When it comes to voting in Canberra (and pre-poll voting is now open), will climate action, economic management or a new stadium guide your vote in 2022? Is the election all about Australia's posture on China or whether the ACT can make its own laws on matters of conscience?
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While there are positions and policies on national and even international matters in the May election, some critical issues are specific to the ACT.
Going local is a traditional part of political campaigning, but the ACT has particular needs and wants as the capital, the centre of bureaucracy and, well, just not being a state.
So what is in the federal election for the ACT?
Infrastructure
Is the ACT getting its fair share of federal infrastructure funding? Could the future of Canberra's football stadiums decide a tight Senate race? There's a multi-billion dollar federal infrastructure pipeline, but there are big questions over funds for ACT roads, large national venues and telecommunications.
Canberra is one of the fastest growing urban environments in Australia, but its share of infrastructure funding is a fraction of the other states.
The capital doesn't have an up-to-date midsize sporting venue, with Canberra Stadium in Bruce the only option for sport wanting a crowd of more than 3000 people. The indoor AIS Arena was closed without notice two years ago and has just been given a lifeline.
Position
Liberal Senator Zed Seselja has pledged $15 million, if re-elected, for a huge upgrade to the Viking Park in Canberra's south. He wants the current two fields upgraded to a 10,000-capacity boutique stadium plus hill areas. He's also pledged $4.5 million to complete stage one of the Home of Football and bypassed the ACT government and found $11.4 million to reopen and refurbish the mothballed AIS Arena in Bruce. Labor's Katy Gallagher has tried to trump that by offering $15 million, to "do the job properly" and improve disabled access and other amenities across the AIS precinct.
Among the road announcements, there's $30 million promised for road upgrades around Gungahlin and $3.1 million to fix four well-known Canberra road black spots.
Senator Gallagher has accused the Liberal Party of wasting the past 10 years and said Labor is engaging in "constructive discussions" with the ACT government about bringing territory infrastructure "back up to speed". She also said "Canberrans deserve an arena with the amenities to attract major sporting and music events."
Independent candidate David Pocock insists Canberra is getting "dudded" on federal funding - whether that's infrastructure, health, education or any other expenditure. He has pointed to $1 going to the ACT over the past five years for every $240 that went to the rest of the country. He is backing a large multimillion dollar world-class national convention centre and stadium complex in Civic as a priority nation-building project.
Independent Kim Rubenstein regards housing as the ACT's priority infrastructure issue, taking aim at the "housing affordability crisis which has left so many people homeless." But when it comes to sporting infrastructure, she said the real issue is in women's sport. "Women athletes at all levels in the ACT have extreme difficulty in finding anywhere to play. Women deserve equal access to quality sporting facilities."
Greens candidate Tjanara Goreng Goreng said nationally managed infrastructure in the ACT has been left to rot and regards it as "really upsetting" that major facilities such as the AIS Arena in Bruce has been left for so long. She also agrees the ACT is facing a housing affordability crisis and points to a range of services that are underfunded including public transport and healthcare.
Territory rights
There is a concerted push to overturn a federal ban on the ACT and the Northern Territory from making their own laws relating to conscience. In 1997, a bill which has become known as the Kevin Andrews Bill nullified the Northern Territory's assisted dying scheme and stopped the territories from making their own laws when it comes to voluntary assisted dying.
The focus of territory rights is the ban on even debating controversial laws. Passing or rejecting moves to pass voluntary euthanasia would be a matter for the ACT Legislative Assembly.
Voluntary euthanasia has become law across virtually all the Australian states and polling by the Australia Institute has found just over three quarters of Australians support voluntary euthanasia.
Position
Labor, The Greens and the two high-profile independent Senate candidates, Professor Rubenstein and Mr Pocock, support the right of the ACT to make its own laws.
Between 2006 and 2016, The Greens have introduced eight bills to Federal Parliament seeking to restore the rights of territories to legislate on voluntary euthanasia.
Mr Pocock has pledged, if elected, to introduce a private senator's bill to overturn the ban in the first weeks of the 47th parliament.
The Coalition does not support repealing the federal ban. Senator Seselja has been instrumental in maintaining the status quo. He has warned the ACT's Labor-Greens-controlled parliament would likely pass the "most extreme" voluntary euthanasia laws in the country if granted the power to legislate on the issue.
