Australia’s “climate independents” are hoping to produce a hung parliament in their May elections - and change their country’s terrible eco-record
Above: Climate 200 campaign video
We’re always interested in independent political candidates, and have tracked the rise of them locally in the UK under the Flatpack Democracy banner. But we were delighted to be tipped off (by old friend Peter Barden) by the climate-and-feminism oriented “independents” strongly running for decisive power in the next Australian general election, and aiming to shape a hung parliament.
Our entry point to this is this very useful explainer from the spiky Australian magazine The Pedestrian:
Every election, ballot sheets are riddled with independent candidates. But this time there’s a newer category of people pushing to win your vote: climate independents. But who are they, and how could they seriously shake up the next election?
To put it simply – the so-called “climate independents” are independent political candidates focused primarily on climate issues (duh), running for Federal Parliament in 2022, and backed by one of the biggest political donation funds in Australian history.
Sounds like a good thing, right? Healthy for democracy and all that jazz.
Let’s get a few things straight.
What is the goal of these climate independents?
To unseat Coalition politicians who have been slack on climate action such as Tim Wilson in Goldstein, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong and Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor in Hume.
The strategy marks a departure from the tactics of groups like GetUp! which last election failed to unseat extremely conservative Liberals such as Peter Dutton.
This time, the focus is on unseating moderate Liberals.
Where are these climate independents based?
At the time of writing, there are seven climate independents running for seats in NSW, four in Vic, one in QLD, one in SA.
A full list of new candidates is being updated as they are announced (yes we know that it’s a Wiki page, but for all intents and purposes, each piece of info has been sourced).
How are they funded?
These new candidates are being funded through a massive political war chest convened by the son of Australia’s first billionaire – Simon Holmes à Court. The funding pool gets donations from philanthropists, businesspeople and many everyday Australians.
The fund is called Climate 200 and was established prior to the 2019 Federal election. It supported Zali Steggall who famously unseated ex-PM Tony Abbot in Warringah.
While the current amount is unknown, The Age reported the fund contained $4.6 million earlier in December.
Who supports the climate independents?
It’s still early days and as the old saying goes, the only poll that matters is the one on election day. However, numerous political players have put thrown their voices (and their cash) behind them.
As per The Guardian, ex-Liberal PM Malcolm Turnbull said the movement was “very healthy” and that “clearly a lot of traditional Liberal party voters feel the party has moved way off to the right on a bunch of issues, in particular on climate”.
On the other side of politics, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Greens’ all-time top donor Graeme Wood has abandoned the party to pledge his dollars to climate independents.
Should I vote for the climate independents?
Here’s where it gets tricky.
While the climate independents claim to be running against Liberals, many of them are actually former members of the Liberal Party.
Oliver Yates and Julia Banks — who were supported by the Climate 200 fund in 2019 —are both former Liberal Party members.
Despite this, many of them are not former Libs.
Most climate independents just want to provide voters with an alternative to heel-dragging liberal MPs and know that historically, the seats they’re targeting are filled with voters who are socially and environmentally progressive (yay LGBT+ rights and solar panels) but economically conservative (yay franking credits and owning 11 houses).
In such seats, a climate independent might have a better chance of knocking off the current Liberal than a Labor or Green candidate.
If you live in a Liberal-held seat and hate it there, you might want to at least have a quick Google to suss your options.
What will they do if elected?
Since they are independents, policies change on a case by case basis. They all, however, say they’re supportive of further climate action.
If there’s a hung parliament (where no major party forms a majority government) – they could have lots of power to influence legislation and leverage their climate priorities.
If Labor or the Coalition forms a majority government, the climate independents will have next to zero sway, similar to the current position of Zali Steggall.
Due to Australia’s preferential voting system, even if these independents don’t win their seats, they will be required give their votes to a candidate who polled higher — most likely one from a major party.
In that case, they’d be back where they started since their original goal was to provide an alternative to major parties.
Climate independent sounds like a good thing, is it really?
While climate action is an important issue for many Aussies, we must acknowledge that these candidates are running on climate as their primary issue and NOT on workers’ issues, economic justice, housing affordability, anti-corruption, refugee rights or bettering our public education system.
That is mainly because voters in these Liberal-held electorates are (in large part) socially and environmentally progressive but economically conservative as we established earlier.
Moreover, the root of many of our climate issues is in fact, economic. The reason Australia still has coal mines raging is because they are profitable.
At the surface, these centre-left-centre-right-centre-I’m-confused-now climate candidates seem unwilling to admit that many of the structural causes of Australia’s current climate issues are rooted in unrestrained profit-seeking, supported in large part by successive Liberal governments driven by economically conservative ideology.
Fascinating to compare to UK politics. Liberals equate to our Conservatives - and this climate-and-character disillusionment with existing Liberals might also open up for constituencies of Tory voters disgusted by the incompetence and hypocrisy of the current government. Yet the UK’s first-past-the-post system still seems much tighter than Australia’s, leaving little room for an “independent” orientation.
We also note the presence of big money behind the climate independents - maybe another sign that sections of (liberal) capital is beginning to recognise its agency in the climate crisis, as politicians and official politics seizes up.
We also like the (perhaps characteristic) bluntness of the social media around this. For example JuiceMedia’s satirical tweets on behalf of the “Australian” [sic] governing classes. This one is Labor and Liberals arguing against a hung parliament where the Indies (or “not so shit” parties) may decide policy:
We also like the femme-centric tone and candidacy of the independents. Veteran political commentator Michelle Grattan has written that
Strong female candidates casting themselves as representatives, or “voices”, of their communities are standing in North Sydney, Mackellar, Wentworth, Hughes and Hume in NSW, and in Goldstein, Kooyong and Flinders in Victoria. Their priorities include climate change, integrity and women’s issues…
…Rather than being “voices of Labor”, these candidates are “voices of criticism”, forming a well-resourced, like-minded, often mutually supportive, protest vote.
Years ago the term “doctors’ wives” became fashionable among commentators to describe comfortably off middle-class women in the leafy suburbs likely to vote against the Liberals over the Iraq war (although the phrase went back further).
Today, one Liberal quips, “The doctors’ wives are not just voting against us – they’re standing against us.” These “doctors’ wives” are highly qualified professionals – including a couple of medicos. Monique Ryan, running in Kooyong, is director of the department of neurology at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital.
The feel of this is well conveyed in Monique Ryan’s campaign tweet below:
The elections look like being in May 2022 - we’ll be keeping an eye out for the fate of these “climate independents” till them.