2008 Australian Capital Territory general election
18 October 2008
All 17 seats of the unicameral Legislative Assembly
9 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout90.4 (Decrease 2.4 pp)
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Jon Stanhope Zed Seselja Meredith Hunter
Party Labor Liberal Greens
Leader since 19 March 1998 13 December 2007 October 2008
Leader's seat Ginninderra Molonglo Ginninderra
Last election 9 seats 7 seats 1 seat
Seats won 7 6 4
Seat change Decrease 2 Decrease 1 Increase 3
Popular vote 79,126 66,855 33,057
Percentage 37.4% 31.6% 15.6%
Swing Decrease 9.4 Decrease 3.2 Increase 6.3
Chief Minister before election

Jon Stanhope
Labor

 Resulting Chief Minister

Jon Stanhope
Labor

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 finishing with four seats, giving the Greens the balance of power in the 17-member unicameral Assembly.[1][2][3][4] On 31 October 2008, after almost two weeks of deliberations, the Greens chose to support a Labor minority government.[5][6][7] 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.[8] The election was conducted by the ACT Electoral Commission.

Key dates

[9]

  • 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 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 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.[10] 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.[11][12][13]

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.[14]

Candidates

[15] 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

Liberal

Greens

Brindabella

Five seats were up for election. The Labor Party was defending three seats. The Liberal Party was defending two seats.

Labor candidates Liberal candidates Greens candidates Motorist candidates CAP candidates
  

Joy Burch*
Mick Gentleman
John Hargreaves*
Tracey Macket
Wayne Sievers

Steve Doszpot*
David Morgan
Steve Pratt
Audrey Ray
Brendan Smyth*

Amanda Bresnan*
Sue Ellerman

Ben Doble
Burl Doble
Brian McLachlan
Geoff Rake
Bruce Ritchie

Val Jeffery
James Sizer

Ginninderra

Five seats were up for election. The Labor Party was defending three seats. The Liberal Party was defending two seats.

Labor candidates Liberal candidates Greens candidates Motorist candidates CAP candidates Ungrouped candidates
   

Chris Bourke
Adina Cirson
Mary Porter*
Dave Peebles
Jon Stanhope*

Alistair Coe*
Vicki Dunne*
Jacqui Myers
Andrea Tokaji
Matthew Watts

James Higgins
Meredith Hunter*

Deborah Hannigan
Chris Seddon
Andrew Simmington
Denis Walford
Wayne Whiting

Mike Crowther
Roger Nicoll
Jane Tullis

Harold Hird (Ind)
Cathy McIlhoney (Ind)
Mark Parton (Ind)
Adam Verwey (Ind)
Darren Churchill (-)
Eddie Sarkis (-)
Barry Smith (Ind)

Molonglo

Seven seats were up for election. The Labor Party was defending three seats. The Liberal Party was defending three seats. The Greens were defending one seat.

Labor candidates Liberal candidates Greens candidates Motorist candidates CAP candidates
  

Andrew Barr*
Eleanor Bates
Simon Corbell*
Louise Crossman
Katy Gallagher*
Mike Hettinger
David Mathews

Belinda Barnier
Jacqui Burke
Jeremy Hanson*
Giulia Jones
Gary Kent
Zed Seselja*
Clinton White

Elena Kirschbaum
Caroline Le Couteur*
Shane Rattenbury*

David Cumbers
Kim Evans
Stuart Green
Angus Laburn
Darren O'Neil
Stephen Rowland
Anthony Seddon

Alvin Hopper
Owen Saddler
Nancy-Louise Scherger
Norvan Vogt

Mulcahy candidates LDP candidates Pangallo candidates Ungrouped candidates
 

Joanne Allen
Richard Mulcahy
Ben O'Neill

David McAlary
David Pinkerton

Luciano Lombardo
Frank Pangallo
Phil Thompson

Helen Cross (Ind)
Tony Farrell (Ind)
Greg Tannahill (-)
Kerri Taranto (Ind)

Results

Australian Capital Territory general election, 18 October 2008[20]
Legislative Assembly
<< 2004–2012 >>

