James Campbell: Why the Teals are on the edge of electoral oblivion

New polling shows four of the six Teal MPs are in danger of losing their seats. There are two big reasons for this — and the downfall of the bogan from the Shire is key.

Three years ago when voters in the richest electorates in Australia threw their Liberal MPs out on their arses you could have been forgiven for assuming their Teal replacements were set to be with us for a long time.

That’s because history suggests that when voters shift away from the party they have traditionally supported to independents or minor parties they usually stick with the decision they have made.

Indeed thanks to the phenomenon of the ‘sophomore surge’ which usually sees incumbents improve their primaries at their second time up, the Teals ought by right to be cruising to victories at this election.

Instead if Tuesday’s Freshwater Strategies poll is anywhere near the mark it looks like a majority of them will be leaving us in May.

What has gone wrong?

As with any political event there’s no single reason but you probably start with the fact cost-of-living has bitten in Teal-land as it has everywhere and some of the Teals have performed better than others.

But two explanations leap to mind as dwarfing everything else.

The first is that without Scott Morrison to kick around the whole Teal thing lacks a point.

It would seem that while standing up for the climate and promoting integrity in politics might have been a good reason for voting Teal, they weren’t nearly as motivating to well-heeled Australia as the prospect of getting rid that awful bogan from the Shire.

Now he’s gone it seems the only people left to mourn his political passing are the Teals.

Teal MPs Kylea Tink, Zali Steggall, Kate Chaney & Monique Ryan in Canberra in 2023. Picture: Martin Ollman

The other reason why I suspect the Teals are in strife is that despite the growing unpopularity of Albo and his crew, everyone knows that whatever the numbers in the next parliament look like, if the Teals can find a way to keep Peter Dutton out of the Lodge they will.

It’s no surprise that in this poll the Teals are doing OK with their primary vote – no sophomore surge but they haven’t gone backwards – what’s hurting them is the collapse in the Labor vote in their seats.

The Greens are down too – who’d have guessed a three year long graduate seminar in Marxism run by conveners in PLO keffiyehs would be a turn-off in areas with large numbers of Jewish voters?

With the bogan from the Shire gone, the whole Teal thing lacks a point. Picture: 9News

That Climate 200 led by the Teal Svengali Simon Holmes a Court know that some of their protégés are in strife perhaps explains why they are spending up so big on trying to expand their footprint, especially in Bradfield on Sydney’s North Shore and Wannon in the west of Victoria.

And boy are they spending up big: $500,000 since December on Facebook and Instagram alone.

Finally, let’s take a moment today to think of poor Josh Frydenberg.

If this poll is right he might even now have been preparing to resume his march on the Lodge which was so cruelly interrupted by the voters three years ago.

Instead he faces the dreadful prospect of having to spend election night telling the viewers of whichever network panel he appears on, how happy – no, thrilled – he is at Amelia Hamer’s victory in Kooyong.

Originally published as James Campbell: Why the Teals are on the edge of electoral oblivion