ACT election 2020: What to make of Jon Stanhope's ACT election intervention

What role would Jon Stanhope - ACT Labor hero turned ardent ACT Labor critic - play in shaping the narrative of the October campaign?

The year's numerous catastrophes, in particular the pandemic, has overshadowed everything political in 2020.

But just over six weeks out from polling day, the Stanhope subplot has re-emerged, and in a form few had anticipated.

Mr Stanhope's decision to accept Alistair Coe's offer to spearhead the Liberals' proposed poverty taskforce has thrust him, and his very pointed criticisms of the Barr government, back into the headlines and minds of Canberrans.

There are three questions to be asked and answered: why did Mr Coe extend the offer? Why did Mr Stanhope accept it? And should Andrew Barr and Labor be worried about what it might mean on October 17?

On the first point, Mr Coe has insisted that Mr Stanhope was picked on merit, his 10 years as ACT chief minister, passion for social justice and strong ties to the community sector making him an ideal candidate. That might be true, but Mr Coe would be the most naive man in Canberra if he believed the politics of it all would go unnoticed.

The Liberals in the Legislative Assembly feed off Mr Stanhope's weekly attacks, holding them up as evidence of how just how bad things have become under the Barr-Rattenbury regime. The Liberals have long believed that Stanhope's critiques signal to traditional, but wavering, Labor voters that it's OK to call out your own.

The Liberals will believe Mr Stanhope's decision to accept the role sends the strongest signal yet.

As to why Mr Stanhope would take up Mr Coe's offer, there is undoubtedly a legitimate, deep-seated passion to address the problem at hand. In accepting the role (which, it's worth noting, will only exist if the Liberals form government), Mr Stanhope said poverty was perhaps the biggest challenge Canberra faced in achieving a fair and just society.

His commitment to the cause cannot be questioned.

But nor can his disappointment, and, let's be honest, his disdain, for the Barr government be questioned either.

Scratch beneath the surface of Mr Stanhope's reasoned, detailed, academic and evidence-based attacks and you'll detect a very human emotion, one not uncommon among politicians - particularly leaders - of the past.

From its handling of housing affordability to health spending, economic management and Indigenous affairs, Mr Stanhope feels Labor, in cahoots with the Greens, has betrayed him and dismantled what he fought so hard to build, all to the detriment of the people living in this city.

That feeling mustn't have been far from his mind when Mr Coe's offer landed in his inbox on Monday afternoon.

And so to Mr Barr and Labor.

Mr Barr has dismissed Mr Stanhope's election intervention as a stunt, and says the former leader's decision to accept a role with a political opponent has diminished his standing within the party which he once led.

It would be interesting to know if Mr Barr thought the same about Brendan Smyth, the Liberal frontbencher he parachuted into a plum ACT government role just months out from the 2016 ACT election?

The current Chief Minister said he wasn't worried that Mr Stanhope might lure disgruntled Labor voters to jump ship in October. Labor voters were smart, he said, and would see through the charade.

Mr Barr on Wednesday described former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard as the "gold standard" of Australian leaders in life after politics.

It was as much a jab at former leaders such as Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd, who have hung around Australia politics, than it was an expression of praise for Gillard's quiet dignity away from public office.

Mr Barr appears to be trying to put Mr Stanhope in the same category as Abbott and Rudd.

But in the ACT's longest serving chief minister, do Canberrans see a miserable ghost or a truth teller?