Enrolled voters 243,471
Votes cast 220,019 Turnout 90.4% −2.4
Informal votes 8,370 Informal 3.8% +1.1
Summary of votes by party
Party Primary votes  % Swing Seats Change
  Labor 79,126 37.4 −9.4 7 −2
  Liberal 66,855 31.6 −3.2 6 –1
  Greens 33,057 15.6 +6.3 4 +3
  Motorist 10,553 5.0 +5.0 0 0
  Community Alliance 7,730 3.7 +3.7 0 0
  Independent 6,961 3.3 +1.5 0 0
  Pangallo Independents 4,252 2.0 +2.0 0 0
  Mulcahy Canberra Party 2,341 1.1 +1.1 0 0
  Liberal Democrats 774 0.4 −0.9 0 0
Total 211,649     17  
Results by electorate
Brindabella Ginninderra Molonglo
Party Votes  % Seats Votes  % Seats Votes  % Seats
Labor 23,123 36.5 2 24,119 40.2 2 31,884 36.1 3
Liberal 22,364 35.3 2 16,683 27.8 2 27,808 31.5 2
Greens 8,600 13.6 1 8,350 13.9 1 16,107 18.2 2
Motorist Party 4,418 7.0 0 3,684 6.1 0 2,451 2.8 0
Community Alliance 4,829 7.6 0 1,897 3.2 0 1,004 1.1 0
Independent — — — 5,316 8.9 0 1,645 1.9 0
Pangallo Independents — — — — — — 4,252 4.8 0
Mulcahy Canberra Party — — — — — — 2,341 2.7 0
Liberal Democrats — — — — — — 774 0.9 0
Electorate Seats held
Brindabella          
Ginninderra          
Molonglo              

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.[4][21] After almost two weeks of deliberations, the Greens chose to form a minority government with Labor.[5] The ACT Electoral Commission determined and announced the election's final results on 25 October 2008 after distribution of preferences.[22]

In Brindabella, Labor lost one of its three seats to Greens candidate Amanda Bresnan. 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 was re-elected, but shadow minister Steve Pratt lost his seat to party colleague Steve Doszpot.[22]

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 was joined by Alistair Coe, who replaced retiring Bill Stefaniak.[22]

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 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.[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "ACT election officially declared". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 29 October 2008. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  2. ↑ "ACT 2008 - ABC elections". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 18 October 2008. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  3. ↑ Williams, George (25 October 2008). "Case for a new umpire". The Canberra Times. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  4. 1 2 "Greens take extra seat in ACT election". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 25 October 2008. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  5. 1 2 "Labor to form minority government in ACT". The Age. Fairfax Media. 31 October 2008. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  6. ↑ Stockman, David (1 November 2008). "Greens' nod sees Stanhope keep job". The Canberra Times. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  7. ↑ "Parliamentary Agreement for the 7th Legislative Assembly for the ACT" (PDF). 31 October 2008. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  8. ↑ "Legislative Assembly for the ACT - Week 1". ACT Hansard. ACT Legislative Assembly. 5 November 2008. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
  9. ↑ "Election timetable". ACT Legislative Assembly election - 2008. ACT Electoral Commission. 2008. Archived from the original on 30 September 2009. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
  10. ↑ Alexander, Cathy (27 January 2008). "Business gives up on ACT Liberals". The Canberra Times. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original on 9 November 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
  11. ↑ McLennan, David (4 October 2008). "Stanhope will need Greens to hold power". The Canberra Times. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original on 27 October 2009. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  12. ↑ McLennan, David (4 October 2008). "Poll results no comfort to Labor or Liberals". The Canberra Times. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original on 27 October 2009. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  13. ↑ McLennan, David (5 October 2008). "Stanhope Slump". The Canberra Times. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  14. ↑ "Scanning of ballot papers". ACT Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 21 October 2008.
  15. ↑ "Candidate list". 2008 Election. ACT Electoral Commission. 2008. Archived from the original on 30 September 2009. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
  16. 1 2 Alexander, Cathy (24 January 2008). "Labor Member to quit politics". The Canberra Times. Fairfax Media.
  17. ↑ Alexander, Cathy (4 March 2008). "Labor to reveal ACT poll hopefuls". The Canberra Times. Fairfax Media.
  18. ↑ "Stefaniak quits politics". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 26 August 2008. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  19. ↑ Rudra, Natasha (31 May 2008). "Foskey moving to greener pastures". The Canberra Times. Fairfax Media.
  20. ↑ "2008 Election results". Elections ACT. 6 January 2015. Retrieved 25 August 2018.
  21. ↑ "2008 Australian Capital Territory Election". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 18 October 2008. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  22. 1 2 3 4 "List of elected candidates". 2008 Election. ACT Electoral Commission. 2008. Archived from the original on 30 September 2009. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
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