2004 Australian Capital Territory general election
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All 17 seats of the unicameral Legislative Assembly 9 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Results by electorate | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Elections to the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly were held on Saturday, 16 October 2004. The incumbent
Key dates
Date | Event |
---|---|
30 June 2004 | Last day to lodge applications for party register |
9 September 2004 | Party registration closed |
10 September 2004 | Pre-election period commenced and nominations opened |
17 September 2004 | Rolls closed |
22 September 2004 | Nominations closed |
23 September 2004 | Nominations declared and ballot paper order determined |
27 September 2004 | Pre-poll voting commenced |
16 October 2004 | Polling day |
27 October 2004 | Scrutiny completed |
29 October 2004 | Poll declared |
4 November 2004 | Legislative Assembly formed |
Overview
The incumbent
The election saw all 17 members of the Assembly face re-election, with members being elected by the
Following the
Candidates
[5] Sitting members at the time of the election are listed in bold. Tickets that elected at least one MLA are highlighted in the relevant colour. Successful candidates are indicated by an asterisk (*).
Retiring Members
Labor
Liberal
Brindabella
Five seats were up for election. The
Labor candidates
|
Liberal candidates
|
Greens candidates | Democrats candidates | LDP candidates
|
CDP candidates | Ungrouped candidates |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mick Gentleman* |
Steve Doszpot |
Graham Jensen |
Rowena Bew |
David Garrett |
Erol Byrne |
Burl Doble ( Ind ) Stephanie Elliott (FRC) Lance Muir (EQP) |
Ginninderra
Five seats were up for election. The
Labor candidates
|
Liberal candidates
|
Greens candidates | Democrats candidates | LDP candidates
|
Hird Inds candidates | Free Range candidates |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Wayne Berry* |
Briant Clark |
Meredith Hunter |
Roslyn Dundas |
Rose Pappalardo |
Harold Hird |
Anne Moore |
Group E candidates | Ungrouped candidates | |||||
John Gorman |
John Simsons (EQP) |
Molonglo
Seven seats were up for election. The
Labor candidates
|
Liberal candidates
|
Greens candidates | Democrats candidates | LDP candidates
|
Cross Inds candidates | Free Range candidates |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Andrew Barr |
Lucille Bailie Jacqui Burke* Ron Forrester David Kibbey Richard Mulcahy* Gordon Scott Zed Seselja* |
Amanda Bresnan |
Fred Leftwich |
John Humphreys |
Helen Cross |
Simone Gray |
Equality candidates | Group C candidates | Ungrouped candidates | ||||
Nancy-Louise McCullough |
John Farrell |
Tony Farrell |
Results
Australian Capital Territory general election, 16 October 2004 | ||||||
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Enrolled voters | 226,098 | |||||
Votes cast | 209,749 | Turnout | 92.8% | +1.9 | ||
