Greens on the Nose Even in ACT

As I wrote last week, the Liberal’s Elizabeth Lee faced a tough battle to overturn nearly three decades of left-wing rule in ‘Australia’s most progressive’ city.

And surprisingly, the Barr Labor government was re-elected despite a swing against it. But, in a big upset, the Greens saw their number of seats halved.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has described his election victory securing a seventh Labor term as “extraordinary”, as he extends his party’s political reign in the nation’s capital to 27 consecutive years.

With his party on track to secure 10 seats compared to the Liberal Party’s eight, Mr Barr declared he is confident he will be able to “form a progressive and stable government” with a crossbench of Greens and independents […]

Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee conceded defeat, declaring that Canberrans had “voted for change, but perhaps not quite enough to get us there”.

Ms Lee addressed Liberal supporters shortly before 9.30pm on Saturday, after her party enjoyed an early swing on election night that failed to materialise into the numbers required to end 23 years of Labor rule.

“It looks like, and again not being confirmed, but it looks like between them Labor and the Greens may get to 13 which, of course, is our magic number,” Ms Lee said.

In fact, the Liberals are set to hold on to their nine seats. So, on the surface, it’s just four more years of business-as-usual. Or is it?

Under the Hare-Clark system winning a majority in the 25 seat Legislative Assembly is notoriously difficult, with Mr Barr now forced to walk a narrow path to government with the support of the Greens and independents.

Labor suffered a three per cent swing. The Liberals were also battling the vagaries of the Hare-Clark system, which only the ACT and Canberra use and favours minor parties – the soft-left independents for Canberra came from nowhere to score 8.5 per cent.

The big story, though, is the devastating result for the Greens.

With about 75 per cent of the vote counted, the ACT Greens are facing a total collapse of its representation in the Legislative Assembly and a swing of 1.2 per cent against the minor party.

The party’s numbers have fallen from the high-water mark of six seats after the 2020 election, although the party’s leader Shane Rattenbury and Ginninderra member Jo Clay look likely to hold on to their seats.

Rattenbury complained that, ‘When the Greens share government, it is challenging.’

Mostly because when the Greens get to put their whackadoodle policies into action, voters get to see them for what they really are. And what they really are, as the past year has made abundantly clear, is a hard-left collective of hateful anti-Semites.

Greens leader Shane Rattenbury, who is the ACT’s Attorney-General under a power-sharing agreement with Labor, has declared his desire to lead the nation’s first Greens government as chief minister.

Good luck with that, now.

Perhaps there’s some hope for Canberra, Australia’s wealthiest and wokest city, after all.