Mid-term malaise: a stagnant air hangs over ACT government

Cast a cynical eye over the fomenting enthusiasm for Legislative Assembly alternatives and one could reasonably conclude Labor's adversaries have given up on winning by the current rules and are looking for ways to flip the table.

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But it points to something real: a deepening sense of malaise that now hangs over the territory government. Halfway to the next election, the political and government scene has a stagnant, dusty air about it, a place in need of sunshine.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr (centre), Deputy Chief Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith, Opposition Leader Mark Parton and Greens Leader Jo Clay. Photos by Karleen Minney, Keegan Carroll, and James Croucher.

Labor has tied itself in knots, committed to its election promises up front and left itself no more money to spend. The attempt to project economic sensibility has made it a party that looks neither innovative nor agile, challenged more and more by the usual problems of government.

Labor remains the largest and best-resourced political party in town but it faces being disabused of its own sense of importance should its campaigning fall flat. Self-belief that you are the only natural party of government fast transforms into malignant hubris.

If Labor has become accustomed to the habits of government, the Liberals are just as accustomed to the trappings - and ease - of opposition.

They need sorely to look like an alternative government, and have every parliamentary opportunity to pull it off. Saying the government looks tired is a strategy that itself has become tired, no matter how true the statement might be.

The next two years is a test of whether Liberals can take advantage of a frustrated crossbench and fashion themselves into practitioners of statecraft.

Deputy Chief Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith, left, and Chief Minister Andrew Barr. Picture by Keegan Carroll

Ms Clay is yet to make a uniting vision for the party stick. Something needs to energise its campaigns and prevent supporters abandoning them for the apparent impact and excitement of the independents.

Initiating and then backing out of talks with Labor might have been sold as a grander moral victory for the Greens if the now firmly crossbench party did not frequently seem like a group of four independents who appear in a co-ordinated colour together at press conferences sometimes.

Is it any surprise then that talk of the wonder of independents, citizens' juries, directly elected mayors, expert commissioners and single-member electorates starts bubbling up?

Opposition Leader Mark Parton. Picture by Keegan Carroll

Public frustration with government has been growing at all levels. The ACT government does not help itself when its first mode is to assume it cannot do much about anything.

The real problem has been the politicians taking the "One ACT Government - One ACT Public Service" model to its extremes, looking from politician to public servant, and from public servant to politician, and from politician to public servant again, and finding it impossible to say which is which.

Now Ms Stephen-Smith has been left holding a box of new political grenades, chiefly public schools and public-sector pay. It is no doubt awkward when Ms Stephen-Smith, backed by the Community and Public Sector Union, is the one who has to tell that union there isn't another cent for bigger pay rises.

Greens leader Jo Clay, left, with deputy Greens leader Andrew Braddock in the Legislative Assembly. Picture by Keegan Carroll

Mr Barr, the subject of ACT politics' most popular parlour game: "When's he going then?", clearly wants to stick around to open a light rail to Commonwealth Park extension and a new lyric theatre in early 2028.

Labor is unlikely to find the perfect moment to switch leaders before the election, a case of crash through or crash. One day the apprentice must take over the master. Mr Barr has had several apprentices. The scene is getting to be something out of a Beckett play.

Given all this, Labor ought to be on the ropes. Would a minority government with budget troubles, a minister-removing corruption finding and no formal supply agreement to command a proper majority have looked this settled in the heady early days of self-government?

The unravelling of the Liberal-Greens plot has let Labor think their opponents have the chance but don't have the nerve. While the best thing Labor has going for it is an opposition that remains distracted, divided and undisciplined, it is still in perilous territory.

Opposition Leader Mark Parton, who took over in November 2025, is a good communicator but does not have a party working together as hard as it should be to find the right message.

It is an opposition that still believes it can power itself with vibes alone. Frustrated believers have peeled away and given up on trying to fix it, convinced there is no catechism left to unite the broad church.

Independents offer a lightning rod for fed-up voters but they need friends to wield more power, whatever might get said about an independent being elected chief minister in unity cabinets. One needs to be careful not to mistake the technically viable with the politically likely.

Polling is one thing but the Victorian state election will give the first indication of how real One Nation's support is at the ballot box in Australia. Watch then for the real machinations to kick off in the ACT and even more instability and panic.

There are still a few questions that still need to be answered: who will One Nation run here? After their 2024 drought-busting breakthrough, what does the independent swell look like and who could lend their name and support to it? Does Mr Barr really entertain running again? Do people believe what Mr Parton says, given how his story kept shifting over his alleged (and denied) text messages to a sex worker? What do the Greens do to prevent being reduced to two seats?

Answers remain elusive and predictions are dangerous. But it sure seems as though ACT government has to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

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