The ACT is not NSW. We knew that, of course. But politically there's always a question mark over a government that has been in office for more than three terms. But the results of a Canberra Times election poll published today indicate that ACT voters are not broadly unhappy with their lot. They inhabit a city-state which is stable and, even in these straitened economic times, relatively prosperous. Of course, there is always room for governments to improve, particularly in such service-delivery areas as health and education. However, there seems no real appetite or energy in the territory to replace the minority Labor government.
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The opinion poll results revealed today suggest voters feel that the malaise which had infected Labor governments around the country, particularly in NSW and Queensland, has not caught on in the ACT. The Canberra Times poll predicts that the Gallagher government will be re-elected and that the Assembly will be returned in its current formation: seven Labor MLAs, six Liberals and four Greens. As the electoral count indicated at the 2008 election, the Greens' bid for the seventh seat in Molonglo looks likely to be the tightest struggle on Saturday.
More broadly, however, the poll results suggest the electorate is not seeing a compelling case for change. This is despite more than a decade of continuous Labor rule and an abundance of issues for which the government has been roundly criticised - including school closures, problems in the construction and duplication of the Gungahlin Drive extension, suburban infill and more lately its inability to improve elective surgery waiting lists and emergency department waiting times. Its failure to institute lasting improvements was dramatically underlined earlier this year when it was discovered that Canberra Hospital emergency room data had been doctored on an epic scale.
The Canberra Liberals worked hard to capitalise on that scandal and, quite rightly, called into question aspects of Katy Gallagher's handling of the public disclosure that the person responsible for the data tampering was close to her sister, who also worked at the hospital.
The Labor Party is in retreat across Australia. Incumbent ALP governments have been evicted from office in Western Australia, Victoria, NSW, Queensland and, most recently, the Northern Territory. The Gillard government, meanwhile, is widely seen as living on borrowed time. The reversals have triggered not just the usual party soul-searching but also something of an identity crisis. That ACT voters apparently still have some faith in their Labor administration indicates satisfaction with its performance, and with the leadership of Ms Gallagher. It also suggests some satisfaction in the workability of minority government, with respondents in the poll evidently prepared to persevere with a governing partnership between Labor and the Greens.
Should Saturday's election play out as The Canberra Times poll indicates, Labor's strategy of annointing Ms Gallagher to replace the combative and at times controversial Jon Stanhope will be seen as a masterstroke in succession planning. One need only look to NSW to see how appallingly the ALP has handled this in other states.
After serving her apprenticeship in the demanding treasury and health portfolios, Ms Gallagher was elevated to the leadership with what appears to have been just the right amount of time to build a profile and give the ALP momentum heading in to this election. (We can only speculate on what the result would have been had Mr Stanhope decided to do a John Howard and see it through.) Putting a fresh face on what could otherwise have been perceived as a tired government is an old political tactic but in this case it may have paid dividends.
For his part, Zed Seselja has done a good job of uniting what was a fractious party rife with infighting and leadership tensions. His success in bringing order to the Liberals' party room seems not to have translated to greater support in the electorate, however. The polling by Patterson Research Group indicates that Ms Gallagher enjoys a commanding lead of 54 per cent to 26 per cent over Mr Seselja as preferred chief minister. That preference was even more marked among women voters (58 per cent to 23 per cent).
While incumbency could be expected to have delivered Ms Gallagher an advantage heading into the election the magnitude of her lead in this poll seems to indicate that Mr Seselja, with his focus on rates, green bins and plastic bags, has not resonated with most voters.
The real test will come soon enough. Saturday's election is the most important opinion poll of them all.
