‘No seat is safe’: Teal movement spreads north into Queensland

Climate 200 is looking for Queensland candidates to support with ‘good momentum’ building in the Liberal-held seats of Fairfax and McPherson.

Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay. Picture: AAP

A teal wave is threatening to inundate key seats in the Coalition’s stronghold state, with businessman Simon Holmes a Court’s ­Climate 200 fund seeking community-backed candidates to support at next year’s federal election.

Climate 200, which gave financial and strategic backing to 23 ­independents at the last election, wants to expand into Queensland, with “good momentum” building in the Liberal-held seats of Fairfax, on the Sunshine Coast, and ­McPherson on the Gold Coast.

Hoping to build on its success at the 2022 poll – where teals picked up six new seats and retained two more – Climate 200 is also expected to back independents in the NSW seats of Bradfield and Cowper, and Victorian seats of Casey and Wannon.

Climate 200 did not support any Queensland independents at the last election, allowing the Greens to exploit the anti-­Coalition swing in inner-city electorates and pick up the blue-ribbon seat of Ryan and the Liberal-held seat of Brisbane, as well as Labor’s seat of Griffith – long-held by former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

Teal candidates are likely to steer clear of the three Greens-held Brisbane seats at the next election, with Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay saying he was not “aware of any community efforts that are starting there”.

“Maybe that is because the community is pretty happy with new representation or maybe it is just that they haven’t gotten their act together and started organising,” he said.

“It’s the communities that do the candidate identification, recruitment work, so it’s completely up to them. We are here to help community groups once they have formed and after they get a bit of momentum, we can help accelerate that momentum.”

In the southern Gold Coast seat of McPherson, where Morrison government minister Karen Andrews is retiring, a “McPherson Matters” group – modelled on former Victorian independent Cathy McGowan’s Voices for Indi – has been set up, complete with an ABN, which aims to hold 300 “kitchen-table” conversations in the electorate by March.

Liberal National Party insiders have become ­increasingly concerned about the threat of a teal ­independent in McPherson, with no women candidates expected to seek party preselection in the seat.

About 300 people attended a Climate 200 event in McPherson in November that heard from teal MP Sophie Scamps – who ousted Sydney Liberal Jason ­Falinski in 2022 – Kooyong campaign manager Ann Capling and Mr Fay.

Mr Fay said there were plans for a similar event on the Sunshine Coast next month.

“Noosa has an independent at a state level with Sandy Bolton … so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bit of community momentum that builds there,” he said.

“It really depends on where the community gets its energy up for it and inspiration for it. It’s a mistake to typecast the type of seat where a community independent, that we would support, would be successful.

“On election night someone on one of the panels said ‘no seat is safe’ and I think that is really true.”

Mr Fay said Climate 200 would not “target” seats, but “respond to community interest”.

He believed the Liberal seats of Flinders in Victoria, and Hume in NSW were also in play.

“So in Victoria, we supported a campaign at the state level in the seat of Mornington, which is on the Mornington Peninsula, and it overlaps with the federal state of Flinders,” he said.

“Flinders we thought had great potential in the lead-up to 2022; we supported a campaign there, but it really didn’t achieve the scale that it needed to. But that result there at the state level in Mornington really demonstrates, we think, that there’s great potential there so that’s an exciting one to keep an eye on.”

He said it was a similar story in Angus Taylor’s seat of Hume, where Climate 200-backed independent Judy Hannan won the state seat of Wollondilly last year