The numbers look bleak. The Canberra Liberals hold nine of 25 seats in the ACT Legislative Assembly. Their members have worn thin the carpet on the opposition side of the chamber, relegated there for more than 20 years.
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There are two likely viable options the party has to form government. The most politically likely, and ironically most electorally difficult, is a majority government. That means winning another four seats at the October 19 election.
The most politically unlikely, and electorally achievable, option is forming government with independents or a minor party.
Part of Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee's task over the next 15 weeks is convincing Canberra it's not only possible, but it should be probable, too. To do it, she'll need to lead a team with no experience in government to victory in a city with a noticeable progressive bent.
A challenge? Certainly. Unlikely? Maybe. Impossible? Never say never.
Conversations along the corridors of the Legislative Assembly and with people already on the ground campaigning reveal an opposition eager to capitalise on frustration with the Labor-Greens coalition government but a concern that the Liberals still lack a defining pitch to end more than 20 years of Labor rule.
Reading the tea leaves
No consistent opinion polling in ACT politics gives rise to a healthy cottage industry of tea-leaf reading. Insights are gleaned from the reader polls run by The Canberra Times and other media outlets, from the comments on social media and from gut feelings, however divined.
But often the best insights come from the candidates and party volunteers trudging through the suburbs to knock on voters' doors.
This year, campaigners from all sides have encountered an anti-government sentiment, but not with a clear redirection of support. Some answer the door and declare it will be an independent for them, others express dissatisfaction with the current government but remain highly uncertain about the alternatives.
![Elizabeth Lee, front, with Canberra Liberals candidates at the candidates' launch earlier this year. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong Elizabeth Lee, front, with Canberra Liberals candidates at the candidates' launch earlier this year. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/35sFyBanpD896MKnAH5FRtj/599e9d63-a7ef-48fd-9fb2-4d23bb7b1cdd.jpg/r0_224_5300_3204_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The Liberal message has been simple: if you want to change the government, you must vote for us. A vote for the Greens is, in effect, a vote for Labor, and voting independent guarantees nothing at all.
Andrew Hughes, a political marketing expert from the Australian National University's college of business and economics, said the market for the Liberal brand in the ACT was small. The Canberra Liberals, he said, needed to find areas they could tout their socially progressive credentials.
Dr Hughes said if he were the Liberals' campaign director, he'd pinch the David Pocock-style messaging of having three issues to campaign on. Integrity, leadership and climate was the Pocock example.
"So we're not going down the pathway of Malcolm Turnbull's six-point plan or Tony Abbott's six-point plan, which the Liberals seem to be quite fascinated with those sort of point plans," Dr Hughes said.
"No one's got the memory space to care or remember your plans. But if you say to them, you stand for three issues, that's completely different. And in a place like Canberra, that's really important."
Dr Hughes said the party needed to shift numbers, which either worked by using a fear-based or a hoped-based campaign. And, he said, fear was not going to cut it.
"Instead of having a slogan, have policies as your slogan. We stand for leadership or integrity or engagement or development, whatever it happens to be, or progress. Use the terms necessary, which then you can talk to quite well and build momentum and hope up in people," he said.
Three from three, two from two
To form a majority of 13, the Liberals need to win an extra four seats across the territory's five electorates, which each elect five members to the Legislative Assembly. The most likely path to power is thought to involve winning three seats in three electorates, and two in two.
![Deputy Liberals leader Leanne Castley. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong Deputy Liberals leader Leanne Castley. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/35sFyBanpD896MKnAH5FRtj/56531875-9e18-4d98-9fb8-efd1344f1a15.jpg/r0_276_5392_3308_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Brindabella, the southernmost seat, is the race to watch. The Speaker, Labor's Joy Burch and moderate Liberal Nicole Lawder will not contest the election. The Greens' Laura Nuttall has had a limited chance to establish herself in the seat, which she won on a countback after Johnathan Davis resigned late last year following allegations of sexual misconduct.
All those votes have got to go somewhere. The Liberals need to take three seats, which would mean two new faces join the incumbent Mark Parton as the party's members for Brindabella.
The party also needs three in Yerrabi, which covers Gungahlin and a small part of Belconnen. The two sitting Liberal members - James Milligan and deputy leader Leanne Castley - would need to be returned, along with another member. Liberal candidate John Mikita is thought to be a strong chance who is campaigning well.
Unlike 2020, Liberals in Yerrabi will not benefit from the so-called leader bounce, which pushes up the vote for a party when a party leader is running in the seat. Mr Milligan, first elected in 2016, lost his seat at the 2020 election and only returned on a countback in March 2021 triggered by the resignation of Alistair Coe, the former opposition leader.
Murrumbidgee, which takes in the rapidly growing Molonglo Valley, Weston Creek and parts of the inner south, is home to Jeremy Hanson, the former leader relegated to the backbench, and Ed Cocks, who was elected on countback after Giulia Jones resigned this term. Armadeep Singh came close to taking a third seat for the Liberals when he ran in 2020 and has kept up his community profile since.
![Peter Cain, the first-term MLA who has maintained a striking omnipresence at community events. Picture by Karleen Minney Peter Cain, the first-term MLA who has maintained a striking omnipresence at community events. Picture by Karleen Minney](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/35sFyBanpD896MKnAH5FRtj/717e9fa2-b5ca-44b7-b5cb-a10688c09757.jpg/r0_66_4256_2459_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
But Fiona Carrick may emerge as an independent in Murrumbidgee. A long-standing community advocate with a defined platform, Ms Carrick was within a whisker of winning a seat in 2020. The former Woden Valley Community Council president has been tipped by tea-leaf readers in all three parties in the ACT as the likeliest independent for the 11th Assembly.
