ACT Legislative Assembly results - please hold, your vote is important to us

I need to state up front that last Saturday when the ACT Legislative Assembly election was being held, I had never felt less enthusiastic to exercise my democratic right, privilege and responsibility to cast my vote. We have a local government masquerading as a state government, and those seeking endorsement are frankly uninspiring with very few exceptions. Be that as it may, of course I voted in the manner which I thought was the right way. 

As it happens, in the 17 member Assembly the Liberal Party and the Labor Party secured eight seats each. The Greens secured one seat. We now await the one Greens member, Shane Rattenbury, to decide who he will grant his deciding vote to determine who will govern the ACT. The obvious choice for him is the Labor Party because the Greens' policies are more closely align with the left. I dare say that if you were to ask everyone who voted for the Greens whether they would rather a Labor or Liberal Chief Minister, they would overwhelmingly chose Labor.  I just hope that whichever party negotiates to give Mr Rattenbury its support, it does not sell out its morals or basic principles.

We do need to look back however to the 2010 Federal Election. The independents who held the balance of power, and in particular the ones who finally decided who would be Prime Minister, represented electors who, had they not sent independents to Canberra, would certainly have elected either National or Liberal Party candidates. Yet those independents decided to support the Labor Party and sent Julia Gillard to the Lodge. Presumably they were promised great things for their constituencies, but there is evidence that using the excuse "in the fullness of time" these promises were not delivered. I need to state that even though I am a lifetime Liberal Party voter, and still support the Liberal Party stance on almost all policies, I cannot and will not ever support a party led by Tony Abbott. In other words, even though I think the independents did the wrong thing by their supporters, I breathed a hypocritical (or, I like to think, a pragmatic) sigh of relief when they made their decision.

Will Mr Rattenbury decide to send Mr Seselja to the Chief Ministership in return for the promise of some legislation which may never eventuate? My prediction is "no". I think Katy Gallagher will remain Chief Minister, and from a democratic point of view I think that's probably the correct result.