Australian Capital Territory July to December 2023

Abstract

The second half of 2023 saw the government progress several long-mooted reforms. It released a new Territory Plan and legislated an increased age of criminal responsibility, saw off a federal challenge to its drug decriminalisation laws, and introduced a voluntary assisted dying bill. Chief Minister and Treasurer Andrew Barr had to explain a reduced credit rating and changes to payroll tax, but the government seemed to be rolling out its program in an orderly fashion.

At the same time, however, a good deal of turmoil emerged from other sources. Most dramatically, Greens MLA Jonathan Davis resigned over allegations of sexual impropriety, but the fallout from Bruce Lehrmann's abortive trial also continued. The local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice referendum campaign was relatively uneventful since few doubted the local result, but the Legislative Assembly's principal no campaigner later lost his position as Deputy Opposition Leader in December.

The Barr government has a history of urban reformism in the face of community opposition, and at midyear this looked set to continue. In February the YIMBY (yes in my back yard) group Greater Canberra launched a campaign to allow townhouses and duplexes in Residential Zone One (RZ1), the low density zone covering over eighty percent of Canberra, and it built considerable momentum in the intervening months (see my previous Chronicle in AJPH 69:4, 2023). In July the Labor Party's ACT conference amended its platform to reflect this demand, albeit with qualifications around timing (Canberra Times, 23 July 2023), and in August the ACT Greens Forum did likewise (Canberra Times, 26 August 2023).

This activity in the governing parties' organisational wings occurred as the government prepared to release a new Territory Plan, which would set out the ACT's zoning scheme and complement the new planning system introduced in June. In early September Barr signalled changes to RZ1 (RiotAct, 5 September 2023), but the plan revealed a week later was more restrictive than reform proponents had hoped. The proposed new rules permitted a second house of up to 120 square meters on RZ1 blocks over 800 square meters, which account for about forty percent of the total. These new dwelling could be unit titled, allowing the two houses to be sold separately, but they were subject to the potentially costly development application process (Canberra Times, 11 September 2023, 15–17 September 2023).

The “new” RZ1 drew criticism from Greater Canberra, as well as the Liberals, who opposed the 120 square meter size limit for second dwellings (Canberra Times, 15 September 2023; RiotAct, 11 September 2023). Both said the changes provided for granny flats, a description Barr and Planning Minister Mick Gentleman rejected (Canberra Times, 15 November 2023). The purpose of the size limit, the former said, was to ensure the new dwellings were affordable, with anything larger likely to sell for at least $700,000 (RiotAct, 10 November 2023).

As the ACT's politicians debated zoning the ratings agency S&P Global downgraded its credit rating from AAA to AA plus. This, they said, reflected a “slower fiscal recovery from the pandemic than we expected” as well as the Territory's debt level (Canberra Times, 9 September). Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee predicted “higher rates, land tax, car rego fees, levies and other hidden charges,” but Barr defended the Territory's debt level, saying “our debt has financed infrastructure, so the choice for Canberra was have no debt, but then we would have had no COVID support package, we would have built no infrastructure over the last fifteen years” (RiotAct, 11 October 2023).

The government also faced criticism over payroll tax after the ACT Revenue Office followed a New South Wales Supreme Court ruling and began applying the tax to general practitioners. The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) objected to what they termed a “sick tax” and sought an exemption (Canberra Times, 7 August 2023), but the government responded by exempting only GP practices that bulk bill more than 65 percent of their patients. The RCGP, knowing most of its Canberra members practise limited if any bulk billing, rejected this approach and continued its campaign (Canberra Times, 27 August 2023).

This peaked in early September, when the local chapters of the RCGP and Australian Medical Association predicted closed practices and $15–20 fee increases if the government did not broaden the exemption. The Opposition sided with the doctors, calling for all GPs to be exempt (RiotAct, 17 September 2023), while the chief executive of a local pharmacy group suggested pharmacists also deserved an exemption. The government was unmoved and, it seemed, unimpressed: “lobby groups who seek to minimise tax will make all sorts of wild accusations,” said Barr (Canberra Times, 5 September 2023).

