Teals launch candidate search to snatch prized Gold Coast seat from the LNP

Simon Holmes a Court’s ­Climate 200 fund is ramping up efforts to snatch prized Coalition seats in Peter Dutton’s home state of Queensland.

Climate 200 group founder Simon Holmes a Court.

Simon Holmes a Court’s ­Climate 200 fund is ramping up efforts to snatch prized Coalition seats in Peter Dutton’s home state of Queensland, with new polling revealing the Liberal National Party’s primary vote has dropped in a key blue-ribbon Gold Coast seat.

Climate 200, which provided financial and strategic backing to 23 ­independents at the last election, is expanding into Queensland with ambitions to support candidates in the LNP-held seats of McPherson and Moncrieff on the Gold Coast, and Fairfax and Fischer on the Sunshine Coast.

Independent ACT senator David Pocock on Friday was due to launch the search for a teal independent to contest McPherson, held by retiring Morrison government frontbencher Karen Andrews.

Senator Pocock, financially supported by Climate 200 at the 2022 election, will host the McPherson Independent event at Robina TAFE and told The Australian he had also been approached by “grassroots community organisations” in Fairfax and Fisher to help launch federal campaigns.

The launch comes as new uComms polling, commissioned by Climate 200, shows the LNP’s primary vote in McPherson has dropped four points since the last election to 39.6 per cent. A survey of 979 people in the electorate in April suggests Labor’s primary vote had also dropped slightly from 22 per cent to 19.6 per cent with the Greens holding steady at about 16 per cent.

Independent senator David Pocock. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Primary support for One Nation has surged from 7.2 per cent to 12.7 per cent, with Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party slipping four points to 2.5 per cent.

Just 5.4 per cent said they would give their first preference vote to an independent candidate and 4.3 per cent chose “another party or candidate”.

Despite polling showing low support for an independent candidate in McPherson, Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay said results were “exciting” with support falling for both major parties.

“They’re fed up, they’re looking for something different,” Mr Fay said. “And when it comes to the person that’s been preselected here in McPherson, I don’t think parachuting someone from Canberra who has had a career as an adviser for the Liberal Party is going to be received very well.”

King & Wood Mallesons solicitor Leon Rebello, who moved to the Gold Coast from Canberra a few years ago after working for then foreign minister Julie Bishop, was preselected last month as the LNP’s McPherson candidate.

Mr Rebello – who was contacted for comment – defeated three other men in the preselection battle, positioning his messaging around the teal threat and promoting himself to the membership base as the “community candidate”.

“Karen’s retirement has given us an opportunity for long-term renewal but it comes with a significant risk. For the first time, the teals have set their sights on Queensland and McPherson will be ground zero,” he wrote in a letter to preselectors last month.

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.