Liberals launch scathing attack on teal MPs and political tactics ahead of next federal election

The Liberals are sharpening their election attack on the “teal” MPs who wiped the party out of key inner-city seats, accusing the independents of duping Coalition voters in 2022.

The Liberals are sharpening their election attack on the “teal” MPs who wiped the party out of key inner-city seats, branding the independents as a “giant green left con job” who duped Coalition voters.

Opposition government services spokesman Paul Fletcher, who is facing a teal challenge in his own electorate of Bradfield next year, will launch an extraordinary attack on the independent MPs in the lower house and make the case for majority governments in favour of a crossbench-controlled minority in a speech to the Sydney Institute on Monday.

Independent ‘teal’ MPs Kylea Tink, Zoe Daniel, Allegra Spender, Sophie Scamps and Monique Ryan are coming under attack from the Liberal Party ahead of the next federal election. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Highlighting the more than $10 million spent across the seats won by teals in 2022, the fact the movement exclusively targeted Liberal and National seats, Mr Fletcher will argue a parliament filled with crossbench MPs is “unambiguously a bad thing,” and criticise the teal’s track record in the current parliament.

He will point to data from the Parliamentary Library on the teals’ voting patterns showing the “great majority of times” the independents lined up with the Greens.

Analysis of “substantive votes” on bills, which if passed would become laws, showed teal MPs voted on the same side as the Greens between 73 and 90 per cent of the time.

Coalition frontbencher Paul Fletcher will criticise the teal’s campaign model and politics in a speech on Monday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“Those Australians who voted for a teal candidate on the premise that ‘that nice teal candidate could almost be Liberal’ were certainly not expecting to get an MP who voted very largely with the Greens,” Mr Fletcher will say.

Mr Fletcher will also argue the teals made “zero practical difference” in the lower house, as Labor holds government in majority and does not need to negotiate with them.

The teal MPs have defended their track record in parliament. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

But he will say the presence of the teals makes it “vastly easier” for Labor to govern even with its ultra-slim majority, as the larger crossbench means the opposition is not able to keep the “knife edge” pressure on the government.

Mr Fletcher will characterise the teals’ strategy as one of appealing to traditional Liberal voters who would never support Labor, but were “disenfranchised” with the Coalition after some “tough years of Covid and all its consequences”.

“As the 2025 election approaches, the public interest would be well served by more critical scrutiny of the teals and their moneyed mates – and more pointed questions about what the Teals intend to do should they hold the balance of power,” he will say.

Wentworth MP Allegra Spender has described the Liberal attacks as the prioritisation of “political games over policy,” noting her own record of supporting more opposition motions than government ones.

“I vote every time in the interests of the community, not the party,” she said.

Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel said it was the “same old moaning” and “attack politics” from the Liberals, suggesting the opposition focus on “putting some policies on the table”.