Blatantly Partisan Party Review XXIX (federal 2025): Teal Independents
Running where: seats in all 8 states and territories; go to the Climate 200 website of “community candidates” to see if one is in your electorate
Prior reviews: federal 2022
What I said before: “I would largely define the teals as centre to centre-right … Three issues unite the teals. They want much stronger action on climate change, guided by scientific advice. They want integrity in politics … [and] they want gender equity.”
What I think this year: A big story from the last election was the success of the “teals”, independent candidates—almost entirely well-educated professional women—who were grouped together for three reasons other than demographics. First, the colour of branding that some of them used; second, their alignment on broad policy objectives as described in the quote above; third, they received funding from Climate 200, a fundraising organisation that clean energy activist Simon Holmes à Court founded. The teal colour has to many observers connoted an amalgam of Greens sensibility about climate change with liberal (or Liberal) attitudes towards economic issues.
In 2022, teals only challenged (ex-)Liberal incumbents or defended seats held by existing independents whom Climate 200 chose to support (they have challenged some Labor incumbents at state level since). Liberal incumbents in 2022 lost to six independent challengers: Kate Chaney (Curtin, WA), Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, VIC), Monique Ryan (Kooyong, VIC), Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, NSW), Allegra Spender (Wentworth, NSW), and Kylea Tink (North Sydney, NSW). David Pocock won a Senate seat for the ACT; unlike the teals, he registered a party in his own name because of the different voting system in the Senate. Zali Steggall, whose victory in Warringah (NSW) at the 2019 election was a harbinger of the teal wave, retained her seat.
Climate 200 contributed to the successful campaigns of three more longstanding incumbent independents: Rebekha Sharkie and Andrew Wilkie, who are not teals in a meaningful sense, and Helen Haines, who can more readily be counted as one based on her voting record. Sharkie retained Mayo, nominally as a member of Centre Alliance but which by 2022 was close to death as a broader party. Haines held Indi in rural Victoria, continuing the legacy of her predecessor, independent MP Cathy McGowan, who was pivotal in the promotion of the “Voices of” movement (a related but distinct phenomenon). And in Tasmania, left-wing independent Wilkie won Clark (based on Hobart) in 2010 and has owned it ever since; he will not lose that seat until he resigns, dies, or throws baby Tasmanian devils into the Derwent live on air.
This year, Climate 200 is funding more candidates across the nation, although the electorates in which they have a chance remain mostly Liberal-held. Not every independent supported by Climate 200 uses teal colours—if you go to the link posted in the “running where” section above, each candidate is colour-coded based on the predominant colour used in their campaign. The incumbent teals are contesting their seats except for Kylea Tink, whose seat was abolished in a redistribution and has not chosen to stand in another seat. David Pocock has declined Climate 200 funding and believes he can retain his ACT seat without it (I expect he's right).
Where do the teals sit politically? Some comprise a lost generation of moderate Liberal women, alienated from the party because of its climate inaction/denialism and structural sexism, with Kate Chaney and Allegra Spender the most obvious examples—not just in their descent from former Liberal MPs but also in their economic views. But not all fit this categorisation. Some have more centre-left origins. What is telling is Pat Leslie’s overview, particularly figure 1 at that link. Haines, Steggall, and the cohort of 2022 form a clear grouping even if they are not of one mind on every issue (Spender sits closest to the Libs in her voting pattern). Meanwhile, Wilkie and Sharkie clearly sit on different points on the political spectrum: Wilkie is on the left close to the Greens; Sharkie votes similarly to Dai Le (an indie who is very much not a teal) and to ex-National indie Andrew Gee.
The issues underpinning the teal movement in 2022 have remained prominent for the teals as elected representatives and for those seeking to enter parliament this year. As MPs, teals backed an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, and all their electorates had majorities for Yes except Indi. There has been also in my view a strain of wowserism, driven in part by the teal MPs including a couple of medical practitioners and in part as representing electorates with many (or potentially themselves being) concerned parents of teenagers. This backfired in late 2023 in the debate about Hard Solo, which Monique Ryan led complaints about; when it was first announced, I assumed it was a novelty that would go flat quickly and be quietly withdrawn a few months later. Instead, it got more publicity than Carlton & United Breweries could have possibly anticipated, and although CUB had to change the name to Hard Rated, they have continued selling it successfully. I am convinced this fuss from an older generation is what made it cool for young people. I never expected to see it on tap at my local pub and be a popular choice for the young tradies. More substantively, though, some of this teal concern manifests in things that I support such as seeking greater regulation on gambling ads.