There was further significant financial news in December when the government signed a $577 million contract for stage 2A of its signature light rail project, the Commonwealth covering half the cost. This built on the federal coalition's earlier commitment to support the project, but the local Liberals still approached the announcement with scepticism. Expecting such generous Commonwealth support for the rest of stage two was, they said, optimistic (Canberra Times, 8 December 2023). If so, Barr was an optimist: Commonwealth support for light rail had, he pointed out, increased to its current extent from a modest commitment under the Abbott government's asset recycling scheme in 2015 (Canberra Times, 30 December 2023).

That the ACT would legislate for voluntary assisted dying (VAD) was clear from late 2022, when the federal parliament lifted its 25-year-old ban on Territory euthanasia legislation. The most contentious outstanding question was around minors accessing VAD, which consultation suggested the community supported (RiotAct, 29 June 2023). In September, however, Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne said the government would not allow minors to do so, in part because its projections suggested very few would seek it (Canberra Times, 28 September 2023). Cheyne introduced the government's Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill in late October (Canberra Times, 1 November 2023); it is expected to pass in 2024.

On drug decriminalisation, too, most of the arguments seemed settled: the Assembly passed Labor backbencher Michael Pettersson's bill decriminalising small amounts of illicit drugs in October 2022 and scheduled the law to come into effect a year later. But in September federal Shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash sought to overturn decriminalisation using the Commonwealth's power over territory laws (Canberra Times, 14 September 2023). Cash's bill had very little local support: Labor and the Greens called it an attack on the ACT's autonomy, while Lee said “when these laws were introduced, we opposed them … but I strongly believe in Territory rights” (RiotAct, 14 September 2023). Cash's bill was defeated in October, and decriminalisation came into effect as scheduled (RiotAct, 28 October 2023).

Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury's bill raising the age of criminal responsibility also emerged from a long process. All Australian governments had discussed the issue, but only Victoria and the Territories agreed to act. Where the Northern Territory's bill lifted the age from ten to twelve Rattenbury went further, scheduling a second increase to fourteen for 2025 (Canberra Times, 11 November 2023). It was passed in November with all parties supporting some aspects, but there was dissension over the detail: the Liberals believed the increase should be limited to twelve, while the Greens objected to exceptions covering young people charged with murder or sexual violence (Canberra Times, 2 November 2023).

October's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice referendum also bolstered the ACT's progressive reputation, although local supporters were disappointed by its national defeat. Canberra's MLAs had already declared their positions, with Labor, the Greens, Lee, and Shadow Minister for Housing and Transport Mark Parton all supporting yes (Canberra Times, 19 April 2023, 5 June 2023). Deputy Opposition Leader Jeremy Hanson, who characterised the voice as “some utopian panacea to solve the great disadvantage faced by Indigenous Australians,” was the Assembly's foremost no supporter (Canberra Times, 18 April 2023).

Others were more reticent about taking positions, especially federal public servants subject to impartiality guideline (Canberra Times, 21 August 2023). But the local yes campaign still managed to recruit one thousand volunteers by the end of August and turnout 5000 for a “Walk for Yes” event in September (Canberra Times, 27 August 2023, 19 September 2023). The no campaign was less visible, in part because its leaders regarded a local yes victory as inevitable: Bill Stefaniak, a former Liberal MLA prominent in the no campaign, said he would view forty percent as a good local no vote (RiotAct, 13 September).

Canberrans almost fulfilled Stefaniak's hopes, returning a 61.3 percent yes vote, but with substantial variation across the city. At polling places in the inner north, where the Greens outpolled the Liberals at 2020's Territory elections, some 76.5 percent of voters favoured yes. The result was much closer in Tuggeranong (50.3 percent yes) and Gungahlin (55.5 percent yes), which are generally regarded as Canberra's more conservative districts. Probably the most interesting result, however, came from the inner south. This is a wealthy area where the Canberra Liberals enjoy strong support, but its polling booths gave yes 68.8 percent.