"My view on euthanasia hasn't changed. And I've been on the record on that for as long as I've been in public life," the Liberal Senator said. "There hasn't been a broad discussion about territory rights. Like should the territory have all of the same rights as the states? Should it have an upper house like five out of six states do? All of those things I think are very worthy of discussion."
Labor leader Anthony Albanese has previously called Senator Seselja, a "roadblock to the territory's right to legislate".
Territory representation
The ACT only has two senators for a fast growing population of almost half a million people and there is a growing argument for greater political representation.
The main comparison is with Tasmania which has 12 senators and a similar population.
Position
The Greens and the two independent Senate candidates back greater ACT representation. Professor Rubenstein insists it is time to amend the Electoral Act to enable Canberrans to have a bigger voice in the Federal Parliament.
The constitutional expert has already drafted legislation to double the number of ACT senators, insisting it is about the betterment of Canberra and strengthening the case for territory rights. She said Canberra, with a population of nearly 500,000, deserved more clout in the Senate.
Dr Goreng Goreng said the ACT was not getting a fair go, suggesting there "ought to be three at a minimum, or four, maybe there ought to be more, who knows?"
"It sets up this kind of adversarial fight and this confrontational fight when there's only two seats because we know that there's a quota system and you have to get a certain amount to get in," she said. "And so I think it's quite unfair. It's unfair to the independents, because why shouldn't they have a chance?"
Senator Seselja told The Canberra Times that a debate around statehood is worthy of consideration. "The Northern Territory of course, went down this path. But they had a vote on it, they rejected it," he said. "The ACT rejected self-government, of course, before we got it, so, you know, I think those discussions are very worthy of consideration."
Mr Pocock also believes the ACT is under-represented. "People in the ACT deserve to have their vote weighted in full at national referendums, not half that of someone living in a state as is currently the case."
Public service
The public service is a linchpin of the ACT economy, employing 59,000 people in Canberra and generating work for much of the city's private sector. How governments treat the public service influences the livelihoods of everyone living in the nation's capital.
COVID-19 has stretched the public service as the government relied on agencies to deliver billions of dollars worth of welfare and business support payments to keep the economy from free-fall. The pandemic bolstered the influence of senior public servants, such as Brendan Murphy, as ministers turned to them for expert advice in handling the crisis. However there have been questions about the role of the public service in some of the government's pandemic failures, including the delayed vaccine rollout.
Years of government-imposed restraints on staffing have driven huge growth in the public service's spending on contractors and consultants. Critics of the trend have argued it is reducing skills and capabilities inside the public service, and undermining its ability to deliver services and provide advice to ministers.
Position
Labor has promised it would remove caps on staffing, audit the usage of labour hire across the sector, commit to improving job security by limiting fixed-term contracts and address pay gap inequalities between agencies. Labor leader Anthony Albanese has also refused to guarantee the jobs of public service chiefs if the ALP wins power at the next federal election.
The Coalition has temporarily increased the public service's internal staffing, but has defended labour hire arrangements, saying they are an effective and efficient measure that fluctuates each year for different agencies, depending on operational pressures. While it rejected many recommendations in the recent Thodey review of the public service, it has pursued some reforms aiming to rebuild the bureaucracy's skills and capability.
The Greens are pushing to cap the public service's spending on major consultants, restore staffing to pre-Coalition government levels and proposing reforms to the appointments of senior bureaucrats aimed at reducing politicisation.
Under the plan, public-sector wages would rise by 4 per cent annually for four years at a cost of $2.6 billion over the forward estimates, in a bid to drive wage growth across the private sector under the party's public service policy. It also wants to bolster protections for public servants expressing their political views and participating in advocacy or running for public office.
Mr Pocock said public servants need to be valued and be clear they can offer frank and fearless advice to the government of the day.
"The conversation shouldn't be around how big or small the public service is, which we see every election cycle, right?," he says. "It should be about the quality of the public service. People want good services delivered. We should be really proud of what public servants do for the country, and what places like the CSIRO do for us."
Professor Rubenstein said Australia's system of "responsible government" is meant to enable public servants to provide frank and fearless advice, so that the best policy outcomes are achieved.
"We can see this has been severely diminished when public servants are fearful about voicing their views in their workplaces - rather than being encouraged to give fearless advice," she said. "In addition, the legal structures promoting transparency and independence in decision making have been eroded which also affects the output of the public servants."