While their federal counterparts discuss joining ranks, Canberra's independents say they want to remain free from party lines, factional infighting and vested interests.
When member for Murrumbidgee Fiona Carrick and Kurrajong representative Thomas Emerson were elected to the ACT Legislative Assembly in 2024, they were the territory's first independents in 20 years.
Both Ms Carrick and Mr Emerson said they are not interested in forming a political party.
Independents including ACT senator David Pocock are discussing forming a political party after changes to electoral funding laws that independents and minor parties say are designed to make it harder for them to fund election campaigns.
Seven months before a wave of independents were elected to the federal parliament in May 2025, Ms Carrick and Mr Emerson became the ACT Legislative Assembly's first independents in 20 years.
Ms Carrick was elected in 2024 as an independent on a campaign of improving infrastructure and services in Canberra's south. Fiona Carrick Independent ran three candidates, including Ms Carrick, in Murrumbidgee in 2024.
The elected member is happy to stay out of party politics for now.
"It allows me to focus on what matters locally," she said.
"In a party, you have to align with the party views whereas I can say what I think."
Ms Carrick said she would not join a party unless she campaigned on a ticket.
"If I'm elected as an independent, I'm going to remain as an independent. If I was to look at something different, I would look at it in the context of an election so that people would know," she said.
"But I'm not looking at anything different, I want to stay an independent."
Ms Carrick said it would be "fantastic" if every one of the ACT's five electorates had one independent, but she would not form a party with them.
Mr Emerson ran alongside 19 other candidates for the Independents for Canberra ticket, a party he co-founded, at the 2024 election.
The candidates ran on a platform of shared policies like clearing the elective surgery waitlist by 75 per cent, $40,000 grants for GPs, protecting the Western Edge from development and reducing liquor licensing fees for music venues.
Mr Emerson resigned from the party after being elected, and it was disbanded a few months later.
He said he understood why politicians in the federal parliament were considering their options considering the new electoral funding laws.
However, he does not think forming a party of independents was the best way to hold the ACT government to account in this term.
"I'm committed to working for Canberrans as an independent MLA, free from any party lines, factional infighting or vested interests. I'm not convinced that a big party of independents is the best way forward," Mr Emerson said in a statement.
"I don't get the sense that there's a shortage of scrutiny on government decision-making this term."
Both ACT representatives said being independent from a larger party was important to the voters who elected them.
They already work with each other and other parties on issues of mutual interest.
Of the ten independents in the federal House of Representatives and two in the Senate, ten are backed by Climate 200, a fundraising vehicle backing candidates with similar positions, like reducing climate change emissions and tackling corruption.
A study by Australian National University researcher Patrick Leslie found the seven Climate-200 backed independents elected in voted as a bloc at least as often as major parties in the last term.
Mr Pocock, and federal MPs Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender confirmed they were talking about forming a party on Monday.
Other independents, like Monique Ryan and Kate Chaney, ruled out the idea.
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