New ‘independent’ Local Party wins big green, union donors but denies being ‘a front for the Greens’

New party receiving big sums from climate activists, Green business people and unions, but denies it’s a ‘Greens front’.

The Local Party founder and Senate candidate Leanne Minshull and the party’s candidate for Franklin, Anna Bateman, outside Ms Minshull’s Fern Tree Tavern. Picture: Zak Simmonds

A new political party running ‘independents’ in two states has received large donations from climate activists, Green-backing business people and Left wing unions, but denies it is a “Greens front”.

The Local Party, running Senate and lower house candidates in Tasmania and Senate candidates in South Australia, launched its federal election campaign on Wednesday.

Founder and Tasmanian Senate candidate Leanne Minshull said it aimed to elect independents bound only by commitments to action on climate change, the Uluru Statement from the Heart and citizen juries.

However, the party has received major donations from the green movement, including $20,000 from former Greens donor and entrepreneur Graeme Wood and $50,000 from Climate 200, a political group backing independents.

The party has also received backing from Left wing unions, including $10,000 from the Maritime Union of Australia and support from the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union. MONA founder and professional gambler David Walsh has donated $5,000.

As well, the fledgling party recently received $50,000 from a NSW-based entity called Keep Them Honest. A private company of that name is owned by Sydney investment managers Fred Woollard and Therese Cochrane.

The party has received major donations from the green movement, including $20,000 from former Greens donor and entrepreneur Graeme Wood and $50,000 from Climate 200, a political group backing independents.

These wealthy owners of a $13m Darlington Point harbourside mansion also recently donated $20,000 to the Tasmanian Greens, and apparently support Wentworth independent Allegra Spender.

Tasmanian Liberal Senator Wendy Askew said The Local Party’s donations showed it was a “front for the Greens” and “taking voters for fools”.

“The Local Party’s claim they are a ‘party of independents’ is a nonsense,” Senator Askew said. “They are either a political party, or they are independents. They can’t be both.

“The irony won’t be lost on anyone that the three biggest donors to the so-called Local Party are in fact mainlanders.”

However, Ms Minshull, former chief of staff to Tasmanian Greens leader Cassy O’Connor and Australia Institute state boss, said Local Party candidates were genuine independents using a party structure as “a vehicle”.

“I think this is the old political thinking that people are so tired of,” said Ms Minshull, a Hobart publican. “I started our new party for independents to get away from that sort of toxic tribal party politics.”

The party is running two lower house candidates in Tasmania: former Jacqui Lambie staffer and anti-salmon farming campaigner Anna Bateman in Franklin and former Tasmanian of the Year Scott Rankin in Braddon.

Its website focuses on climate change, reducing jail incarceration rates, poker machines and opposing plans to make Tasmania “the Battery of the Nation” by building a second interconnector to Victoria and exporting ramped-up renewable energy.

However, Ms Minshall – competing with One Nation, the Jacqui Lambie Network, demoted Liberal Eric Abetz and others for Tasmania’s sixth Senate spot - said candidates were focused on wider topics.

“On workplace relations, working people and unions recognise that I am a much safer pair of hand in the Senate than Eric Abetz,” she said.

“This is why unions such as the MUA and the CEPU in Tasmania are helping me in my fight to beat Eric Abetz, and all the others vying for the 6th Senate seat.”

She said the MUA had donated $10,000 to the party, while the CEPU was putting up signs and manning polling booths. Neither union responded to requests for comment.