The fallout from Bruce Lehrmann's abortive trial in the ACT Supreme Court continued to involve the Territory government, which appointed retired Queensland judge Walter Sofronoff to head a board of inquiry into the affair in February and received his report in late July. They expected to release it shortly after, but the report's findings instead appeared in the Australian, Sofronoff himself having provided columnist Janet Albrechtsen with a copy (Canberra Times, 2 February 2023, 29 July 2023, 12 August 2023). Formally releasing the report five days later, Barr was critical of Sofronoff, who he said “breached his good faith to me by releasing that report ahead of giving it to who he was meant to under the legislation” (Canberra Times, 8 August 2023).

Critical though the government was about Sofronoff's contact with the media, it did not dispute his report's finding, which were highly critical of ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold. Rattenbury provided Drumgold with a copy of the report soon after its release, and on 4 August the DPP tendered his resignation (Canberra Times, 12 August 2023). At the end of August Drumgold challenged Sofronoff's findings against him in the ACT Supreme Court (Canberra Times, 30 August 2023); in March 2024 the court upheld most of these but found Sofronoff's frequent communications with Albrechtsen gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias (Canberra Times, 5 March 2024).

The biggest shock of the year, and probably the term, came on 10 November when the Canberra Times revealed allegations that Greens MLA Jonathan Davis “had separately engaged in a relationship with a seventeen year old boy and had sex with a fifteen year old boy.” Greens leader Rattenbury had been apprised of these matters and ordered an internal party investigation on 6 November, but he did not inform his Labor coalition partners until 10 November (Canberra Times, 11 November 2023). This sparked serious tension within the coalition, as Acting Chief Minister Yvette Berry spoke of questions to be answered and Rattenbury accused Labor of “trying to create a political advantage out of the most difficult and sensitive issue my party has ever faced” (Canberra Times, 14 November 2023).

On 12 November Davis resigned from both the Assembly and the Greens (Canberra Times, 13 November 2023), but the matter was far from closed. The party's internal review, prepared by Rattenbury's Chief of Staff and released the next day, found Davis had “undertaken activity which may be considered unethical and inappropriate.” It also revealed Greens Minister Emma Davidson knew of rumours about Davis a week ahead of Rattenbury, although no specific complaint emerged until 7 November (ACT Greens, 10 November 2023).

Berry, Rattenbury, and Opposition Leader Lee agreed the issue merited an independent inquiry (ABC Canberra, 14 November 2023) and the Assembly commissioned one in late November, but the parties disagreed on the terms of reference. Rattenbury sought a wide-ranging inquiry into the culture of the Assembly, but Labor and the Liberals insisted on terms of reference related specifically to Davis and the Greens. Rattenbury called this “an attempt by the Labor and Liberal parties to drag us back over the coals,” but the terms the Assembly passed reflected the two larger parties' preferences (RiotAct, 28 November 2023).

Davis' resignation created a vacancy in the Assembly, which was filled by countback. Laura Nuttall, a former Greens staffer, was elected on 27 November (Canberra Times, 28 November 2023). For Labor and the Liberals, meanwhile, December brought new roles rather than new faces as both parties reshuffled their frontbenches. Only in the Liberals' case, however, was the change contested.

For the Liberals, the major change was Leanne Castley's election over Jeremy Hanson in a snap ballot for Deputy Leader and Hanson's subsequent demotion to the backbench (RiotAct, 7 December 2023). A former Opposition Leader, Hanson returned to the role in a temporary capacity while Lee took maternity between April and the beginning of August. According to Canberra Times journalist Jasper Lindell, these months “left a deep impression on his colleagues [and] for most, it wasn't a good one.” Though not always regarded as a hardliner, Hanson's support for the federal coalition's forays into ACT politics and opposition to the voice were potential electoral liabilities (Canberra Times, 5 December).

The major winner from Barr's Cabinet reshuffle was Transport Minister Chris Steel, who added planning to his existing responsibilities. Planning and transport are closely linked, and election debates over light rail and transport oriented development are likely to emphasise those links. Cheyne gained city services, formerly one of Steel's portfolios, while Gentleman lost planning and corrections but gained business from Cheyne and disabilities from Davidson, who in turn took on corrections. There were no new additions to Cabinet, although Barr said he discussed the option with Rattenbury (Canberra Times, 15 December 2023).