Fundraising group takes teal movement to regional Australia

A crowdfunding group has emerged ahead of the next federal election hoping to make the same difference in rural and regional electorates that Climate 200 made in city seats in 2022.

Chaired by regenerative farmer and former NSW Rural Woman of the Year Lorraine Gordon, the Regional Voices Fund is looking to raise $2 million and win four seats at the next election.

Dr Lorraine Gordon, chair of the Regional Voices Fund.

“It will contribute to a number of candidates who came close at the last election,” Gordon said of the fund, of which the other director is Helen McGowan, lawyer and sister of Cathy McGowan, who represented the rural Victorian seat of Indi from 2013 to 2019.

“There’s a solid group of candidates, many of whom are within 2 or 3 per cent of a shift, and we are there to help them to really boost their campaigns.”

Gordon said any potential candidates needed to address questions and meet criteria to be eligible for funding.

She said “various philanthropists” had already contributed.

Regional Voices is “on the same page” as the teals’ bankroller Climate 200, but has different aims and the organisations are not directly linked.

“It’s them plus us, we are all on the same page, all trying to achieve a good outcome for rural and regional communities and a sustainable future,” Gordon said.

Accent Research and RedBridge Group polling flags the formerly safe Nationals seat of Cowper on the NSW Mid North Coast, and the south-west Victorian seat of Wannon as seats independents could take.

Cowper, currently held by Nationals MP Pat Conaghan, was turned marginal due to nursing director Caz Heise’s independent campaign in 2022.

Wannon is held by Coalition immigration spokesman and Liberal MP Dan Tehan. In 2022, independent Alex Dyson almost doubled his primary vote in his second tilt at the seat.

Both Conaghan and Tehan have been contacted for comment.

In Queensland’s Darling Downs seat of Groom, former social worker Suzie Holt almost turned the electorate marginal at the last election.

McGowan said the fund would help emerging campaigns, and raise money from rural and urban donors, like Climate 200, a third of whose donors were rural in 2022.

“We are focusing on the rural and regional campaigns we know best,” she said. “Forty per cent of Australia’s 151 seats are rural and regional. It would be incredible if we could help four [independents] win. We want to hear from everyone out there who’s in a rural or regional community campaign, who wants to have a red-hot go.”

Child sexual assault protection advocate Michelle Milthorpe announced last month that she would run in Sussan Ley’s rural NSW seat of Farrer, while Claire Ferris Miles is running again in Casey on Melbourne’s eastern fringe. Meanwhile, “Voices Of” style groups and campaigns have sprung up from the Gold Coast to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, including Peter Dutton’s outer suburban Brisbane seat of Dickson.

Read about the next wave of independents in Good Weekend this Saturday.

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