Liberals defeat Teal MP Zoe Daniel as new Climate 200-backed independents’ close in on Labor after ‘deep pocketed’ campaigns
A decimated Liberal Party is clawing back ground in key contests with the Teals, but Labor is now under threat from Climate 200-backed independents.
Federal Election
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A decimated Liberal Party is clawing back ground in key contests with the Teals, defeating independent MP Zoe Daniel in Victoria and in the chase across two other inner-city seats.
Liberal candidate, and former MP, Tim Wilson secured a significant enough swing on postal and absentee votes that on Tuesday afternoon he was called as the winner in his battle with Ms Daniel, who had prematurely celebrated victory in the Melbourne seat of Goldstein on election night.
Kooyong MP Monique Ryan has already had to walk back her claim she won on Saturday, as her lead over Liberal challenger Amelia Hamer continued to narrow and stood at just 1002 votes as of 4.30pm Tuesday.
Meanwhile, another Climate 200-backed independent candidate Nicolette Boele has slipped behind in the race against Liberal newcomer Gisele Kapterian in Bradfield, who inched ahead by just 0.09 per cent – or 178 – late on Tuesday.
Fremantle MP Josh Wilson led independent Kate Hullett, who has the support of Climate 200, by only 277 votes in the West Australian seat as of 5.10pm on Tuesday.
Perth MP Pat Gorman said the late entrance of Ms Hullett into the contest for Fremantle had made it difficult for Labor to properly apply scrutiny to her.
“But also a lot of money came in to that campaign from Climate 200 and others into the seat of Fremantle at the very last minute,” he said.
“They were spending huge amounts of money.”
Mr Gorman said he was “encouraged” by reports from scrutineers on the ground in the seat that both Liberal and Greens voters appeared to be disregarding how-to-vote cards instructing them to preference Ms Hullett and were instead placing Mr Wilson above the Climate 200-backed candidate.
Meanwhile in Canberra, Labor’s Bean MP David Smith was only 665 votes ahead of independent Jessie Price.
Ms Price on Tuesday accused Labor of distributing a “potentially misleading” how-to-vote card in Bean, that was coloured Green and suggested supporters of the minor party put Labor second on their ballot.
In reality the Greens’ official how-to-vote flyer recommended their supporters give their second preference to Ms Price, and their third to Mr Smith for Labor.
“After such a positive campaign, it is really disappointing to discover this type of behaviour occurred,” she said.
Mr Smith’s ACT-based colleague, Fenner MP Andrew Leigh, said he would “guess” the Climate 200 money spent on Ms Price’s campaign “significantly outmatched what the Labor Party was spending in that seat”.
Mr Leigh pointed out independent ACT senator David Pocock, who was comfortably re-elected on Saturday, “ran a nearly $2m campaign at the previous election”.
“That’s the introduction of big money politics into Canberra, which we saw at the previous election, and we’ll see this time round how that campaign was, but I suspect that’s another fairly deep pocketed campaign,” he said.
However Mr Pocock is no longer backed by Climate 200, having decided not to accept money from the group for the 2025 election.
All of the independents in these yet-to-be-decided seats received funded from Climate 200, which was has described itself as a “crowd-funded initiative” committed to “restoring integrity to politics”.
Ms Daniel, who on Saturday night took to the stage at her election party fists raised in the air in triumph, was yet to concede shortly after media organisations, including Sky News Australia, projected Mr Wilson would win her seat.
Mr Wilson lost the inner Melbourne seat to Ms Daniel in 2022, when Climate 200-backed independents were swept into office around the country.
Since then, North Sydney MP Kylea Tink lost her seat when it was abolished in a redistribution, but, in NSW, Wentworth MP Allegra Spender, Warringah MP Zali Steggall and Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps, as well as Curtin MP Kate Chaney in Western Australia, have retained their seats.
But Labor’s emphatic victory has scuppered the Teals’ hopes of using a hung parliament result to force the Albanese government to revisit electoral reform laws that curtail not only donations, but spending in seats.
A Labor source said there was “no way” the caps on spending – limited to $800,000 per candidate per electorate, plus $10m nationally for a political party – would be changed, declaring the limits that come into effect from 2028 “settled”.
The Teals have argued this will stop new community independents from winning seats and benefits Labor and the Liberals.
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Originally published as Liberals defeat Teal MP Zoe Daniel as new Climate 200-backed independents’ close in on Labor after ‘deep pocketed’ campaigns
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