Canberra voters will decide on Saturday whether to end 15 years of Labor government in the ACT.
Many television ads and corflutes lining the streets of the nation’s capital show Chief Minister Andrew Barr’s plan to construct a north-south urban tram network.
“Canberra has been the most car-dependent city in Australia,” Mr Barr told SBS. “We don’t want a future that is more and more cars on our road.”
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The Canberra Liberals, led by army veteran Jeremy Hanson, have campaigned vigorously against the tram on the basis of expense.
The total price of the multistage tram project has not been confirmed by the government, but one former ACT treasury official estimated the price tag at $14 billion.
“They might work in Singapore, they're probably a good mix in Melbourne, but they're the wrong option for Canberra,” Mr Hanson said.
The Canberra Liberals have not won an election in the capital territory since 1998. “I think people understand that after 15 years any government starts to smell, and this one stinks.”
Mr Barr retorted that there had been regeneration within the Labor government since it was first installed in 2001, pointing out there was not one Labor MP seeking reelection on the weekend who was part of that initial government.
But Michael Moore, a former independent ACT politician who served as a health minister in Liberal Kate Carnell’s minority government, said there was a growing appetite for change.
“For the first time for a long time, Labor is looking tired,” Mr Moore, who now writes a political column in local publication CityNews, told SBS.
“At this stage, it’s looking to me that we are more likely to see a change of government than not, but it's a very, very close call.”
Mr Moore said the Liberals had successfully campaigned on their plan to divert funding from the tram to the redevelopment of Canberra’s main hospital, moving into the “traditional Labor” policy area of health.
A Labor party corflute, sabotaged with a rival anti-tram corflute. Source: SBS News
The tram debate has inflamed long-running tension in Canberra over rising land rates.
The Barr government is gradually reducing stamp duty on new property purchases and increasing land rates, in a redesign of the tax mix it claims will be “revenue neutral”.
Mr Barr said the shift benefits first-home buyers and those moving for work, while Mr Hanson said land-rate hikes are squeezing pensioners and putting upwards pressure on rent.
The parties have agreed on some areas of policy. Labor has promised 100 per cent of the ACT’s power supply will be generated by renewables by 2020. The Canberra Liberals support the proposal. The government said it had already purchased the contracts for the 640 megawatts of power required.
