The chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory is the head of

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...

of the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding township#Aust ...

. The leader of the party with the largest number of seats in the

unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multi ...

Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory (known in short as the ACT Legislative Assembly) is the unicameral legislature of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). It sits in the Legislative Assembly Building on Civic Sq ...

usually takes on the role. Unlike other states and territories, the chief minister is not appointed by a

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

or administrator, but elected directly by the Assembly. The chief minister is the rough equivalent of the state premiers, and has been a member of the National Cabinet since its creation in 2020. The chief minister previously also represented the ACT on the

Council of Australian Governments The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) was the primary intergovernmental forum in Australia from 1992 to 2020. Comprising the federal government, the governments of the six states and two mainland territories and the Australian Local G ...

(COAG). Since there are no local governments in the territory, the chief minister's role is also similar to that of the mayor of a

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

. The chief minister sits on the Council of Capital City Lord Mayors. The current chief minister is Andrew Barr of the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms t ...

(ALP), who was first elected by the Assembly on 11 December 2014 following the resignation of

Katy Gallagher Katherine Ruth Gallagher (born 18 March 1970) is an Australian politician who has been serving as the Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Minister for the Public Service and Vice-President of the Executive Council in the Albanese Gover ...

List of chief ministers

¹ Lost a

no confidence vote A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...

in the Assembly originating from allegations made on a television program that the Follett led Labor

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...

had sought to secure by persuasion the vote of David Prowse, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, for the Business Franchise ("X" Videos) Bill.
² Lost a

in the Assembly following unpopular decisions to close schools, close the Royal Canberra Hospital and amend planning laws that led to the collapse of the Kaine led Liberal Alliance Government with Residents Rally.
³ Resigned when faced with a

due to the high costs of the Bruce Stadium renovations; and was replaced by Gary Humphries without the motion being put to the Assembly.
⁴ Resigned on 12 May 2011 for personal reasons; was replaced by his deputy

on 16 May 2011 by vote of the Assembly.
⁵ Resigned on 11 December 2014 to contest the ACT

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

position vacated by Kate Lundy; was replaced by her deputy Andrew Barr.

Graphical timeline

ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:12 PlotArea = top:10 bottom:50 right:130 left:20 AlignBars = late DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1989 till:30/06/2022 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:2 start:1989 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:1989 Colors = id:canvas value:gray(0.5) id:LIB value:blue legend:Liberal id:ALP value:red legend:Labor Legend = columns:3 left:205 top:20 columnwidth:150 BarData = barset:PM PlotData= width:5 align:left fontsize:S shift:(5,-4) anchor:till barset:PM from: 11/05/1989 till: 05/12/1989 color:ALP text:" Follett" fontsize:10 from: 05/12/1989 till: 06/06/1991 color:LIB text:" Kaine" fontsize:10 from: 06/06/1991 till: 02/03/1995 color:ALP text:" Follett II" fontsize:10 from: 02/03/1995 till: 18/10/2000 color:LIB text:" Carnell" fontsize:10 from: 18/10/2000 till: 05/11/2001 color:LIB text:" Humphries" fontsize:10 from: 05/11/2001 till: 12/05/2011 color:ALP text:" Stanhope" fontsize:10 from: 12/05/2011 till: 11/12/2014 color:ALP text:" Gallagher" fontsize:10 from: 11/12/2014 till: end color:ALP text:" Barr" fontsize:10

References

{{Government of the Australian Capital Territory *

Australian Capital Territory-related lists

List of chief ministers

Graphical timeline

See also

References