Pearls and Irritations

This ACT election is not an election about policies. Nor, by itself, about significant changes to the style of government.

Andrew Barr, long-serving ACT Chief Minister is perfectly right in saying that it is not Labor’s fault that Labor has been in power for such a long time. Canberra voters have consistently returned Labor for more than two decades. Usually by comfortable margins. That has not been because of any unfair electoral advantage. It has been because his main opponents, the Liberals, have until now seemed determined to lose.

The ACT has repeatedly shown itself to be moderate, tolerant and liberal, particularly on social policies. It was the only state or territory to vote Yes for the Aboriginal Voice. Its voters were heavily for same sex marriage. When the ACT legislature adopted liberal drug laws, it caused some minority ructions but that one interest group most openly and loudly resisting – the ACT side of the AFP – was more a signal about how police are out of touch with community feeling rather than the other way around.

ACT citizens are, on average, the best educated, and, on average, the best paid in the nation. A high proportion of its citizens – higher than anywhere else in Australia – wants more positive action on climate change. They want strong environmental protections. Most have favoured voluntary assisted dying legislation, and the entrenchment of abortion rights in ACT law. That the leaders of significant religious groups have been strongly against such so-called “woke” policies, and implied all manner of political revenge can be counted with the observation, against Catholic bishops for example, that Canberra’s (or Australia’s) Catholics are no less likely to use contraception, or have abortions than any other group of Australians.

That the politics are humane, or moderate, or in line with a modern rights-focused anti-discrimination approach is no proof that they are right. But it is almost impossible to deny that the laws in question are in line with Canberra majority opinion. Labor is alongside the majority and has usually played a major part in putting the laws on the statute book. So have Green members of the government. By contrast, many Liberals have been unenthusiastic, and some of the more conservative ones sometimes give the impression that they wanted to get elected to the assembly just so as to throw such legislation out.

Canberra people are not greatly given to sectarianism these days (the contrary was true 70 years ago). The Liberal Party is as heavily factionised as the Labor Party, and the relative influence of the hard-line social conservatives and the more moderate groups waxes and wanes. The Liberal leader, Elizabeth Lee is progressive in her general outlook, and a narrow majority of the present Liberal representatives support her approach. But others don’t and do not hesitate to promote their own policy agendas, nor to snipe at and undermine her. Some of these tensions have flared up in embarrassing incidents during the campaign itself, leaving Lee open to the charge that her party is divided, and that many in it are disloyal to her.

But even with the Liberals being recognised as the major author of their own problems, Barr is uncomfortably aware that his biggest political liability is the party’s length of time in office. State and territory level governments are more focused on the administration and management of policies and 10 years of Barr (or 23 consecutive years of Labor) is a long time by any standard. Even without internal scandal, incompetence or outright corruption, parties and leaders are often thought of having had their go after three or four terms. They should have had time to complete their initial agenda. Management experts these days suggest that directors on boards and chief executives should be rotated out so that completely new teams are in place after a decade or so. Otherwise, they suggest, governments become complacent, focused more on survival rather than on developing new ideas and approaches. Demonstrating the idea that politicians who have spent their entire time in office on the government benches come to think they hold their jobs on freehold rather than leasehold.

The Barr government is tired and is showing that it is out of ideas. It has a few projects in mind, but very little in the way of bold initiatives on policy, or in developing the wherewithal and skilful stewardship so that it can pay for it. It might well benefit from some time out, both to refresh its thinking, to consider some new ideas, and to work out why it is in the business of politics, and what it achieves. By no means does Labor at state or territory level suffer from the same problems as the Albanese government. But the Albanese government’s woes, in its very first term of government, are a reminder that not all problems of government turnover come from exhaustion. So far, for example, it couldn’t be said that the Albanese government has raised a sweat.

This ACT election is not an election about policies. Nor, by itself, about significant changes to the style of government. Nor is it by itself about competence. Ms Lee gives every evidence of knowing what the job entails, and so do any number of her front bench, and some of the more electable Independents. It is, rather, an election about choice: which party would be, at the moment, the best to represent ACT interests. There will be many voters voting the government out in that they think its energies are spent. There will be others voting a new lot in. That government would need the support of independents — most of whom seem motivated by a desire for a new government.

The most interesting issue – apart from the cost of living – has probably been about building a football stadium. Some ho hum announcements have been made about school and hospital building programs, but these have been made to seem rather more like depreciation projects with only incremental improvements. No plans, by any of the sides, including the Greens, have been made to sound bold, imaginative, or transformational. There is hardly even much of a sign that the grifters are ransacking the thesauruses. Echoing the risk-averse style of their bosses, the bureaucrats and experts have become uninspired, and the quality of outputs to citizens – for example the excellence of student performance, the quality and efficiency of health care, or the commitment to decent housing for Labor’s natural constituents – is declining.

This is partly a disease of modern government and modern bureaucracy, and not an inevitability. It cannot be assumed that a new set of managers, or fresh minds, will or can address the systemic problems. But they will not at least address everything in the same old way, with the same old habits of mind, and with the same old predispositions of priorities, mates, prejudices and bad thinking.

Governments resistant to consulting with and talking to voters quickly lose touch.

One clear sign that longevity, rather than rawness, is at the centre of the problem is a steady build-up of debt without much discernible as new and improved services going to the community. Successive ACT governments have made only piecemeal cost-cuttings, not providing money for new ideas. This has kept many of the lobbyists and interest groups at bay, but with serious loss of political opportunity. Reinvestment for the future requires more money in hand, obtained by cost-cutting, revenue raising, or more debt. Once the opposition gets past motherhood statements, it is by no means clear what they would cut to give themselves room. But they do show signs of appreciating the problem.

More serious is the fact that the Barr government remains hostile to consultation and discussion with the community, and tends to regard it, at best, as a chore to be ticked off rather than as an essential part of the political process. It’s the part that gets voters engaged in the conversation. Invested in the process. Offering ideas and insights that will often show that the thinking of the insiders has been seriously narrow or unaware of local circumstances. From time to time the problem is discovered, discussed, and treated as if the solution must lie in an insight from heaven. Some new experts (the ideal one might be available from a TAFE management improvement centre) draws up a new flow-chart, with lots of lines and fancy words. Brochures are prepared, and facilitators are hired. It is at that point that governments are ripe for the sack. If Labor is to go, as I suspect it might, it is well past this use-by date.

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