Ben is joined by journalist Rachel Withers, writer of the Crikey column ‘Well Hung’, to discuss the prospects for independent candidates, including teal and Muslim independents, at the 2025 federal election.
- A 2023 meme from Twitter user Pineapple Crab applying different definitions for a “teal”
- Read my 2023 paper ‘Not Your Parents’ Electoral System‘
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I liken the Teal’s to the Australian Democrats. Left of predominantly female, economic rational, pro-green left of Coalition and right of Labor. To get elected, they need to get between 15-20% of the primary vote and then collect enough preferences to pass the alternative. It is interesting to look back and see where the Democrats had the greatest spport. I went back to 1998 Senate and listed the 30 divisions that voted the greatest percentage for Democrats. Some don’t exist any more but the correlation is significant when you consider there is 27 year difference potentially indicating there will always be an appeal for a Teal/Democrat/Green type candidate in these sort of communities.
19.11% Mayo
17.35% Boothby
17.28% Fraser
16.06% Canberra
15.67% Kooyong
15.37% Sydney
15.02% Melbourne Ports
14.64% Melbourne
14.62% Adelaide
14.53% Higgins
14.50% Sturt
14.41% Ryan
14.02% Deakin
13.71% Brisbane
13.67% North Sydney
13.51% Kingston
13.47% Goldstein
13.04% Chisholm
12.86% La Trobe
12.63% Casey
12.48% Makin
12.25% Jagajaga
11.86% Hindmarsh
11.84% Grayndler
11.65% Macquarie
11.61% Mackellar
11.60% Wentworth
11.57% Bradfield
11.20% Warringah
11.12% Berowra
Im saying yes but this will be neutral and won’t only effect the Libs but Labor as well. There are some seats that won’t vote liberal but are obviously unsatisfied with Labor.
Let’s hope the Teals are thrown out. They are wealthy and woke. They want the money from being elites but want to push the woke agenda of the left. Rich and woke. No thanks.
Thanks for that one Spana. I thought we stopped the boats. We’ll have to turn yours around. Back to the Poll Bludger with you.
Spana I’m saying the libs can beat all but Stegall and Spender. Though a few teals have a chance at getting in. I don’t think the teal in Canberra can get anywhere because the vote is mostly Lib lab and greens already so no room for a teal
It is an interesting list david howard, not least because of how many Greens or nearly Greens seats are on there. Does this mean there has been significant demographic change in these seats since then, or there was always a radical element in the Democrats, or was around the time of Natasha Stott Despoja and there was a significant youth vote for them? Or a bit of all or nothing from that list?
MLV – I think the past history of the Australian Democrats aligns well to the current teal movement, in that its members have a broad range of views. Some were closely aligned to the Coalition in terms of economic policy (members like Meg Lees who helped to negotiate the passage of GST legislation). Some of the ex-Liberals like Allegra Spender and Kate Chaney would fall into this category, as they don’t really align with the more radical social justice elements championed by the Greens.
Then you have those who are considered more radical, like Stott-Despoja and Andrew Bartlett, who were critical of the party’s close ties with the Coalition. I think teals like Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel, who are focused more on these social justice issues would align to this group and be willing to side with Labor and the Greens. In fact, Andrew Bartlett joined the Greens and ran as a candidate for them several times, later serving as Senator for a short time following Larissa Waters’ disqualification.
Based on these factors, the teals who are aligned more with the Coalition are likely to stand a better chance of winning re-election compared to the more progressive leaning teals.
I thought the line about the Teals having re-discovered preselection was interesting. While it may be true, it shows preselection to be quite powerful when it is an art that the majoor parties have either made part of the grift and/or given themselves free reign to veto.
This was an interesting podcast. The extremely rigid party discipline – tighter than maybe any other western democracy – that has applied in Australian politics for a very long time is often not commented on or analysed. It’s embedded not just in all the parliamentary parties but in the mindset of media too as to how politics ‘should’ work.
I believe an underrated aspect of why the community independents (which I think is a more meaningful description that Teal) attract a sizeable range of voters is their ‘putting people before party’ message – which gets its traction in part because people know that even if they really like their local party MP, that MP will still be required to go along with what their party decides no matter what. (And the processes behind how their party’s make that decision is usually not very democratic either).
I’d like to see more examinations of this aspect. (and given some of the comments above, I may as well say that does gel at least a bit with the Democrats’ original ethos & messaging – regardless of views of where they or people within them were perceived to have sat on the left-right spectrum.