The Liberals have unveiled a team made up largely of newcomers to politics, some also newcomers to the party, to contest the ACT election in October.
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Other than the eight sitting parliamentarians, only three of the 25-strong team have stood for election before, with the rest new to the game.
An email went out to party members last night, naming the people who put themselves forward and the party will now go through a formal preselection to endorse the candidates. Because there are just 25 candidates for 25 spots, the preselections won't be contested, as they were last year in the Labor Party, where 35 party members put up their hands.
Labor changed its rules allowing people to stand after just one year in the party (as of mid last year). The Liberals have a shorter eligibility still, requiring just three months in the party and just one meeting.
Leader Jeremy Hanson said "a couple" of the candidates were in the category of new members and some were long-time members. The number of first-time candidates pointed to "an excitement through the party", he said.
Ten of the 25 are women, including Denise Fisher, whose father Trevor Kaine was Liberal Leader and chief minister in the first days of self-government, but famously fell out with Kate Carnell.
Elizabeth Lee is having another shot after standing for the Liberals in 2012. An Australian National University law lecturer and vice-president of the ACT Law Society, she stands in the central seat of Kurrajong.
Two candidates have Defence careers, joining Mr Hanson, who himself was a lieutenant colonel in the army before entering politics. One is Peter McKay, and the other Brooke Curtin, the first female to be qualified as an F1-11 navigator in the air force, who now works for the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
Mr Hanson welcomed the diversity in his team, which includes Aboriginal man Paul House, the son of local leader Matilda House, along with Jacob Vadakkedathu, originally from India, who heads off against Labor's Deepak Raj-Gupta in Gungahlin, Ignatius Rozario, an accountant originally from Bangladesh, and Ms Lee, of South Korean heritage.
All but two of the candidates live in their electorates, other than sitting member Vicki Dunne, who is standing in the Belconnen seat, despite her Belconnen home suburb being moved in last year's redistribution to become part of the Gungahlin electorate. The others outside their electorates are Denise Fisher and Amanda Lynch.
While Labor has seen significant change in its Assembly team since the last election, with the departures of Katy Gallagher and Mary Porter and soon of Simon Corbell, all of the Liberals elected in 2012 are standing again.
The increase from 17 to 25 members this election is the biggest opportunity for aspiring politicians to get into the ACT parliament since self-government. Labor and the Liberals expect to boost their current eight-member teams to at least 11 or 12.
There are five electorates this year, each electing five politicians. To win the election, the Liberals need to win three seats in three separate electorates. Their chances were dealt a blow last week when Unions ACT announced its grassroots campaign targeting the swinging voters that it believes can decide the election, using an American-style system of voter "pledges" to lock them in.
But Mr Hanson said the Liberals were "buoyant and optimistic", despite the "massive challenge ahead".
As to the unions campaign, he said the Liberals had a "very good working relationship" with unions in the fields of nursing, firefighting and education.
"Given that we will be not be proceeding with the tram but investing more into health and education and better local services, I would make a very strong case that nurses and firefighters and teachers will be far better off under a Canberra Liberal government than a Labor government," he said.
The Liberals' campaign manager is Simeon Duncan, a federal Coalition adviser.
The full list of candidates:
Murrumbidgee (Woden-Weston): Jeremy Hanson (sitting); Giulia Jones (sitting); John Ellingham, anaesthetist; Paul House, NSW public servant; Peter Hosking, staffer for Tasmanian Senator David Bushby.
Yerrabi (Gungahin): Alistair Coe (sitting); Amanda Lynch, former Coalition adviser and Real Estate Institute head, now with Icon Water; James Milligan, owner of JM Publishing, works for the Gungahlin Community Council; Justin States, lawyer, works for recruitment agency Charterhouse Partnership; Jacob Vadakkedathu, public servant in the Department of Finance.
Ginninderra (Belconnen): Vicki Dunne (sitting); Denise Fisher, formerly of the Foreign Affairs Department; Elizabeth Kikkert, mother of five children aged 8 to 15; Paul Sweeney, prosecutor and former police officer; Ignatius Rozario, accountant at Gillespie and Co.
Kurrajong (central): Steve Doszpot (sitting); Candice Burch, policy officer at the Department of Finance; Brooke Curtain, working at the Civil Aviation Safety Authority; Elizabeth Lee, lawyer and academic; Peter McKay, member of the Australian Defence Force.
Brindabella (Tuggeranong): Nicole Lawder (sitting); Brendan Smyth (sitting); Andrew Wall (sitting); Edward Cocks public servant with the federal Department of Health; Annette Fazey, national director at Sensis.
