“The Teals” are TND’s No.1 newsmakers for 2022.
It’s not often that pundits are lost for words on election night, but they were after voters delivered one of the wildest results since World War II.
How to describe a result that reoriented the Liberal Party, the most successful election-winning vehicle in political history, leaving it down six blue-ribbon seats, almost no foothold in metropolitan Melbourne, without constituents with Sydney Harbour views and all but excised from the city of Perth?
TV presenters settled on describing the victory of community independents as a “Teal bath”.
But one academic expert on opposition movements thinks of stronger terms for the sudden rise of Teals, which, she says in some ways was a storming of the Bastille moment for Australian politics so long defined by two major parties.
“What makes them new and different is that they’ve been able to exploit the conditions to actually make a difference,” said Dr Marija Taflaga of the ANU’s Australian Politics Studies Centre.
“Before we knew roughly how things would play out.
“Right now the world feels pretty dangerous. The potential (for real change) is here and it’s potent in a way that hasn’t been in your or my lifetime – and it’s actually kind of hard to see past the corner on how this plays out.”
One question remains about the triumph of six professionally successful women over mostly male mostly political professionals: will it amount to more than one victory?
A less-than-expected showing at the Victorian state election has critics such as Coalition Senator Jane Hume suggesting the new class of independent MPs will disappoint their wealthy electorates on issues like tax cuts benefiting the wealthy potentially making them more a political flash in the pan than serious reformists.
Monique Ryan, whose victory against a sitting treasurer and future party leader Josh Frydenberg was perhaps the most famous of May’s election night, says change has already arrived.
When Anthony Albanese promised to do politics differently in this Parliament, many rolled their eyes and one scribe said Teal MPs were irrelevant from day one because of simple arithmetic: the government did not need them to pass legislation in the lower house.
Teal MPs note that their influence is greatly enhanced because the government’s majority is a razor-thin two seats, meaning their support could very soon become crucial (three to four MPs resign every Parliament forcing a byelection).
MPs further point to the key amendments they have secured to bills like a critical emissions reduction target as proof of their roles in shaping legislation.
Zoe Daniel, the former ABC journalist who won the seat of Goldstein in another election night upset, says from her new vantage point in Canberra that perhaps less than 20 per cent of the conduct of politics is captured in journalists’ coverage.
Consultations with the PM and key ministers with independent MPs on issues such as climate reduction and the national anti-corruption commission ran to perhaps 50 meetings.
And Ms Daniel expects that role to continue next year, with advocacy for changes on issues such as whistleblower protections and offshore processing of asylum seekers.
This role, says Dr Ryan, who achieved viral fame in her first speech in Parliament by admonishing Coalition MPs to put on their masks, is proof politics has already changed.
Dr Ryan often questions the government about issues such as NDIS budgets or negotiations on bringing home Julian Assange: Issues the government seldom addresses on its own initiative.
But she rarely receives backing up from the Coalition.
“They’re just basic and sometimes are obviously adopting positions that are nonsensical or sort of internally contradictory because they’re just like: ‘No, no, no’.
“And so the crossbenchers, I think, as the sensible centrists, we’ve become the de facto opposition in terms of holding the government to account.”
Indeed, the Teals victory prompted much contemplation for the Liberal Party – about dealing with the worst election in its history and whether to simply abandon its former metropolitan core supporters.
Under Opposition Leader Peter Dutton it has taken conservative stances on issues such as renewable energy – something that Dr Ryan says shows they have not learnt from the poll.
Dr Ryan’s housemate, North Sydney MP Kylea Tink (who reckons Canberra life allows for 10 minutes worth of interactions a week max when Parliament is sitting) agrees and says the problem for the Liberal Party now is drawing people back to a damaged brand.
The mechanic’s daughter campaigned (including against a Labor candidate who was predicted on election eve to win the seat) on a platform to lower fuel emissions in Australia.
Last month she introduced a fuel emissions standards bill to Parliament, seeking to end a state of affairs that leaves Australia an international outcast in accepting high polluting vehicles.
In an interview with TND earlier this year, she shared details of the negotiations on the bill. Asked if she thinks it was a mistake in hindsight to have been so open she does not entertain the thought.
“I’m not gonna stop being me,” the MP says. “Bad things happen in darkness.
“I believe that there is a critical mass in Parliament at the moment that wants to see that change take place. And I’m looking forward to being a part of that and that includes being up front.”
Has the Teals’ rise been a wake-up call for a Liberal Party denuded of moderates?
The Liberal Party’s official review of its historic election loss said Teal MPs should now be treated as members of a single political party, one which significantly outgunned them in May.
The review recommended fighting vigorously to win back seats lost after women voters moved by the Liberals’ “attitude or treatment” towards women” deserted the party.
(‘Climate’ is only mentioned once in passing in the 66-page document released last week).
An alternate future has the Teals being the occupants of centre ground in Australian politics, at risk of being vacated entirely by a Coalition partyroom where a contingent of Queensland MPs and renewable energy skeptics are now ascendant after colleagues in other states lost so many seats.
“You might find that you get a different kind of party, occupying that ‘small l’ liberal sort of space which would really sort of start to see the lower house functional like a multi-party system,” Dr Taflaga said.
“A lot depends on what the Liberals do.”
An alternate plan for reinvigorating the Liberal brand being floated by party hopefuls includes a Frydenberg return to Parliament and a more progressive stance on climate.
Might the Liberals be able to forge relationships with some Teal MPs, or even bring others into a future minority government if he did take over?
“Not Tink,” said one senior Liberal source.
The party might consider Sophie Scamps or Allegra Spender, the source said.
Ms Tink laughs long and hard in response.
Dr Scamps, who competed as a middle-distance runner in Olympic trials and is a physician, was a local Liberal member but says she quit and decided to run after a previous MP said more active climate reform was not possible because of the power of the party’s Queensland MPs.
There have been notable differences of opinion between the independents on issues including the government’s IR reforms.
Simon Holmes a Court, the founder of Climate 200, a crowd-funded donor that supported independents with science-based climate policies, rejects claims there is any central influence over the independents.
Teal campaigns (and Climate 200) received support from thousands of donors.
One MP proving to be a centrist voice on issues like regulation of the economy is Allegra Spender, a businesswoman from a family with strong past associations with the Liberals.
She went independent because she explained, she wanted to see change on climate policy and help arrest declining standards in public life.
After entering Parliament she says its conduct does seem better but question time, she says, is still often like a “five-year-old’s birthday party gone wrong”.
“There’s a lot that we can do that gets away from the wedging and from the name calling and the kind of obsession with taking down the other major party,” she said.
This Parliament Ms Spender says she wants to see change including reform of political donations and a debate about taxes covering companies extracting mineral and gas resources.
But achieving change is about what is possible and, she says, in the 47th Parliament that has involved compromise.
“One thing you learn is that you don’t get everything you want,” she said.
“Some of the choices you make are really hard. You don’t agree with everything on all parts of a bill or parts of an approach … you try to get some amendments done but not others.
“But I think also let’s not forget, your job is to be a local representative. It really excites me. I make sure it makes a difference on the ground.”