Informal votes | 5,560 | Informal | 2.7% | -1.3 | ||
Summary of votes by party | ||||||
Party | Primary votes | % | Swing | Seats | Change | |
Labor | 95,635 | 46.8 | +5.1 | 9 | +1 | |
Liberal | 71,083 | 34.8 | +3.2 | 7 | ±0 | |
Greens | 18,997 | 9.3 | +0.2 | 1 | ±0 | |
Democrats | 4,595 | 2.3 | -5.8 | 0 | -1 | |
Independent | 3,773 | 1.8 | -0.2 | 0 | ±0 | |
Liberal Democrats | 2,666 | 1.3 | +0.3 | 0 | ±0 | |
Helen Cross Independents | 2,608 | 1.3 | +1.3 | 0 | ±0 | |
Free Range Canberra | 1,429 | 0.7 | +0.7 | 0 | ±0 | |
Harold Hird Independents | 1,371 | 0.7 | +0.7 | 0 | ±0 | |
Christian Democrats | 1,370 | 0.7 | +0.7 | 0 | ±0 | |
ACT Equality Party | 662 | 0.3 | +0.3 | 0 | ±0 | |
Total | 204,189 | 17 |
Results by electorate | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Brindabella | Ginninderra | Molonglo | ||||||||
Party | Votes | % | Seats | Votes | % | Seats | Votes | % | Seats | |
Labor
|
27,337 | 45.7 | 3 | 29,782 | 50.1 | 3 | 38,516 | 45.3 | 3 | |
Liberal | 24,130 | 40.4 | 2 | 19,269 | 32.4 | 2 | 27,684 | 32.6 | 3 | |
Greens | 4,336 | 7.3 | 0 | 4,885 | 8.2 | 0 | 9,776 | 11.5 | 1 | |
Democrats | 924 | 1.5 | 0 | 2,443 | 4.1 | 0 | 1,228 | 1.4 | 0 | |
Independent | 782 | 1.3 | 0 | 282 | 0.5 | 0 | 2,709 | 3.2 | 0 | |
Liberal Democrats
|
442 | 0.7 | 0 | 723 | 1.2 | 0 | 1,501 | 1.8 | 0 | |
Helen Cross Independents | — | — | — | — | — | — | 2,608 | 3.1 | 0 | |
Free Range Canberra | 348 | 0.6 | 0 | 451 | 0.8 | 0 | 630 | 0.7 | 0 | |
Harold Hird Independents | — | — | — | 1,371 | 2.3 | 0 | — | — | — | |
Christian Democrats | 1,370 | 2.3 | 0 | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
ACT Equality Party | 100 | 0.2 | 0 | 197 | 0.3 | 0 | 365 | 0.4 | 0 |
Distribution of seats | |||||||
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Electorate | Seats held | ||||||
Brindabella | |||||||
Ginninderra | |||||||
Molonglo |
On election night 16 October 2004, four hours after the close of polling, with 78 per cent of the vote counted, Liberal leader, Brendan Smyth, conceded defeat to Labor.[6] Smyth conceded that the incumbent Labor Government had been returned for a second term and appeared set to win the Territory's first ever majority mandate. Labor had obtained 47 per cent of the vote across the ACT, with the Liberals at 34.8 per cent and the Greens at 9.2 per cent. Swings were recorded towards Labor (+5.3 per cent), Liberal (+3.2 per cent) and the ACT Greens (+0.1 per cent). Support for the Democrats collapsed and they lost their one and only seat.[7][8][9][10] Counting continued up until 27 October 2004,[11] when all preferences were distributed, resulting in Labor winning nine seats, the Liberals winning seven seats, while the Greens won one seat. The ACT Electoral Commission determined and announced the election's final results on 29 October 2004.[12][13] The result marked the first time in the history of ACT self-government that one party was able to win a majority in its own right.
