“The Canberra Liberals spent the year gnawing on their own bones, becoming less and less relevant. As the year approached the end, the leadership transitioned from Leanne Castley to Mark Parton with an attempt to pull the party together.” MICHAEL MOORE gives an unvarnished review of the local year in politics.

“Groundhog Day” was how the year began for the hospital system in the ACT. Surprise! Surprise! By the end of the year the term still applied.

At the start of the year, Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith announced an injection of $227.3million into the system “to meet demand”.

Despite this injection, the Canberra Hospital system still languishes amongst the lowest on national performance targets. Ms Stephen-Smith still languishes as the health minister.

On the Opposition benches of the ACT Legislative Assembly, the Canberra Liberals have been too busy with internal fighting to look beyond their navels.

Across the nation 2025 has seen the Liberals in free fall. The federal election resulted in the leader, Peter Dutton, losing his seat and a very diminished party returning to the parliament.

Weak oppositions are bad for democracy resulting in ineffective governments that are not being challenged nor tested.

Over a year after the October 2024 election, the Canberra Liberals have been so introspective, for example, that they have not moved to establish the Royal Commission into the Canberra hospital system that was in their election platform.

They are in opposition – but the Labor government does not have a monopoly on decisions taken in the Legislative Assembly. Following last year’s election, the Greens returned to the cross benches and have been sensible enough to negotiate with both the Liberals and the two independents on a range of issues.

The ACT finances remain in dire straits. The budget review released in February revealed an unsustainable debt, growing at 15 per cent each year. On projections at the time, the forecast was for this jurisdiction to pay interest on a $12.8 billion debt by the next election in 2028. It was not enough to halt the ideologically based tram construction from steaming ahead.

By July, independent Fiona Carrick released a detailed analysis of the budget, stating “it is a story of ongoing and larger deficits, increasing borrowings and increasing interest payments, accompanied by routinely unrealistic forecasts”.

Ms Carrick also exposed financial misrepresentations stating, “treasury officials confirmed that interest payments on government debt are not included in the information on government spending presented on rates notices”. Standard and Poors further downgraded the ACT to a credit rating of AA+ – with Victoria, this is the equal lowest in Australia.

The Labor government has been happy to weather the storms of criticism. Meanwhile, the Canberra Liberals spent the year gnawing on their own bones, becoming less and less relevant. Finally, as the year approached the end, the leadership transitioned from Leanne Castley to Mark Parton with an attempt to pull the party together.

Myway+ proved a disaster for Transport Minister Chris Steel. His attempt to bluff through the debacle, and tough it out, resulted in a serious admonishment from the Legislative Assembly.

Surprisingly, as Treasurer, his initial budget did not create the same outcome. He was able to make compromises on a series of gaffs and get the budget accepted.

Mr Steel backed down on the most serious gaff – charging volunteers for the Working with Vulnerable People Registration. Fancy being in a Labor cabinet and approving charging volunteers who contribute so much to this community! The opprobrium for this one belongs with all the government members.

Speaking of languishing… the Integrity Commission’s report on Operation Kingfisher remains in limbo. This is the investigation “examining whether public officials within the ACT Education Directorate failed to exercise their official functions honestly and/or impartially (through 2019 and 2020) when making recommendations and decisions regarding the Campbell Primary School Modernisation Project”.

The commission held public hearings in December 2023. Still no report! In June of this year the Integrity Commissioner stated: “Suffice to say, we estimate that the final report required to be provided to the Speaker is some months away.”

Unfortunately, and disappointingly, the credibility of the Integrity Commission has now reached the point that no-one would be surprised if the Operation Kingfisher report were to be released on Christmas Eve.

At the end of the year the ACT Assembly did show some signs of maturity. Legislation introduced by independent Thomas Emerson to ensure Closing the Gap measures were taken seriously, was considered by all MLAs, modified, and then supported unanimously in the Assembly.

Let’s hope next year brings a breath of fresh air.

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.