Father of the year joins teals as independents target 30 seats

Victoria’s reigning father of the year will aim to become the first man elected as a lower house teal MP, joining a host of about 30 candidates backed by funding machine Climate 200 in the looming election when he formally declares he is running on Saturday.

The teal movement will be on the defensive in Melbourne as Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel defend their seats of Kooyong and Goldstein from fierce Liberal campaigns, but Ben Smith, an ordained minister and volunteer leader, has put his hand up in the Mornington Peninsula seat of Flinders.

New candidate Ben Smith with his family.

Smith, awarded the 2024 Victorian father of the year for volunteer work and turning a vacant motel into crisis accommodation, will take on first-term moderate Liberal Zoe McKenzie who holds the seat on a 7 per cent margin from Labor. McKenzie declined to comment.

Climate 200-backed independent candidates, the teals, ran in largely Liberal-held inner-city seats for the past two federal elections, with seven MPs elected to the crossbench in 2022. That campaign, led by environmental campaigner Simon Holmes a Court, will be supercharged in the 2025 election.

The seat of Flinders is a mix of wealthy coastal areas, such as Portsea, and more working-class suburban areas nearer to Melbourne.

Community groups in the seat were split at the last election and could not unite behind an independent candidate. Smith will seek to consolidate the 12 per cent primary vote split across two progressive independents in 2022 and grow his support with the formal backing of Climate 200, but faces an uphill battle to take the seat from McKenzie.

Flinders MP Zoe McKenzie.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Family violence campaigner Rosie Batty, who lives in Flinders, had previously been in talks with the community groups to run as an independent, but that plan did not proceed.

Smith said the ousting of former prime minister Scott Morrison, whose unpopularity turbocharged the teal wave last election, would not kill off the independents’ movement, pointing to public polling showing continued drops in support for major parties.

“It’s only just the beginning,” Smith, an ordained minister in the Community of Christ/Latter-day Saints church, said.

Underscoring the sensitivity of the political leanings of teal candidates, Smith would not confirm whether he would support Labor or the Coalition in the event of a minority government.

Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay at the National Press Club.Credit: Olive + Meave

“It’s way too early to tell what policies may come out of the parties and how we’d position ourselves,” he said.

Climate 200 director Byron Fay said donors would help fuel more than 20 non-incumbent candidates – four in Victoria, at least five in NSW, and at least three in Queensland – as well as the seven sitting MPs.

Teal candidates campaigned on climate change, integrity and boosting women’s rights. Smith referenced the same areas, plus healthcare and education, as the independents search for campaign themes in the absence of an unpopular conservative government to rally progressives.

A model by polling firm Redbridge released this week, which picks up political attitudes of particular demographics to extrapolate sentiment in different seats, suggested the Liberal Party would increase its primary vote in Flinders and an independent could poll about 20 per cent. These figures would create a contest but lead to a Liberal victory.

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