The Australian Capital Territory poll to be held on Saturday 19 October has the vibe of a change election.

With Labor governing for 23 years and Andrew Barr the chief minister for a decade, there is a sense that something has to give.

“We’re looking, I think, for a change, but it has to be a good change and we don’t know if that’s on offer at the moment,” says Jean Gifford, a Canberra resident who this week attended an event called “politics at the pub” to hear from independent candidates.

“We don’t really want someone who is going to be totally against our values,” she says, citing religion interfering with voluntary assisted dying as a concern.

The ACT has a reputation as Australia’s most progressive jurisdiction due to policies such as VAD, which required a change in federal law by the Albanese government, drug decriminalisation and 100% renewable energy.

For many progressive voters this tension sits at the centre of the campaign: how to push the ACT government to go further but avoid an “it’s time” effect unwinding existing wins.

For swing voters, an election at the height of a cost-of-living squeeze could see them abandon Labor for the Liberal opposition.

At the 2020 election the Liberals won nine seats in the 25-member parliament, with Labor (10) and the Greens (six seats, a record result) combining to form a coalition government, their third in a row in a parliament that nearly always produces minority governments.

The ACT Liberals’ campaign warns voters of the prospect of a forever government, asking: if not now, when?

A few seats shifting from the left parties to the right could be enough for Liberal Elizabeth Lee to form government. The independents, the main group of which intend to sit on the crossbench rather than join government, could, if elected, reinstall Barr or hand government to Lee.

Barr says Labor offers a “balance of experience and new members”, pitching his government as one that changes over time despite two decades in power.

“I don’t apologise for Labor having been successful at previous elections – but each government is different. There is no one in the current parliamentary Labor party who was part of the first government.”

Change from within

The Greens leader, Shane Rattenbury, the minister for climate change and justice, is pitching change from within: if enough progressives switch their votes, the Greens could be the lead partner in government, he argues.

Rattenbury is hoping to outflank the government of which he is a member on its left.

“Certainly we think there does need to be change,” he declares, with voters looking for answers on the cost of living, the housing crisis and climate emergency.

“I think what they see from the Labor party is lack of ambition on these issues. They see a party that is comfortable, that is business as usual, with some tweaking around the edges.”

The Greens have “a higher level of ambition” with policy differences such as a ban on gambling ads, accelerating the rollout of the light rail and for the government to build and buy 10,000 new public homes over the next 10 years.

Barr says there is “not the workforce, the budget or the borrowing” capacity to deliver on that promise, which Rattenbury should know because “he is on the expenditure review committee”. Rattenbury counters that the policy has been costed independently, although it does not yet appear in the treasury’s costing of election promises.

Barr says on top of the ACT’s existing 200,000 dwellings, Labor is committed to deliver “another 30,000 homes, 5,000 a year … [which] would exceed our share of the national housing agreement”.

The Liberals are promising accelerated land release for 6,050 plots, claiming this can deliver $1bn more revenue in the first term of government, but Lee says the party is still working through this costing with treasury.

In the longer term, the Liberals propose 100,000 homes by 2050 on the ACT’s eastern fringe by demolishing a pine plantation at Kowen forest, a policy which unites Labor and the Greens.

Independent demands

While Rattenbury pitches change from within, the Independents for Canberra grouping wants to shake things up from outside the tent. Its leader, Thomas Emerson, describes the government as complacent.

“They’ve been in power for 23 years, it’s not much of an incentive to push things forward at a fast rate. So people are frustrated at a lack of action.”

The Independents for Canberra intend to sit on the crossbench, meaning they could offer confidence and supply to a major party to govern but will not be taking seats in cabinet.

The group won’t declare before the election who they would make chief minister if any of their candidates are elected, which Barr says is “not being upfront with voters”. Emerson counters that the Greens guaranteeing support for Labor has failed to deliver.

“We’ve been told we’ve had a progressive government for a long time, but we have the second worst dwelling condition in our public housing stock … the highest rates of persistent homelessness in Australia, the highest rates of reoffending … In a whole range of key progressive areas we’ve been failing.”

‘Endemically conservative’

The Independents for Canberra have issued a “statement of expectations” which includes “no backward steps on climate action, voluntary-assisted dying or abortion access”.

Emerson says “we have seen some concerning signs from parts of the Liberal party with respect to treatment of people based on race, sexuality and so on”.

Barr puts it more bluntly: that the “Liberal party is endemically rightwing and conservative”, arguing this is a tendency Lee cannot suppress.

He notes that Lee “expelled one of her sitting members on the eve of the election” – Elizabeth Kikkert – and has a “range of colleagues and candidates who hold quite extreme views”, a reference in part to the shadow attorney general, Peter Cain, who apologised for a 2002 workbook he wrote which painted a rosy picture of how Christian settlers helped First Nations peoples.

Lee rejects Barr’s charge as a “politically lazy” and “predictable” fear campaign which “belongs in student politics”.

And can she guarantee no backward steps on climate, VAD and abortion? “Yes,” she answers in a single word.

Lee says the Liberals are a “very diverse” group and represent “the diversity of views we see across the community” but under her leadership the party is focused on the “issues Canberrans tell us are important for them”. The opposition’s pitch is that it is focused on value-for-money in government services, not culture wars, in short.

The Liberals are running primarily on cost of living, by capping rate increases to 2.2%, which Lee says is a “stark contrast” to the way Canberrans have been “gouged” by increases of 6-9% on average for more than a decade.

In Tuesday evening’s rapid-fire leaders debate at the National Press Club, Barr accused Lee of “magic pudding” economics in part because the promise of a rate cap, with households $2,000 better off on average, has not been costed.

Lee responds that after 13 budgets as treasurer, Barr is yet to deliver a surplus, urging him to “look in the mirror”.

Lee says the Liberal party is “working through the treasury process” to have it costed, and notes ACT Labor is yet to submit its policy for 800 more healthcare workers.

Swings in the suburbs

The ACT’s electoral system sees five electorates each elect five members of the Legislative Assembly through proportional representation.

It’s a similar voting system to the federal Senate, with an extra twist that on the ballot the candidates’ names appear in a different order within each column.

A quirk of the election is that so many of the party leaders – Barr, Lee, Rattenbury and Emerson – are contesting the central electorate of Kurrajong.

The election will likely be decided by who wins the fifth and final seat in Yerrabi (centred on the northern suburb of Gungahlin), Ginninderra (the western suburb of Belconnen), Murrumbidgee (the inner south-west, and Woden) and Brindabella (the far south, Tuggeranong).

That could see the balance of power come down to people like Fiona Carrick, another independent who won 7.7% in Murrumbidgee last time, or the conservative Belco party, which won 9.4% in Ginninderra.

Lee says Canberrans “certainly do” think it’s time for a new government, claiming “self-confessed, life-long Labor voters” have told her they’re voting Liberal this time due to Labor’s “mismanagement, waste and poor decisions”.

“If the Canberra Liberals are in a position to be able to form minority government, then the result will be that the Canberra community has clearly voted for a change … and I would ask that the independents take that very seriously.”

Barr says Lee is offering “nothing particularly fresh”, suggesting her policies are an amalgam of three previous Liberal leaders he has seen off.

It’s unclear what verdict Canberrans will deliver at the polls, but it’s noteworthy that even the incumbents are pitching themselves as the safer bet for renewal.