Elections to the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly were held on Saturday, 18 October 2008. The incumbent
Labor Party, led by
Jon Stanhope, was challenged by the
Liberal Party, led by
Zed Seselja. Candidates were elected to fill three multi-member electorates using a
single transferable vote method, known as the
Hare-Clark system. The result was another
hung parliament with Labor winning seven seats, the Liberals six seats and the
Greens
Greens may refer to:
*Leaf vegetables such as collard greens, mustard greens, spring greens, winter greens, spinach, etc.
Politics Supranational
* Green politics
* Green party, political parties adhering to Green politics
* Global Greens
* Europ ...
finishing with four seats, giving the Greens the
balance of power in the 17-member
unicameral Assembly
Assembly may refer to:
Organisations and meetings
* Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions
* General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
.
On 31 October 2008, after almost two weeks of deliberations, the Greens chose to support a Labor
minority government
A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and Cabinet (government), cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or Coalition government, coalition of parties do ...
.
Consequently, Labor was re-elected to a third consecutive term of government in the ACT. Stanhope was elected
Chief Minister at the first sitting of the seventh Assembly on 5 November 2008.
The election was conducted by the
ACT Electoral Commission
The Australian Capital Territory Electoral Commission, branded Elections ACT, is the agency of the Government of the Australian Capital Territory with responsibility for the conduct of elections and referendums for the unicameral ACT Legislative ...
.
Key dates
* Last day to lodge applications for party register: 30 June 2008
* Party registration closed: 11 September 2008
* Pre-election period commenced and nominations opened: 12 September 2008
*
Rolls
Roll or Rolls may refer to:
Movement about the longitudinal axis
* Roll angle (or roll rotation), one of the 3 angular degrees of freedom of any stiff body (for example a vehicle), describing motion about the longitudinal axis
** Roll (aviation), ...
closed: 19 September 2008
* Nominations closed: 24 September 2008
* Nominations declared and ballot paper order determined: 25 September 2008
* Pre-poll voting commenced: 29 September 2008
* Polling day: 18 October 2008
* Scrutiny completed: 25 October 2008
* Poll declared: 29 October 2008
* Legislative Assembly formed: 5 November 2008
Overview
The incumbent
centre-left Labor Party, led by Chief Minister
Jon Stanhope, attempted to win re-election for a third term after coming to power in 2001. They were challenged by the opposition
centre-right Liberal Party, led by
Zed Seselja, who assumed the Liberal leadership in December 2007. A third party, the
ACT Greens, held one seat in the Assembly through retiring MLA
Deb Foskey.
The election saw 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,
Weston Creek, and the remainder of the
Woden Valley). Election dates are set in statute to occur once every four years; the government has no ability to set the election date.
Following the
2004 election outcome, Labor held 9 seats, becoming the first
majority government
A majority government is a government by one or more governing parties that hold an absolute majority of seats in a legislature. This is as opposed to a minority government, where the largest party in a legislature only has a plurality of seats. ...
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 thus would have needed to win a further three seats, on top of regaining Mulcahy's seat, to hold government in its own right.
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. At the same time, their best prospect for winning Mulcahy's seat of Molonglo, the Liberal candidate for Fraser in the previous Federal election, Troy Williams, withdrew.
Polling
Conducted by Patterson Market Research, and published in
The Canberra Times, polling released on 4 October suggested the Green vote had doubled to tripled since the last election, at the expense of Labor, with the Liberal vote relatively unchanged. Commentators predicted the Greens would hold the
balance of power and decide who forms government. The Greens stated they were willing to court both major parties.
Scanning of ballot papers
In the 2001 and 2004 elections, after the first manual count of paper ballots the preferences were data entered for distribution. For the 2008 election, paper ballots were scanned and
character recognition software used to identify preferences. Any preferences that could not be identified by the software were entered manually.
Candidates
Sitting members at the time of the election are listed in bold. Tickets that elected at least one MLA are highlighted in the relevant colour. Successful candidates are indicated by an asterisk (*).
Retiring Members
Labor
*
Wayne Berry
Wayne Bruce Berry (born 14 November 1942), former Australian politician, was a member of the unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly from 1989 to 2008, representing the electorate of Ginninderra (from 1995–2008) for the ...
(
Ginninderra)
*
Karin MacDonald
Karin MacDonald (born 16 May 1969) is an Australian politician and was a member of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly
The Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory (known in short as the ACT Legislative ...
(
Brindabella)
Liberal
*
Bill Stefaniak (
Ginninderra)
Greens
*
Deb Foskey (
Molonglo)
Brindabella
Five seats were up for election. The
Labor Party was defending three seats. The
Liberal Party was defending two seats.
