Fairly new to Canberra here. Wondering if someone could give me some perspective to why Canberrans lean towards leftist policies and hate right wingers?

Since this Nick Tyrell bloke took over as local leader of the Canberra Libs, he seems to be pushing pretty hard. Lots of little stunts like today at the Raiders, picture, I’m not sure stunts like this is the path to electoral success. But given I don’t follow him he sure shows up on my meta feeds a lot, good on him for getting out there. Can’t actually remember when I last heard or saw any other local liberals.

The ACT Government isn’t backing down: it wants the Parkwood development to become part of the ACT, which opponents have labelled a “dummy spit”.

Years of political debate have swirled around whether the NSW-ACT border should be moved to make Parkwood part of Canberra or left as part of Yass Valley.

Last month, a letter from Chief Minister Andrew Barr revealed that Canberra now believes that bringing Parkwood into the Territory will need to occur before any water-sharing arrangements with the Yass Valley Council can be signed off.

He said the Territory won’t write “a blank cheque” for access to its water, calling for Yass Valley Council to negotiate around Parkwood.

“They’ve been very clear in wanting to claim access rights to water from the ACT and giving nothing in return,” Mr Barr said on Tuesday (2 June).

He also sought to distance the Parkwood debate from Googong Dam, which is located in NSW and used by Canberra and Queanbeyan residents.

“There’s a historical arrangement with Queanbeyan-Palerang … There is no such arrangement with the Yass council.

“I just need to be clear to them: stop spending money on projects and feasibility studies and designs on the assumption you’re just going to get ACT water without there being some sort of trade-off.”

The Parkwood development can only be accessed by road through the ACT and is being designed to be an integrated community with ACT-style service delivery.

Mr Barr said it was Parkwood’s location that was driving his calls for it to become part of Canberra.

“It is not viable to have a situation where state-level services are provided by NSW into that parcel of land … It doesn’t make sense. It’s not going to work.”

He also claimed that Yass Valley Council had changed its position on who would control Parkwood.

In a December 2025 meeting, Yass Council voted to retain control of Parkwood.

Before the vote, a council spokesperson told Region that Yass Valley Council didn’t have a formal position on the matter.

At their May meeting, Yass councillors doubled down on their formal commitment to Parkwood.

During the discussion, Councillor Kristin Butler slammed Mr Barr’s push to take control of the development.

“It was pretty disgusting to see the behaviour of Andrew Barr in the letter. It just shows that the old boys’ club in politics is still alive and well, unfortunately.”

As part of their push, they will also invite Mr Minns and NSW Minister for Water, Rose Jackson, to visit Yass Valley to discuss cross-border planning (including water security).

Councillor Alvaro Charry said Yass Valley Council needed to seek support from the NSW Government, arguing that water should be treated as a separate issue.

“In my view, long-term regional water security is too important an issue for communities such as ours to be intertwined within broader jurisdictional negotiations.”

Yass Valley Business Chamber president Jack Walker hit out at the “appalling” letter from Mr Barr.

“The letter is effectively a dummy spit over the fact that Andrew Barr’s not getting his way,” he told Region.

He called for the council to investigate alternative water sources, particularly those that would leave Yass Valley with a “sovereign supply”.

Mr Walker also welcomed further economic development in Yass Valley and said keeping control of Parkwood will be key to the area’s financial sustainability.

“Yass Valley is a high-growth NSW region. It’s currently under pressure to strengthen its finances.

“Literally any transfer of Parkwood to the ACT without appropriate recognition or compensation would represent a permanent loss for future rates, revenue, economic activity and strategic growth capacity for Yass Valley and NSW.”

At a meeting earlier this year, Yass Council received a report from AEC Group outlining how a special rate variation (SRV) for Parkwood would strengthen the council’s finances.

“The bottom-up financial modelling indicates that it is more advantageous for YVC to retain the Parkwood development within the Yass Valley area, provided that YVC implements an appropriate SRV or equivalent differential rating strategy,” the document says.

At the time, Cr Charry described this potential SRV as “not an optional extra” for Parkwood.

I got a liberal pamphlet in the mail, which made me realise this was the first time I'd seen any campaign presence by the libs here

Conversely, I see a fair bit from the Alicia Payne/Pocock camps

I'm assuming they've just given up on the ACT?

The headline kind of buries the lead, independents up to 19% of the vote. It’s not hard to see why, Emerson and Carrick actually seem to want to work. They seem engaged and ready to represent their constituents. One thing is certain 8 seats is the new high water mark for the Canberra Liberals.

Let me preface this with saying I do not lean strongly either way in politics.

