Joe Hildebrand: One-eyed Climate 200 teal independents would shift Coalition to the right

The one-eyed Climate 200 ‘independent’ mob are doing more to make hard right factional leader Peter Dutton prime minister than anyone else, writes Joe Hildebrand.

The so-called “independents” trying to take down Liberals in their ritzy blue-ribbon seats have been given many monikers.

One is “teal independents”, for the universal colour of their apparently independent campaigns, and another is “Climate 200 independents”, for the common source of their ­funding.

But perhaps a more apt term is “useful idiots”.

This is of course the phrase used by Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin to describe the ideologues and ­sympathisers who supported their regimes while being too stupid or naive to know what it was they were really supporting.

And “useful” is certainly how ­several strategists in the ALP ­campaign see these wealthy one-eyed activists.

If Teal Independents unseat moderate LNP candidates in the federal election, this will only serve to push the coalition further to the right as they look to pick up the pieces in opposition, writes Joe Hildebrand.

Labor has worked hard over the past three years to steer the party away from the ideological clutches of the affluent inner-city left, a course of action that is its best chance to ­reclaim government after a decade in the wilderness.

Thankfully for them, the Teal mob have enthusiastically taken on this mantle.

Whatever slings and arrows were once directed at Labor for being captive to woke upper-middle class interests are now being squarely ­directed at them.

They are also cannibalising the Greens vote in these electorates, so there is that added bonus too.

But the climate independents are also doing something far more damaging to their own cause. And this is where the “idiot” part kicks in.

The Liberals these independents are attempting to knock off are all moderates who broadly share the same progressive social values and support for climate action that they do. Their primary crime is to belong to a political party that includes people more conservative than they are.

Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes a Court is funnelling millions into the teal independents. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

It therefore does not take much foresight to see the hot mess this is heading towards.

One example was laid bare in ­recent days when Rob Baillieu, the son of former Victorian Liberal premier Ted Baillieu, penned an article in The Age detailing his rejection of an offer to work for an unnamed “moderate” MP because being sounded out for the job was “one of the most homophobic experiences of my life”.

Instead he is now campaigning for Monique Ryan in an effort to unseat Josh Frydenberg from Kooyong.

Dr Monique Ryan is running as an independent for the seat of Kooyong, in an attempt to unseat Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

Of course Baillieu, who is gay himself, has every right to campaign for whomever he chooses. Yet the movement which he has joined is actively seeking to remove two out and proud gay men from parliament: Tim Wilson in Goldstein and Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney.

This seems an odd cause for someone concerned about homophobia in the Liberal Party.

But the ultimate repercussions of the Climate 200 campaign could be far more long-lasting than that.

If Monique Ryan wins Kooyong then Frydenberg will obviously no longer be a member of parliament and therefore no longer the obvious replacement for Scott Morrison as leader.

Instead the leadership will most likely go to Peter Dutton, the ­standard bearer of the hard right of the party.

Personally I have no problem with Dutton but I doubt many members of the Climate 200 movement could say the same. And, they’re the ones doing more than any other group in Australia to help him ­become the next leader of the Liberal Party.

If Mr Frydenberg is ousted, Defence Minister Peter Dutton will likely fill the leadership void. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

Little wonder more conservative Coalition supporters are licking their lips at this prospect while a senior ­environmental campaigner recently expressed his exasperation to me about the Climate 200 strategy.

“We WANT moderates in the Liberal Party!” he said despairingly.

The usual types will say that it won’t matter because the Libs will be in opposition but the funny thing about democracy is that governments tend to change hands.

The climate hardliners keep talking about greater action needed by 2030 but just imagine if Prime Minister Dutton was in charge when that year rolled around. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be wearing cheesecloth pants and hanging from a tree shouting “Stop Adani!”

Or perhaps they think such a scenario is too far-fetched.

After all, it’s not like Labor has ever won power in a landslide, then internally imploded, then done a climate deal with Green crossbenchers and then lost power to a hard right Liberal leader two terms later.

If Peter Dutton is Prime Minister in 2030, the climate hardliners won’t be happy – but they’d only have themselves to blame. Picture: Zak Simmonds

And what would this do to the Australian political landscape? One might ask the outgoing Labor elder Joel Fitzgibbon, who lamented the sight of workers in hi-viz vests taking One Nation how-to-vote cards ­instead of the ALP’s in his electorate of Hunter.

It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that a LNP with nothing to lose in the inner-city will go all-in on the jobs and values-based voters of outer suburban and regional Australia, clawing back One Nation and UAP votes and more directly appealing to traditional working-class ­families.

And you can bet London to a brick that climate change won’t be high up on their talking points.

In other words, a moderate centre-right party could transform into a populist hard-right party – and become more of a threat to Labor’s heartland – all thanks to a bunch of affluent progressives who decided to knock off the people they once shared canapes with.

And if these worldly cosmopolitan types think such a thing is impossible then perhaps they should email one of their friends in America and ask if they’ve ever heard of a cis white male called Donald J. Trump.