ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has survived a no-confidence motion moved by the Canberra Liberals this morning (August 15).

It comes after opposition leader Elizabeth Lee said Mr Barr could no longer guarantee supply given Greens Leader Shane Rattenbury’s commitment to vote against an item of expenditure in the ACT Budget on the floor of the Legislative Assembly.

The disagreement was sparked by Rattenbury declaring his party would refuse to support an agreement to provide more than $40 million in public funding to Canberra’s horse racing industry.

Ms Lee subsequently accused the Chief Minister of having “lost control” of his government. 

“The ability to pass the budget and guarantee supply is the most fundamental duty of a government; without the ability to do so, the ACT Labor-Greens government literally cannot function,” she said.

“This position by the ACT Greens completely undermines the principle of cabinet solidarity, the bedrock principle of our Westminster system that once Cabinet has made a decision, all Cabinet Ministers are expected to support the decision publicly.”

The Assembly met in a special sitting at 9am to consider the motion of no-confidence which failed to pass.

Mr Barr told the Assembly the motion had “no basis” and that it had no chance of succeeding.

“Let’s be clear, the Greens party have not threatened to block supply nor have they lost confidence in the government of which they are part,” said Barr.

“Mr Rattenbury has already clearly confirmed this. He did this on the very day this shallow and superficial motion was tabled.”

Rattenbury told the Assembly the Greens believed the government was “functioning well”.

“We have a government made up of two different political parties. We have different ideas and different policies,” he said.

“We have disagreements and sometimes we formally don’t support the other’s position. This is our multi party assembly functioning democratically.”