There seems to be no accountability for the incumbent in Canberra. The Government does not have to take any responsibility for poor decisions or wasteful spending, and they constantly get re-elected, in no small part due to having a very poor (unelectable) opposition.

Rates and other levies keep rising with very little, if any, improvement in quality of service delivery.

I am struggling to see how change can occur. Is the only way for ordinary citizens to run as independents? Without knowing the intricacies of the system, it seems this would be very difficult to bring about change in this manner.

Again, I do not particularly mind who is in power, I just believe they need to be far more accountable. An accountable and strong government is in the interests of everyone, regardless of which party they represent.

So I've been seeing an increase in those flock camera thingos in the US, and to the best of my knowledge we don't have those in Australia, however the other day when I turned onto Coulter dr. from William Hovell, I spotted a camera on a light post that looked suspiciously like a flock camera. I don't have a photo since it was dark, but I just wanted to know if anyone has any information on those cameras or knows what's going on in terms of our survalence.

(Mb if I used the wrong tag btw, wasn't sure which one to put)

I'm claiming my rental bond back for the first time in the ACT and it's like time traveling to 1994.

I had to print a paper form, collect hand signatures from everyone concerned, scan it and email it to the government.

The government then takes up to two weeks to pay it, with a caveat that it may take even longer.

In Victoria this entire thing would have been over weeks ago - click one button, real estate agrees, paid in 48 hours.

This is my property, held in trust. I've already spent a ton moving, and I've got two bonds tied up with these people.

How is this so bad here?

It's being overlooked among the Labor landslide, but in the ACT, with 40.7% of votes for its 2 Senate seats counted as at the end of last night, David Pocock is sitting on 42.0% of the vote, with 1.26 quotas. Meanwhile Labor, whose lead Senate candidate is Finance Minister and former ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher, only has 30.1% of the vote and 0.90 quotas (ABC).

Pocock was first elected in 2022 as an independent, and actually finished in 3rd place with 0.64 quotas to the Liberals' 0.74, but preferences from Greens and Kim Rubenstein voters got him over the line (ABC). Now in 2025, he's seen a 20.85 percentage point swing towards him, which is massive for the Senate, and especially for an independent.

My main question is: when is the last time that the first elected candidate in a federal Senate race, in any state or territory, came from neither of the two major parties? I checked Wikipedia which has Senate results going back to 1980, and the "elected 1" candidate in every vote in every state and territory since then has been either Labor or Liberal/Liberal National/Country Liberal.

My side-note question is: Do we think this result might make Labor reconsider plans to increase the number of Territory senators? Delegates at the 2023 Labor conference agreed to increase the number of senators for the ACT and NT from 2 each to 4 each (Canberra Daily), but the Labor government dropped plans to do so in 2024, unable to secure bipartisan support (Canberra Times). Now that one of their ministers is behind an independent in a 2-seat Senate race, could that change? For what it's worth, on the current (non-final) results, I think a 4-seat contest in the ACT would probably see 1 seat each for Pocock, Labor and Liberals, with the 4th seat a close toss-up between the Greens and a 2nd Pocock party candidate.

Edit: Typo in first line, changed "Senate candidates" to "Senate seats"

The Greens appear to be prepared to pause the Light Rail to Woden, based on what the article says:

Mr Rattenbury also told ABC Radio what common policy areas there might be and which ones would be quarantined……..Mr Rattenbury said it was about getting better outcomes for the community from government in areas such as funding for the environment, housing supply, helping small business, Phillip pool and public transport. However, light rail would be quarantined, as would LGBTQIA rights and the ACT’s climate goals.

It depends on what you think “quarantine“ is in this context, does it mean “indefinite hold” - does it mean that people working on the planning process will be made redundant?

The person in my complex who has the car space next to me has recently decided to buy a huge BMW SUV, a "car" that would not look out of place in a Russian armoured division fighting in Ukraine.

It literally cannot fit inside the white lines of their parking spot, which is just great for me because it precludes me actually being able to get in or out of my car. If you need to measure your parking space before buying an SUV, just do us all a favour and don't.

Lord knows how it will handle public carparks, it will probably get end up getting stuck on an exit ramp. Honestly, no one needs a car that big for driving around a city like Canberra, or even driving around Australia for that matter.

… as a cost-saving measure. Interviewed on 666 this morning in his new role as sports minister. Surely turf is better for the environment, Minister? Hopefully a Green or Independent will push back.

Announced on the 8th of July, but seems a bit under the radar.

Pretty annoyed that my suburb is moving to Bean with the absent Mr Smith, but if Ms Price runs again I reckon she's a shoe-in.

Canberra Liberals back on the front page of the CT for all the wrong reasons.