Independent Leanne Castley wants to see new ideas and practical outcomes for Canberrans. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
Canberra’s newest independent MLA is unburdened, unleashed and not looking back.
Today Leanne Castley is launching a new movement that she hopes will ignite a contest of ideas, change the way politics is done in the ACT and, of course, see her returned to the Legislative Assembly in 2028.
Whether the former Canberra Liberals leader will attract other candidates to her Building a Better Canberra banner remains to be seen. Still, she wants it known that she will definitely be standing.
After her bruising departure from the Liberals, Ms Castley is loving the cross bench and has no regrets about her decision, which she had been contemplating for some time.
Asked if she is on talking terms with her former colleagues, Ms Castley says she is still great mates with her Yerrabi colleague James Milligan, but that’s where it ends.
She is reinvigorated enough to post the first of six five-minute reads on a new website and start a series of shorter videos to let Canberrans know what she is about.
It’s as much a manifesto as a call to arms, and for those who had her pegged as a potential One Nation recruit, the truth couldn’t be more different.
Ms Castley may not be a “crazy progressive”, but she places herself firmly in the sensible middle.
“That’s where we are in Canberra, and it’s important to represent the people that elected me, but also that I don’t sway too far from all my core values and beliefs,” she says.
For the record, despite Labor’s branding of her as the Liberals’ most conservative MLA, she voted in favour of medical abortion being expanded to be prescribed by nurse practitioners and the voluntary assisted dying bill.
Labor had to retract its abortion claim and apologise, but it came too late for election day.
“I was still getting asked by people who wanted to vote for me why I was stopping abortion in the ACT, so I was really furious about that,” she said.
Leanne Castley and her fellow Yerrabi MLA James Milligan are still “great mates”. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
But maintaining the rage isn’t her bag. While Ms Castley can understand why the disenchanted may be drawn to Pauline Hanson’s anger-fuelled movement, she wants to find practical, pragmatic solutions that improve people’s lives.
So forget about grievance politics, culture wars and short-term thinking.
“It’s important to stop criticising and complaining, and that’s really where Building a Better Canberra has come from,” she says.
“I would like to stop the complaining, stop the criticising, stop the mudslinging, and look at how to do things differently.”
It’s shamelessly idealistic and echoes the likes of the community independents, but Ms Castley is encouraged by her short time on the crossbench, where she can be far more involved day-to-day, and by the positive feedback from constituents.
“I’ve had one person actually say to me, ‘It’s great. I’ll feel much more comfortable about voting for you now’. So I’m finding that interesting. Not everybody has Gary Humphries’ opinion,” in a dig at the party elder who called on her to quit the Assembly.
She has a warning for her former party, too, if the One Nation threat is ignored.
“There’s no doubt we can’t ignore it, and if any of us in this building ignores it, I think we’re foolish,” she says.
“That’s why we have to be bigger and better in our community, in sharing who we are, the hardworking people that are here, the politicians that actually want good outcomes. Our community need to know what we’re standing for, because I think there is a real risk, especially for the Liberals, for them to lose seats to One Nation.
“There’s something in their message that’s resonating with Canberrans, and that’s where I believe it’s time for a bigger vision that’s not just about winning an election.”
She is still taking advice about whether to form a new party, but the response to Building a Better Canberra will also guide her.
“If there is a groundswell of people who, as you hear on the doors and every now and again, that people are sick of the Liberal Party, they are sick of Labor to some extent, they don’t know what to do with the Greens, then it might be a conversation that is worth having,” Ms Castley says.
Ms Castley wants people to become more politically engaged and is actively seeking feedback. Each week, her website will address an issue and what can be done differently to make things better.
She calls it foundational stuff, but think housing, cost of living, education and crime.
“I don’t want to just have these conversations in order to win an election,” she says. “I want to look at Canberra as a whole, where we’ve come from and where we are going.
“It’s all well and good to know that we’ll double in size, but are we actually preparing and planning for that?
“What’s the point of my position here if I can’t come up with some ideas of doing things differently?”
