“The name, the Belco Party, carries an element of the larrikin. This is an image that Bill Stefaniak would love to portray,” says political columnist MICHAEL MOORE. 

BILL Stefaniak stands a good chance of winning a seat at the next ACT election. 

He has abandoned the Liberal Party and the vintage ACT politician has spotted a gap in the Liberal line up resulting from MLA Vicki Dunne stepping down. 

He has set his sights on grabbing a seat from the Liberals in the Belconnen electorate of Ginninderra.

There are reasons why Stefaniak has a reasonable chance of winning a seat in Ginninderra. The first is about being opportunistic. Ginninderra stalwart and long-term member of the Liberal Party, Vicki Dunne, is not standing at this election. This provides an ideal opportunity for someone to tap into dissatisfaction with both the government and the Canberra Liberals.

Dunne has maintained a strong support base in this electorate. In one sense, she effectively inherited it from Mr Stefaniak. In the 2004 election Stefaniak won more than 10,000 votes in that seat. This was almost three times the number of votes received by Dunne who was the second-placed Liberal candidate. However, a great deal of water has flowed under the bridge since then.

The second reason is that Stefaniak was popular in this area, despite these days living in Narrabundah. His long-term “law and order” approach, as well as his focus specifically on Belconnen, gave him appeal in the past. His very first media interview has populist appeal for the electorate identifying the “Belconnen area being left behind for infrastructure and maintenance”. 

Third, he will be running on his own political party ticket. He realises this will improve his chances over independent candidates, who will not have a column of their own on the ballot paper. The name, the Belco Party, carries an element of the larrikin. This is an image that Stefaniak would love to portray. His personal name recognition, the party name and ballot paper positioning will improve his chances over other candidates.

The Labor candidates in Ginninderra are Education Minister Yvette Berry, Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay and backbencher Tara Cheyne. The prominent ministers will be very difficult to unseat while Tara Cheyne remains more vulnerable. Some Labor votes and preferences might flow to Stefaniak, but the Belco Party focus will be to win Liberal voters.

The Liberals are now weak in this seat with Elizabeth Kikkert the only current Liberal MLA standing for the election. Kikkert has neither the profile to match Dunne, nor the recognition of Stefaniak with older voters. 

However, there are some serious challenges for Stefaniak. Mark Parton ran as a middle-of-the-road independent in the same electorate in the 2008 election and was not successful. It was not until he joined the Canberra Liberals and moved to the seat of Brindabella that he succeeded electorally. The Belco Party will not appeal to middle-of-the-road voters as Bill Stefaniak has always beaten the “law and order” drum. 

The coronavirus plays into the hands of the government. When communities are frightened, uncertain or feel under threat they are reluctant to make change. Although it is not feasible that the Labor Party could win more than three of the five seats in the electorate, the flow of preferences and dealing with uncertainty could just favour the major parties.

There is also some personal baggage that Stefaniak has to counter. Just before the 2008 election, he resigned from the Assembly accepting a senior post to the then new ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal. 

At the time I argued in this column: “It challenges probity to use taxpayers’ money to provide a government position which results in electoral and personal advantage. However successful it may be, there is an odour about this appointment”.

Stefaniak does have baggage. However, by throwing his hat into the ring as a non-Liberal, he does have a chance of election. He would never support Labor into government and considering the widespread dissatisfaction with Labor, this just might improve the chances of the Liberal Party winning government.

Michael Moore is a former member of the ACT Legislative Assembly and an independent minister for health. He has been a political columnist with “CityNews” since 2006.