In
Labor gained a seat in Ginninderra, where Democrats sitting member Roslyn Dundas unsuccessfully sought re-election. The Liberals retained their two seats. Chief Minister Jon Stanhope and Labor Speaker Wayne Berry were both re-elected, with Mary Porter winning the additional seat for Labor. Both Bill Stefaniak and Vicki Dunne retained their seats for the Liberal Party.[12]
In seven-member
Electronic voting and counting system
Overview
The ACT's electronic voting system was first used at the 2001 election and was again used at the 2004 election. The system used standard personal computers as voting terminals, with voters using a barcode to authenticate their votes. Voting terminals were linked to a server in each polling location using a secure local area network. No votes were taken or transmitted over a public network like the Internet. The electronic voting system was used in the pre-poll voting centres, which were open for three weeks before polling day, and which opened on election day as ordinary polling places. In polling places that did not have electronic voting, voters used traditional paper ballots. In electronic polling places, voters were given a choice of voting electronically or on paper.[2]
Electronic counting, which combines the counting of electronic votes and paper ballots, was first used in the ACT at the 2001 election and was again used in the 2004 election. In 2001 and 2004, preferences shown on paper ballots were data-entered by two independent operators, electronically checked for errors, and manually corrected if required. This data was then combined with the results of the electronic voting, and the computer program distributed preferences under the ACT's Hare-Clark electoral system. The software for the electronic voting and counting system was built using Linux open source software, which was chosen specifically for the electoral system to ensure that election software is open and transparent and could be made available to scrutineers, candidates and other participants in the electoral process.[2]
2004 statistics
In 2004, a total of 28,169 electronic votes were recorded at four pre-poll voting centres and at eight polling places on polling day. This number of electronic votes represented a 70 per cent increase on the 16,559 electronic votes cast at the 2001 election. The proportion of electronic votes in relation to all votes counted increased from 8.3 per cent in 2001 to 13.4 per cent in 2004. At each electronic polling place the number of voting machines was increased from ten in 2001 to at least fifteen in 2004 to ensure that those that wished to use computers to vote could do so with minimal queues. The ACT Electoral Commission claims that interim results for 20,722 votes using the electronic voting system were available through the Commission's website by ten minutes after the close of polls on polling night.[14] Later in the night, a further 7,447 electronic votes cast were made available. Before 10:00pm, interim preference results from all formal electronic votes cast were available, representing 13.6 per cent of all formal votes. Based on these, and other results, the Commission claims that commentators were able to accurately predict the election outcome.[14] Of the seventeen candidates indicated as elected on election night using the 27,849 formal electronic votes, sixteen were ultimately elected. Only one candidate indicated as elected on election night was not ultimately successful – Labor candidate Andrew Barr was the last candidate indicated as elected in Molonglo on election night. After the full distribution of all preferences, the last position in Molonglo was taken by Liberal candidate Zed Seselja.[14]
See also
- Members of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, 2004-2008
- Second Stanhope Ministry
- List of Australian Capital Territory elections
External links
- ACT Electoral Commission - 2004 ACT Legislative Assembly Election
- ACT Legislative Assembly - List of Members (1989 - 2008)
References
- ^ "Legislative Assembly for the ACT - Week 1". ACT Hansard. ACT Legislative Assembly. 4 November 2004. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
- ^ a b c "Electronic voting and counting". ACT Electoral Commission. 2008. Archived from the original on 18 February 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
- ^ "Election timetable". ACT Legislative Assembly election - 2004. ACT Electoral Commission. 2004. Archived from the original on 28 February 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
- ^ "Members of the ACT Legislative Assembly" (PDF). ACT Legislative Assembly. 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 February 2011. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
- ^ "Candidate list". 2004 Election. ACT Electoral Commission. 2004. Archived from the original on 28 February 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
- ^ "Smyth concedes in ACT poll". ABC News online. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 16 October 2004. Archived from the original on 27 July 2006. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
- ^ "List of elected candidates". 2004 Election. ACT Electoral Commission. 2004. Archived from the original on 24 February 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
- ^ "Stanhope claims 'unprecedented' ACT victory". ABC News online. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 16 October 2004. Archived from the original on 19 April 2008. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
- ^ "Democrats look set for ACT wipeout". ABC News online. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 17 October 2004. Archived from the original on 27 January 2007. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
- ^ "Stanhope celebrates 'historic win'". ABC News online. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 17 October 2004. Archived from the original on 30 April 2006. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
- ^ "Foskey welcomes cross-bench role". ABC News online. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 28 October 2004. Archived from the original on 27 January 2007. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
- ^ a b c d "List of elected candidates". 2004 Election. ACT Electoral Commission. 2004. Archived from the original on 24 February 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
- ^ "ACT Assembly members officially declared". ABC News online. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 29 October 2004. Archived from the original on 27 January 2007. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
- ^ a b c "Electronic Voting and Counting System - Review" (PDF). 2004 Election. ACT Electoral Commission. 27 June 2005. p. 18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 February 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2010.