The biggest thing for me is TEALS PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD FORM A PROPER FUCKING POLITICAL PARTY. The teals capitalise on attitudes held among some of the Australian electorate that political parties are a bad thing and independent candidates are somehow more honest or virtuous. Parties emerged for fucking good reasons in colonial parliaments of Australia between the late 1870s and early 1910s. They provide stability of government (in the pre-party era, the average term of a premier was 1.5 to 2 years; since the rise of parties, the average term is 3.5 to 5 years; yes, I have a dataset on this). The opaque voting blocs and unpredictable legislative defeats and no-confidence votes in pre-party parliaments were based on shifting alliances, often as much personal and ideological. Parties made parliament more workable, negotiations more transparent, and outcomes more predictable. Parties also have institutional memory and enable continuity across the nation and over time. They co-ordinate policymaking and make more efficient use of resources, financial and human alike, so that teals wouldn’t have been whinging to the Saturday Paper that the election being called for 3 May rather than 12 April was bankrupting them. (I’m still flabbergasted Labor considered 12 April so seriously; 3–17 May always seemed the sensible option to me.) Party politics is a good thing.
And forming a party might also help the teals deal with their diversity problem: look at those elected or at the Climate 200 page and it’s mostly professional white women who are GenX or young Boomers. The Greens and Labor alike show how proactive party preselection processes can elevate younger, Indigenous, and ethnically diverse candidates into winnable positions. The teals can’t do that—teal voters in each electorate want their own Monique Ryan or Zali Steggall and can’t vote for a candidate from a party with that woman at the head, they have to vote for a local from the same demographic.
So, look, teals vote very similarly and need to make this official through a party structure. I suspect one reason they are averse to forming a party structure despite the obvious financial and organisational advantages it would provide is because of a misconception in Australia about party discipline. Some teals even talk about the constraints of being in a party. Our political parties have a tradition of a very firm whip, especially Labor (as seen in Fatima Payman’s departure and subsequent formation of Australia’s Voice). Even Liberal and National backbenchers cross the floor rarely, despite having more freedom to do so. It is possible to have more personal discretion for MPs in voting without going to the US extreme where a party cannot count on any serious degree of loyalty from its ostensible members. The British system of one-, two-, and three-line whips could provide inspiration. A teal party with a more permissive party whip than that of the major parties would give them all the benefits of party organisation with only modest sacrifices of their current freedom of action.
(I would also love to no longer need to tease out which indies are teals and which indies are a different and possibly anti-teal hue; Kevin Bonham has made a valiant attempt at classifying the indies)
I expect most of the incumbent teals will be returned, and some of the challengers look strong. At the last election, four made the two-candidate-preferred count, and all four are recontesting this year: Alex Dyson in Wannon (VIC), Nicolette Boele in Bradfield (NSW), Kate Hook in Calare (NSW), and Caz Heise (NSW). They will be competitive again. Erchana Murray-Bartlett is a new one to watch in McPherson (QLD) for her energetic campaign in a traditionally LNP seat that is currently vacant. Kate Hulett came within 0.81% of winning the state seat of Fremantle (WA) in March, managed to resolve a citizenship issue just in time to stand for the federal seat of the same name, and fancies her chances—although the federal division’s larger scope will make it tricky. Tina Brown in Berowra (NSW) has the apparent support of Liberal grandee Phillip Ruddock, whose wife Heather has quit the Libs to support Brown’s campaign. And there’s chatter about Suzie Holt’s chances in Groom (QLD) but I do not see that happening. Or maybe we will be surprised—I never anticipated Sophie Scamps winning Mackellar on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, but the Northern Beaches is another world and they like it that way. Anyway, whoever gets in, I hope the successful teals throw a big celebration together and party all the way to the AEC register of parties.
Recommendation: In all instances I recommend you preference a teal above a Liberal or National candidate and the various far-right crackpots. Just how strong a preference you give them will vary based on individual, but it will be generally a decent or good one—especially given how many dire candidates are on some ballots.
The Australian preferential system is designed to avoid the need for tactical voting, but there are strategic considerations in some cases. If you live in a Liberal-held seat and Labor or the Greens are not competitive to win (i.e. most of the seats mentioned above), you should ponder who is likely to end up second and third as preferences are distributed. If there are three candidates left in the count and none has 50%, the third one will be eliminated, and the preferences of their voters will decide which of the remaining two wins the seat. Where will their preferences go? If the third-placed candidate is Labor or Green, the easy majority of their voters are likely to preference the teal, which might get them over the line. If the third-placed candidate is a teal, however, a significant portion of their voters will break back to the Liberals and give the Liberal the win ahead of Labor or the Greens.
So, consider your vote very carefully if a party left of a teal indie has no chance of winning your seat: the best way to try to stop the Liberals winning might be voting 1 for the teal—or at least preferencing them above the other big parties—to help them finish in the top two at the three-candidate-preferred stage of the count. I do not normally recommend tactical voting, but in this case it’s relevant and I would personally do it if I was in a Liberal-vs-teal seat.
