labor won a seventh term in the nation’s capital, urging her party to shift further to the left to regain the support of Canberrans.
As the Liberal Party begins its soul-searching and confronts 27 years in opposition after winning eight seats as of deadline on Sunday, Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes a Court said the success of two independents in Saturday’s poll had buoyed hopes for the community-led independent campaign at the federal election.
After the election result returned the Territory’s longest-service Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, to power with at least 10 seats and saw a collapse in the Greens’ representation from six seats to as few as two, a political strategist also speculated that independents had siphoned off the minor party’s support base.
Ms Carnell, chief minister between 1995 and 2000, said Labor’s election victory extending their reign of 23 years was not “good for democracy”, and the Canberra Liberals needed to move to the political centre or “centre left” to be returned to government.
An early swing to the Liberals’ turned into a 32.9 per cent primary vote compared with Labor’s 34.5 per cent, but Ms Carnell backed “moderate” Elizabeth Lee to continue leading the party.
“I think the great dilemma is, why bother with democracy?,” she told The Australian. “If you’re not going to change governments, the whole point of electing governments is that you can change them from time to time. You can keep the bastards honest … that’s the point.
“It’s certainly really hard for the Liberals. There’s a whole generation of Canberrans who have never known anything else.
“They weren’t born when I was in parliament.”
With independents Thomas Emerson and Fiona Carrick on track to win the necessary votes to sit in the ACT parliament, Mr Holmes a Court – whose organisation has financially backed teal MPs – said the result reflected support for community candidates. “Recent success by independents in the NT, ACT and NSW show voters are hungry for authentic, local representation and they trust independents to deliver,” he said. “There are dozens of community-led independent campaigns around the country gearing up for the coming federal election … yesterday’s successes will put a spring in their step.”
Former Liberal ACT chief minister Gary Humphries said Canberra was a unique jurisdiction and the party needed to support socially progressive policies to win an election rather than reverting to the right. Pointing to the success of Ms Carnell’s government, which introduced liberal harm-reduction measures to combat illegal drug use, Mr Humphries said the decision to oppose Labor’s drug decriminalisation policy and promise lower rates was a “mistake”.
“A campaign which appealed to voters’ hip pockets but not to their consciences and their moral compass was a bit of a mistake,” he said.
“People are interested in those sorts of broader social issues, and don’t vote purely on the basis of which party is going to take less tax out of their wallet.”
Other Liberal sources have argued against a shift to the left, lamenting that factional tensions, which saw Jeremy Hanson removed as deputy leader and contributed to Elizabeth Kikkert being dumped after she was accused of misconduct, conveyed a sense of disunity.
Labor-aligned pollster Kos Samaras said Canberra was a “unique bubble economically and politically” and the Liberal Party needed to move to the left to win support in the progressive Territory.
Mr Samaras said Mr Barr’s election win was consistent with a “global phenomenon” where “high-income, highly educated constituencies” repeatedly vote progressive.
He said he agreed that 27 years without a political change was not good for democracy: “Wherever there is a high-income constituency, and if you are either the Greens or Labor and a teal is there, you may get in trouble.”
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