Ginninderra
Five seats were up for election. The
Labor Party was defending three seats. The
Liberal Party was defending two seats.
Molonglo
Seven seats were up for election. The
Labor Party was defending three seats. The
Liberal Party was defending three seats. The
Greens
Greens may refer to:
*Leaf vegetables such as collard greens, mustard greens, spring greens, winter greens, spinach, etc.
Politics Supranational
* Green politics
* Green party, political parties adhering to Green politics
* Global Greens
* Europ ...
were defending one seat.
Results
At the close of counting on election night 18 October 2008, with 82.1 per cent of the vote counted Labor had obtained 37.6 per cent of the vote across the ACT, with the Liberals at 31.1 per cent and the Greens at 15.8 per cent. Swings were recorded against both the Labor (-9.3 per cent) and Liberal (-3.7 per cent) parties with a +6.6 per cent swing towards the Greens. Labor won 7 seats, the Liberals won 6 seats, while the Greens won 4 seats, giving them the
balance of power, and negotiated with both major parties for the formation of a
minority government
A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and Cabinet (government), cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or Coalition government, coalition of parties do ...
.
After almost two weeks of deliberations, the Greens chose to form a minority government with Labor.
The
ACT Electoral Commission
The Australian Capital Territory Electoral Commission, branded Elections ACT, is the agency of the Government of the Australian Capital Territory with responsibility for the conduct of elections and referendums for the unicameral ACT Legislative ...
determined and announced the election's final results on 25 October 2008 after distribution of preferences.
In
Brindabella, Labor lost one of its three seats to Greens candidate
Amanda Bresnan
Amanda Bresnan (born 4 December 1971) is an Australian politician and a member of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly. Bresnan was elected to the ACT Legislative Assembly representing the electorate of Brindabella for the ACT ...
. Government minister
John Hargreaves was re-elected, but Labor backbencher
Mick Gentleman was beaten by another Labor candidate,
Joy Burch. For the Liberal Party, former leader
Brendan Smyth
Brendan Smyth O.Praem (8 June 1927 – 22 August 1997) was a Catholic priest from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who became notorious as a child molester, using his position in the Catholic Church to obtain access to his victims. During a period ...
was re-elected, but shadow minister
Steve Pratt
Stephen George "Steve" Pratt (born 15 October 1949) is a former Australian military officer, aid worker and politician in the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly.
He wrote a book titled Duty of Care about his life experiences, incl ...
lost his seat to party colleague
Steve Doszpot
Steven John Doszpot (23 September 1948 – 25 November 2017) was an Australian politician and member of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly from 2008 to 2017. A member of the Liberal Party, he represented the electorate of ...
.
Labor also lost a seat in
Ginninderra, where Greens candidate
Meredith Hunter was elected. Chief Minister
Jon Stanhope and Labor MLA
Mary Porter were both re-elected, and on the Liberal ticket sitting MLA
Vicki Dunne
Vicki Ann Dunne (born 25 December 1956), an Australian politician, was a member of the unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, from 2001 to 2020, representing the electoral district of Ginninderra for the Liberal Party.
D ...
was joined by
Alistair Coe, who replaced retiring
Bill Stefaniak.
In seven-member
Molonglo, the Liberals lost one seat to the Greens. Labor ministers
Katy Gallagher,
Andrew Barr and
Simon Corbell all won re-election, as did Liberal leader
Zed Seselja. Sitting MLA
Jacqui Burke
Jacqui Burke (born 22 May 1953) is an Australian politician and was a member of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly representing the electorate of Molonglo for the Liberal Party.
Legislative career
She was sworn into the ACT L ...
lost to
Jeremy Hanson for the second Liberal seat. The Greens increased their representation in this seat to two, electing new MLAs
Shane Rattenbury and
Caroline Le Couteur, the latter at the expense of Liberal-turned-Independent MLA
Richard Mulcahy.
See also
*
*
2012 Australian Capital Territory general election
Elections to the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly occurred on Saturday, 20 October 2012. The 11-year incumbent Labor Party, led by Chief Minister Katy Gallagher, won a fourth term over the main opposition Liberal Party, led by ...
External links
List of candidates for the 2008 ACT Legislative Assembly electionACT Legislative Assembly - List of Members (1989 - 2008)ACT Electoral Commission - 2008 ACT Legislative Assembly election
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Australian Capital Territory General Election, 2008
2008 elections in Australia
Elections in the Australian Capital Territory
October 2008 events in Australia
2000s in the Australian Capital Territory