In 2022, the ‘Teal’ independents created a roadmap for how to challenge the major parties where they are most vulnerable, their safest seats. The 2025 election is upon us and this roadmap has provided communities across Australia with the opportunity to seriously disturb both of the major parties’ prospects.
It’s now widely agreed amongst most of the election experts that the next parliament will be a minority government, with neither party winning enough seats to govern on their own. They will then have to rely on independents in order to actually form government.
On the floor of the Kylea Tink election party, it seemed like politics had changed forever. Tink, along with five other ‘Teal’ independents, snatched federal seats from the Liberal Party across the country. The six of them made up a group of community independents that almost tripled the size of the cross bench.
The community independents movement grew from individuals and grassroots organisations forming to create an agenda from their communities, and then putting forward an independent candidate.
The 2022 candidates were bolstered by Simon Holmes á Court’s Climate200, a not-for-profit that financed independents who were supportive of action on climate change. The financing boosted the candidates to major party status allowing them to sweep safe Liberal seats across the country from Wentworth and Mackellar in Sydney to Kooyong and Goldstein in Melbourne.
The independents primarily targeted university-educated voters who were moderately conservative but disillusioned with the Liberal Party’s stance on climate change and rightwards shift. These voters, while frustrated with the Liberal Party, were the kind that would never switch sides to the Labor Party.
Beyond financing, each independent was able to build an infrastructure of volunteers and employees that allowed them to use their finances effectively. I worked as a campaign officer for the Kylea Tink campaign in North Sydney. In the months leading up to the election, the campaign had around 1,000 volunteers, a number that was replicated in most of the successful ‘Teal’ campaigns.
Working on Kylea Tink’s campaign showed me just how many people are pissed off with the major parties. People are begging for anyone else to come in with a fresh approach. This is what the community independents give them. Someone that is accessible to them and not tied down to any party loyalty.
Tink’s approach of going personal and talking freely on issues they care about is the perfect political antidote. Match this with the funding and infrastructure of the major parties and suddenly you have a winning formula.
The major parties are worried. Both parties come into this election deeply unpopular. The Labor government’s sluggish progress on climate action and the cost-of-living crisis hasn’t bought them many favours, while the Liberal Party’s shift further to the right will alienate those same inner city voters they lost to the independents in the last election. There is data to back this up. The support for independents has risen almost four per cent since the last election.
The stage is set for communities to use the roadmap created in the last election to seriously disturb both major parties’ hopes for success. To the extent communities have organised into grassroots groups, found a candidate, mobilised supporters behind them, and generated finances from supporters and special interest groups, they will make the major parties very vulnerable.
The ripples of this change have already started forming. Climate200 has identified nine Coalition seats that they will target at this election. These include: McPherson, Moncrief, Cowper, Bradfield, Casey, Monash, Fisher, Fairfax, and Wannon, with Bradfield in Sydney’s north considered the most winnable.
However, the independents have the opportunity to be much more damaging than that. There’s an opportunity in every seat in which voters are frustrated with their party but still so ‘rusted on’ that they won’t switch to the other party.
The circumstances are perfect for an ‘Independent’s Day’: widespread disillusionment with the major parties, inaction on issues that matter to voters, and a roadmap ready to be used. The only question remains is whether there are people with the will to put it all into place.
