The Coalition made few big promises to the ACT during the election campaign, knowing there was little to be gained in the territory that would deliver seats only to Labor.

Most of the announcements made by Liberal Senator Zed Seselja included funding from grant programs that would have continued whichever side won politics.

In a similar fashion to the strategy used interstate, the Liberals used the Sports Infrastructure Grant program to announce improved facilities at sports ovals, tennis courts, netball courts and basketball courts across the territory as part of the local pitch.

Before the campaign proper had begun, the Coalition promised $68 million for health measures in the ACT as part of the federal budget. After this victory, the intensive care unit at Canberra Hospital will get extra beds, the southside will get the city's second Headspace centre and people suffering eating disorders will be able to stay in Canberra for treatment instead of traveling to Sydney.

Saturday's result means the ACT government will likely be left to pick up the whole bill for stage two of light rail, which is likely to be more than $1 billion, owing to the difficulty of crossing the lake.

And despite saying late last year he would find it hard to stick around if his federal counterparts weren't successful, Chief Minister Andrew Barr now says he will stay on and contest next year's election.

For Canberra's biggest employer, the public service, the next three years hold further efficiency dividends, with $1.5 billion less to spent on the public sector in order to pay for promises elsewhere.

In a sign the government has been listening to pleas from the city's national institutions and smaller agencies struggling to deliver on their purpose under the weight of the efficiency dividends, they will not be hit by the cuts.

The Coalition win means the current use of contractors and consultants throughout the public service is set to remain the same, although when the efficiency dividend was announced last week, it was signaled that spending reductions could be achieved through spending less on outside advice.

For consulting companies that have been beefing up their Canberra presence in recent years this will be sigh of relief, as Labor had promised it would slash spending to the tune of $2.6 billion, preferring to invest instead in direct employees.

Emboldened Nationals will seek to continue the decentralisation agenda, and while it seems less likely another agency would ever be wholesale moved away from the capital, it is more likely that any significant new public service jobs will be promised to more politically fertile ground outside the territory.

Perhaps most importantly over the long term, within the first six weeks of this term of government, Mr Morrison will receive the final report of the independent review into the Australian Public Service from David Thodey.

Although minister for the public service Mathias Cormann welcomed the draft report, it will take significant political will, vision and funding to prevent the report being added to the list of dust-gatherers that achieved little change.

Mr Morrison didn't commission the review, it was his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull, and the question is whether undertaking root and branch reform of the public service, investing in change so the bureaucracy can properly serve the government and its citizens in the rapidly changing 21^st century, is enough of a priority for a man who writes the whole city off as a bubble.