From 2002 to 2006 Smyth was the ACT Leader of the Opposition and served briefly as the Deputy Chief Minister during 2000 and 2001.

Normally a safe Labor seat, its previous member Ros Kelly had left under a cloud, having been forced to resign her ministry a year earlier over the sports rorts affair,[citation needed] and Smyth received a 16.1% swing to claim the seat.

[2] At the Australian federal election on 2 March 1996, Smyth contested the new federal House of Representatives seat of Namadgi, essentially the southern portion of his old seat, even though it had been drawn with a notional Labor majority of 10.9 percent.

The ensuing casual vacancy was filled by conducting a countback of votes at the 2012 ACT election.

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