Light rail may determine who governs ACT
By Siobhan Heanue
Updated 54 minutes ago
The sole Greens politician in the ACT has hinted that light rail could be a pivotal issue when he comes to decide who to back to form government.
Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury holds the balance of power in the ACT, after the two major parties ran a dead heat and won eight seats each in the election.
The vote count was only finalised on Saturday and just 41 votes across the Territory separate the Liberal and Labor parties on primary vote.
Serious discussions have begun between the party leaders and Mr Rattenbury to decide who will govern for the next four years.
“Clearly a big responsibility has been placed on my shoulders,” Mr Rattenbury said.
“But I’m not alone; the Greens membership is very heavily involved.”
Mr Rattenbury says he wants to make a decision by Tuesday, which is when the Legislative Assembly is next due to sit.
Federal Greens Leader Christine Milne says she is not advising Mr Rattenbury about which party he should help form government.
“No, I’m not advising Shane about which party, I’m certainly talking to him and the ACT Greens about balance of power, about thinking about long-term outcomes in the best interests of the ACT, but he’s been taking advice from the ACT membership over the weekend,” she said.
The Liberal Party says it deserves Mr Rattenbury’s support because it secured a 7 per cent swing across the ACT.
“We are ready to govern,” said Liberal leader Zed Seselja.
The Labor party governed with a minority in the last Assembly with Greens support.
Light rail priority
Labor also has the edge when it comes to its policy on light rail, which Mr Rattenbury suggests is a priority for the Greens.
Greens members held a meeting on Sunday to decide on their priorities and discuss strategy with their sole representative in the Assembly.
“They want to see good government in the ACT over the next four years to see us become a fair and sustainable city,” Mr Rattenbury said.
“So things like light rail were high on the list of things members were interested in.”
During the election campaign, Labor committed to building a light rail route between Gungahlin and Civic.
It is part of a larger plan to build a citywide light rail network in partnership with the private sector, at a cost of $614 million.
The Canberra Liberals have expressed concern over the cost of light rail.
Mr Rattenbury said better public transport and cleaning up Canberra’s system of lakes are also priorities for Greens members.
But Mr Rattenbury said he has been listening to viewpoints outside Greens circles as well.
“I’ve had a lot more followers on Twitter suddenly in the last 24 hours and a lot of people expressing their views that way,” he said.
“It’s great. It’s something I really like about Canberra in that you see people in the street and they’ll come up and have a chat and also on Twitter and Facebook people have really got a chase to put their own views.
“I read all of that stuff – people have made a lot of good points and I value that.”
Mr Rattenbury said while not everyone will agree with his decision on who to support to form government, he guarantees that the people of the ACT will experience stable government whatever the outcome.
Topics:states-and-territories, canberra-2600
First posted Sun Oct 28, 2012 9:57pm AEDT
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