Teals bring us the light during this doom and gloom Lib-Lab standoff

Thank God for the colourful campaign distractions provided by the Teals, everybody’s favourite gang of weaponised Karens, writes Tim Blair

This election campaign has truly been one for the history books.

As in, let’s put it in the history books, deposit those books in an archive, secure the whole disaster in an impenetrable concrete vault – then walk away and try to forget it ever happened.

Labor’s campaign has been even worse than Labor’s government, and the Coalition’s campaign was worse still – with a further layer of worseness added by the fact that, if given their time over again, the Libs would probably campaign in exactly the same neutered, Labor-lite way.

Our conservative side of politics really missed a moment here. Picture a mighty worldwide wave, fuelled by demands for smaller government, slashed spending and smashed taxes.

Multiply this by the tidal force rising against wokeness and related social (and economic) engineering.

The Independent member for Kooyong Dr Monique Ryan claims to be a victim of a wicked misinformation conspiracy. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

It’s quite the phenomenon – but here the Libs are forever frigging about in the shallows, apparently frightened by even the possibility of an ideologically-realigning and Australia-rebuilding victory.

A lesson for the Coalition: aim for Net Zero, and that’s what you’ll get.

Monique Ryan’s husband Peter Jordan stealing an Amelia Hamer poster from the nature strip of a residential property.

Thank God, then, for the colourful campaign distractions provided by the Teals, everybody’s favourite gang of weaponised Karens.

(By the way, debate continues over whether the “t” in Teals should be capitalised or lower case. I go for caps, because it denotes a proper noun – indicating that the Teals are a party and not just some accidental crew of whimsical indie ladies.)

Readers may recall senior Teal Monique Ryan’s angry command for Coalition MPs to “put your masks on” during a 2022 address to parliament. Fuss-budget Ryan subsequently said she did not enjoy “being interrupted by shouting LNP MPs who refuse to wear masks. We all have a duty to look after each other”.

My mate Johannes Leak, cartoonist at The Australian, once observed that the Covid era was beloved by bossy people with boring lives who wanted to believe they were part of something important. He basically defined the Teals even before Simon Holmes a Court money-wished them into existence.

Johannes’s Covid-mob definition also works more broadly for the entire climate activist movement – especially its wealthy Teal wing.

They scorn US President Trump’s oil-friendly urgings to “drill, baby, drill”, despite accumulated centuries of “drill, baby, drill” wisdom and advancements making them rich, baby, rich. And now they rest at the very peak of historical luxury and convenience, pretending that the earth is threatened by … luxury and convenience.

I do love them so. They’re such adorable little drama bunnies, always getting into one self-important scrape after another.

Teal MPs Kylea Tink, Zali Steggall, Kate Chaney, Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Being their parliamentary leader, Ryan and her team set a brilliant example. Early in the campaign, her husband Peter Jordan got in trouble for taking down a Liberal Party sign and scampering away with it. “If it goes back up it will be taken down again,” Jordan told a video witness.

Jordan later apologised, but you can understand his motivation. It must be difficult to obey petty little rules when you’re saving the entire planet.

And now Ryan is begging her followers for cash, claiming to be the victim of a wicked misinformation conspiracy.

“I never wanted to have to make this final financial ask, but I need to,” the member for Kooyong wrote in an email to supporters.

“We need to raise $20,000 in the next few days to fund critical digital advertising – so we can cut through the noise, reach undecided voters, and tell them the truth.

“We’ve seen a scale of attacks I never thought possible – co-ordinated, well funded, and designed to mislead voters in the final stretch.”

The attacks, Ryan claimed, were “coming from a powerful conservative ecosystem: groups like Advance Australia, Australians for Prosperity, and Better Australia … and ‘Repeal the Teals’ campaigners spreading disinformation …

“On top of that, the Liberals have their $120m Cormack Foundation war chest, funding wave after wave of attack ads.”

Teal volunteers protest against a billboard highlighting the fact Monique Ryan votes 77 per cent of the time with the Greens.

Sounds like politics. As for “spreading disinformation”, the Teals should claim a copyright violation. Disinformation, about everything from climate danger to their own sainted independence, is a central Teals strategy.

So too might be Teals’ characterisation of the Repeal the Teal movement, which The Australian reports was privately founded by Melbourne women Sharon Kuper and Simonne Whine.

Said Ms Whine, who is also an excellent opponent of anti-Semite Greens: “The Repeal the Teal campaign was built by suburban housewives, armed with nothing but truth, grit and a shoestring budget.”

It’d be OK, I guess, if the Coalition somehow fluked a win. It would be absolutely terrific, though, if people power beat the Teals.