In Ginninderra, incumbents Peter Cain, who maintains a striking omnipresence at community events, and Elizabeth Kikkert need to retain their seats - and there is no suggestion they will not.
Then comes the inner-city conundrum. A boundary shift for Kurrajong has moved two traditionally Liberal suburbs into Murrumbidgee for this election, making it harder for the Liberals to win two seats. The party was knocked back down to one seat in 2020 as the Greens took two seats.
But Ms Lee should benefit from the leader's bump, which, if it's strong enough, could bring another Liberal candidate into the Assembly at the expense of a second Green member.
'A very progressive electorate'
Gary Kent, who resigned as Canberra Liberals president in the bitter fallout after the 2013 Senate preselection, said Ms Lee was the most credible leader the party had had in more than two decades.
"I think that's clear to me, but she's inherited a party with entrenched issues that are going to make it very hard for her to do well in October," Mr Kent said.
"There's a number of problems that I see. Some of the shadow ministers are unknown in the community and apparently totally ineffectual in developing policies. Too many Assembly candidates have few, if any, community links and have been put there as space fillers."
Ms Lee, he said, had not done enough to "rejuvenate the party", too many "factional hacks" remained in the party machine and links to the business community were "very poor".
"This is a very progressive electorate, you know. It's not the Northern Territory or North Queensland, and there has to be a complete change in mindset to win over the middle ground," he said.
Ms Lee's term as leader has so far been dominated by messy internal battles, capped off with the election of an empty chair as president of the party and the relegation of former leader Jeremy Hanson to the backbench.
![Elizabeth Kikkert, a Liberal member for Ginninderra, who is one of the party's conservative members. Picture by Keegan Carroll Elizabeth Kikkert, a Liberal member for Ginninderra, who is one of the party's conservative members. Picture by Keegan Carroll](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/35sFyBanpD896MKnAH5FRtj/ac480059-e506-4258-9729-944e4148f23f.jpg/r0_200_5000_3022_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Labor wants to make the campaign all about how conservative the Canberra Liberals are. A vote in the Legislative Assembly in the most recent sittings on abortion access, which split the party in public fashion, played into the hands of Labor and the Greens.
Moderates within the Liberals are always quick to point out conscience voting in the party means the big, scary conservative social agenda is hardly a threat.
In government, if the Liberals split, the progressives would vote with the moderates. No threat to abortion access, voluntary assisted dying or whatever other cause you nominate, they say. A majority Liberal government made up wholly of socially conservative members? No chance.
Mr Kent said the party had not yet articulated a clear vision of what it stood for and still faced significant internal tensions between right-wing and moderate members.
"The party's policy development processes have collapsed and time is running out to put an appealing progressive platform to the electorate," he said.
"I'm trying to think what policies are out there. And, I mean, the fact that I'm having trouble articulating them is itself a problem."
Not interested in gimmicks
Mr Kent said the party's policies seemed gimmicky, nominating the pledge to spend up to $2 million in each suburb and voucher schemes for families with school-aged children.
"I don't think the Canberra electorate is interested in gimmicks," he said.
Dr Hughes said the Liberals needed to tap into the aspirational element of the population, particularly working women aged 25 to 55. The kind of women who, in the 2022 federal election, boosted the vote for Teal independents in formerly Liberal-held seats.
"They're aspirational as all hell," Dr Hughes said.
![Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee and Mark Parton, member for Brindabella. Picture by Keegan Carroll Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee and Mark Parton, member for Brindabella. Picture by Keegan Carroll](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/35sFyBanpD896MKnAH5FRtj/562f1a1e-f877-410b-992a-dd2966f7a90e.jpg/r0_256_5000_3078_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The campaign should be designed to build momentum through an appeal to an aspirational ideal for Canberra and families. Dr Hughes said messages should focus on what the Liberals propose to do, rather than what Labor has messed up.
"Not tapping into it by being aggressive and going fear, flight and fight, and all that type of thing. It might work at a federal level but not necessarily at a local level. And even federally I think it's sort of waning a bit ... We are a lot more cynical than we ever were," he said.
One suggestion to improve the chances of the Canberra Liberals floating around the ACT's political circles is to borrow from the vibe of Greens leader Shane Rattenbury: the earnest, serious bureaucrat.
"And I personally think on top of that, you've got to have big ticket things that's going to get the non-attention paying punters' attention. You know, like a city stadium, right?" a person with experience working for the Liberals in the Legislative Assembly said.
'I don't think they can do it'
The Liberals' weak point through this term has been its policy alternatives to the government. The party is quick to respond to political events - and that usually means launching critical attacks, as is any opposition's wont - but the Liberals appear to struggle when pushed on what they would actually do differently.
It is in these moments the party's inexperience in government shows through. Not a single sitting Liberal has ever sat on the government benches.
It was understandable at the start of the term that the Liberals did not have fully formed policies. After another election loss, they needed time back at their drawing board. But even now the party's members are better at talking about what's gone wrong than what they would do to put it right.
The adviser said the biggest thing the Liberals needed to do was show the community they were not just saying anything to get votes.
"They're only doing things that are a function of Labor's f--kups and this is my biggest criticism. They're not actually doing the hard policy work. They're not f--king doing it," he said.
The hill the Canberra Liberals need to climb to form government is big. Dr Hughes thinks the result will be close. The prospect of independent or minor party support is still very uncertain and, he pointed out, the Liberals would need to increase the number of seats they held by about 50 per cent for a majority.
"And I don't think they can do it," he said.
If the party stands any chance on October 19, its own members need to think they can do it. And act like it. Voters can smell fear of electoral defeat.