{"id":59073,"date":"2026-07-27T04:31:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T04:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/59073\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T04:31:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T04:31:14","slug":"rachel-stephen-smith-elected-new-act-deputy-chief-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/59073\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Stephen-Smith elected new ACT deputy chief minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rachel Stephen-Smith has been named the ACT’s new deputy chief minister as part of a major reshuffle following the resignation of Yvette Berry.<\/p>\n

Ms Berry resigned from cabinet last week<\/a>, after the Integrity Commission made “serious corrupt conduct” findings<\/a> against two senior public servants in her education portfolio.<\/p>\n

At a meeting of the Labor caucus this morning, Ms Stephen-Smith was elected unopposed as chief minister Andrew Barr’s new deputy.<\/p>\n

Ms Stephen-Smith has also been named the new education minister, with the health portfolio moving to Marisa Paterson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m really, really excited to be taking on the education and child development and wellbeing portfolios,” she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“I joined the Labor Party because I believe in public education. That was one of the things that drove me.”<\/p>\n

Ms Stephen-Smith noted that she was taking on the portfolio “in the midst of significant reform”.<\/p>\n

“It’s going to be a steep learning curve,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, I’ve been in cabinet for almost 10 years. I’ve watched the policy in this space closely, but that is not the same thing as being minister.<\/p>\n

“I’m looking forward to getting out to every school and talking to the teachers, their unions, P&Cs, families and of course children and young people themselves.”<\/p>\n

Other portfolio changes<\/p>\n

Ms Berry’s departure also left the housing and sport portfolios up for grabs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Suzanne Orr has been given the housing portfolio, while Chris Steel will take on sport and recreation and hand the transport portfolio over to Attorney-General Tara Cheyne.<\/p>\n

First-term MLA Caitlin Tough has been promoted to cabinet from the backbench, taking on portfolios including corrections.<\/p>\n

\"Caitlin<\/p>\n

Caitlin Tough has been elevated to the frontbench following the departure of Yvette Berry.\u00a0 (ABC News: Adam Kennedy)<\/p>\n

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the reshuffle made the portfolio workloads more sustainable for each minister.<\/p>\n

“We have a very big task ahead of us, we acknowledge that Yvette Berry’s departure from the cabinet \u2026 leaves significant holes to fill in terms of very big ministerial responsibilities,” he said.<\/p>\n

“So in looking at the allocation of portfolios, we took into account experience, new faces and new ideas \u2014 in particular portfolio areas \u2014 and ensuring that workload was balanced effectively amongst eight different ministers.”<\/p>\n

Mr Barr noted that each minister had a “clear focus” and “clear accountability”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I am absolutely confident that I have a united team,” he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“The exercise over the last few days has brought everyone together with a collective view around how we can improve and do better for Canberra and how we can hang together as a team, and we absolutely have.”<\/p>\n

Health portfolios separated<\/p>\n

While Ms Stephen-Smith has handed over the health and mental health portfolios to Ms Paterson, she is hanging onto health infrastructure \u2014 for now.<\/p>\n

“I really thought it was important to retain health infrastructure responsibilities at this time because we’re in a critical point for the new Northside Hospital and I’ve been involved throughout this process,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’re coming towards the end of the very early contractor involvement stage, and this is a critical moment.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Marisa Paterson is taking on the health and mental health portfolios.\u00a0 (ABC News: Joel Wilson)<\/p>\n

Ms Stephen-Smith said while she had full faith that Ms Paterson “will do a great job”, she knows first hand how big the health portfolios are.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“So it’s about providing that continuity for some of our really important health infrastructure projects that are either in critical phases or coming to fruition, and then providing some support still in the health portfolio for the incoming minister to make sure that we can work together and I can support her as she transitions to the portfolio,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I have no doubt she’ll do a fantastic job, but maybe it was something of not being able to quite let go at this point of some of those critical projects as well.”Berry’s departure<\/p>\n

Labor’s ministry changes were triggered by the ACT Integrity Commission’s probing into the awarding of a contract to revamp a primary school, and Ms Berry’s subsequent resignation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Integrity Commission determined the former ACT Education Directorate director-general Katy Haire and Ms Berry’s then-chief of staff Joshua Ceramidas “dishonestly provided a back door” for the strategic interests of the CFMEU in a multi-million-dollar contract to revamp Campbell Primary School.<\/p>\n

No findings were made against Ms Berry herself, and she’ll remain in the Legislative Assembly as a backbencher.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Yvette Berry stood down from cabinent last week, ending her time as the longest-serving deputy chief minister.\u00a0 (ABC News: Monte Bovill)<\/p>\n

Ms Berry had been the ACT’s second in charge for almost a decade \u2014 \u00a0the longest serving deputy chief minister in the territory\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

She was also seen as a potential future leader of ACT Labor, when Mr Barr eventually leaves the position.<\/p>\n

In what has been regarded as a three-horse race, Ms Stephen-Smith and Treasurer Chris Steel are now firmly the two frontrunners to lead the party in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rachel Stephen-Smith has been named the ACT’s new deputy chief minister as part of a major reshuffle following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22093,64061,10388,22,21,64060,64059,9115,60464,64062,22092,25768],"class_list":["post-59073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-act-government","tag-act-labor","tag-andrew-barr","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-caitlin-tough","tag-deputy-chief-minister","tag-health-minister","tag-legislative-assembly","tag-mla","tag-rachel-stephen-smith","tag-yvette-berry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}