A year out from the 2024 ACT election, all parties must contend with internal challenges

With a year before the 2024 territory election, the biggest challenges faced by Labor, the Liberals and the Greens are not from across the chamber of the Legislative Assembly, extensive conversations in and outside the Assembly building have shown us. The challenges come from within.

On October 19, 2024, Labor wants to win a record-breaking seventh election. No one seriously thinks they can do it without the Greens. The Liberals would like to win government, too, but there's no doubting a malaise in the party that has not governed since 2001. Not one of its elected members has ever tasted the sweetness of victory. Despondent, some believe they are not likely to.

The Greens achieved their biggest success at the 2020 poll, taking six seats in the 25-member Legislative Assembly. Almost immediately, the party's angst grew on whether they could retain them the next time around. The party knows it's the biggest target coming into the next election, from all sides.

Labor's wildest dream is a majority. Only Jon Stanhope has led a majority government in the Assembly. Party operatives jokingly lament the bygone days of taking big donations from poker machines and spending up big on uncapped campaigns.

A Hare-Clark voting system and years of incumbency make the party's chances of ruling in its own right slim. Instead, Labor's frustrations are set to be taken out on the campaign trail against the Greens. They will battle fiercely for votes in the territory's five electorates.

Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee, meanwhile, faces some of her biggest challenges from within the party. Despite the vision of the powerful faction of the Canberra Liberals aligned to Zed Seselja, the erstwhile opposition leader and ACT senator, proving unelectable time and time again, the faction remains powerful within the party. Its influence will shape forthcoming preselections.

Ms Lee's own popularity and position as a moderate Liberal with something different to offer voters may not be enough to win them back when the spectre of arch conservatism sits behind her.

Jeremy Hanson, the deputy opposition leader who led the Liberals to electoral defeat in 2016, gave a taste of the party's old conservative outlook when he stepped up to act in Ms Lee's place when she took maternity leave this year.

Mr Hanson supported federal intervention after the government pulled the trigger on one of its most extraordinary moves: the compulsory takeover of Calvary Hospital. In a territory with fragile political rights, Mr Hanson's stance - and attendance at rallies organised by the conservative Australian Christian Lobby - seemed out of step with the territory's mainstream.

With 12 months to go, the opposition needs to set out a policy platform beyond abandoning the Woden extension of light rail, overturning drug decriminalisation laws and holding a royal commission into the health system. The party's opposition to light rail in 2016, before the first stage was built, didn't win them government; it is likely a tougher ask to oppose the project when Canberrans have had a chance to see what it could do for them.

The opposition's pitch so far this term has been that it would take the money allocated to light rail - many billions of dollars, in its calculation left unrefuted by the government - and invest it in schools, hospitals and city services.

It's a familiar conservative campaign: left unchecked, this government is wracking up outrageous levels of debt, tarnishing the credit rating and burdening future Canberrans with higher rates.

Perhaps one of the legacies of COVID-19 is the public is more eager to have its cake and eat it too. Governments can spend up and do things quickly; voters can expect more, not less, from government.

Debt is a number on a budget paper, but if this has no material meaning to the community, so be it. The government's task is to convince voters it can do it all: a new hospital, a very expensive light rail extension, schools, filling in potholes, improving housing affordability - all without eye-watering increases to household rates.

Labor and the Greens will need to find out if they have pushed too far the patience of voters. Ambitious environmental announcements - a 2035 ban on new internal combustion engine vehicles, a future ban on gas connections, a future ban on wood-fire heaters, city-wide cat containment among them - have an impact on people's lives.

Can the governing parties convince the city they are the right decisions to take, should not be left to a new government that might overturn them and are inconveniences worth putting up with?

One of the key differences between the Labor-Greens coalition and the Canberra Liberals has been their approaches to housing.

With housing increasingly unaffordable, the Canberra Liberals have touted releasing more land for detached housing to bring down prices. Labor and the Greens back in a vision of infill - "gentle urbanism" in Mr Barr's words - to boost housing choice. Greenfield blocks cost governments more to bring to market than urban infill sites, but urban infill sites put pressure on existing infrastructure.

Convincing solutions to both these issues are needed to launch a compelling campaign in a city where the electorate is unwilling to buy into balderdash.

The housing and land policies the parties take to the next election will represent a choice on what the future spirit of Canberra is: a choice between the sprawling suburbs that have marked the capital's development for a hundred years, or greater reliance on compact, denser living as land becomes scarcer.

The border, with some wiggle room at the north-western edge, is fixed. The task for the parties at the election will be to sell a convincing vision of what is possible within the ACT to a public that knows the space is finite.

Labor's biggest problem beyond the election - which it expects to win, adding to the party's hubris - is its succession plan. The party's options are rather limited as it lacks members who are either tenacious or experienced enough to be chief minister.

Andrew Barr has pledged to go to the next election but beyond that it is unclear how long he will stay in the top job. He told ABC radio this week he was only 50 and not yet ready to retire.

After his 2020 victory, Mr Barr said Deputy Chief Minister Yvette Berry was the next leader but he was clearly being diplomatic. There is a deep concern within parts of Labor about Ms Berry's potential leadership style.

She has recently faced the Integrity Commission over allegations her office interfered with a construction tender. Politicians and their staff within the Assembly are waiting to see how this will play out before making any moves.

For many inside Labor, the most logical choice for the next leader is Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith. This would set off a messy internal battle. Ms Stephen-Smith is from the Labor left faction, as is Ms Berry.

The Health Minister would likely win any caucus vote to be the next chief minister with the support of the right faction and some of her left colleagues. But not everyone in the left can stand the thought of Ms Stephen-Smith taking over.

Transport Minister Chris Steel, who is from the right, has also been widely tipped as a future leader but is not seen as being ready for the role. A stint as deputy leader is the likely first step.

Labor will need an injection of new talent at the next election and Brindabella will be a target ground to achieve it. Speaker Joy Burch has already announced she will retire from the Assembly at the end of the term and Planning Minister Mick Gentleman has faced pressure to do the same. Preselection jockeying has already begun in the seat.

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The cabinet has remained fixed since the last election, but expectation is building for a reshuffle before the next election. Mr Barr has previously said he would likely make some changes before the territory votes.

Labor backbencher Marisa Paterson has been impressive during her first term and elevating her to the frontbench is being considered. However, she has not been afraid to criticise some of the government's decisions, taking a direct swipe at the Attorney-General, and Greens leader, Shane Rattenbury, over his handling of dangerous driving issues.

Labor is willing to sacrifice a few seats to the Liberals if it means there are fewer Greens. The Liberals, if they heed the recommendations of their last campaign review, will also target "soft Green voters". A boundary shift will also take traditional inner south Liberal suburbs to the west, making it harder for the conservatives in Kurrajong while threatening the Greens in Murrumbidgee, where party incumbent Emma Davidson is seen as vulnerable.

One of the big puzzles heading into 2024 is whether any well-resourced, well-known independents will try their luck. Insiders play out hypotheticals: a David Pocock-endorsed candidate running on an integrity and climate platform? Someone who could garner enough support to help the Liberals to victory? No one has a clear playbook.

Allies in politics are often found in strange places. Labor and the Liberals will have a common aim at the next election: defeating the Greens. It will make for a rocky final year of the term, as the government seeks to hold itself together and undermine its allies all at the same time.

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