Prior to the election, I drew attention to the differences between my calculations and those of the AEC for a number of non-classic seats that gained new areas during the redistribution. Originally I had a list of 14 affected seats, but one of them (Nicholls) has reverted to a classic contest.
There’s a variety of reasons why the AEC’s estimated margin in these seats is wrong. Antony explains the reasons here, and I also explained them here.
For this post, I wanted to take those adjusted margins, and publish a list of what I think the actual swing is in these seats. In some seats the difference is quite small, but in others it’s a lot larger.
The difference between my estimated margins and Antony’s estimated margins are quite small. In six seats we produced the same number at one decimal point. Eleven out of thirteen seats have the margins within 0.6% of each other.
The two exceptions are Kooyong (I had 3.5%, Antony had 2.2%) and Wentworth (I had 9.0%, Antony had 6.8%). I have since become convinced that Antony’s number is more accurate in Wentworth. If you take Antony’s figure, the swing in Wentworth is similar to the other teal seats. If you take mine, Spender instead has a swing against her. I think the 6.8% figure makes more sense. So I’ve used that, but otherwise used my margins.
My margins suggest that the swing against the Melbourne teal independents was a bit bigger than the AEC margins. My margins make the swings to the independents in Bradfield and Mackellar are smaller, but Warringah’s swing is bigger. The AEC’s margin suggests that Wentworth was a notional independent seat, with a massive 8.9% swing. Antony’s margin instead implies a 1.5% swing.
There are notable differences for the Greens. My margin suggests a small swing against the Greens in Grayndler, not a swing towards them. It also increases the size of the swing against the Greens in Melbourne.
The swing to the Greens in Wills is also substantially smaller with my margin. The real swing is more like 3.2%, not 7.6%. The 7.6% margin is based on not properly factoring in the strong Greens vote in the areas added to Wills from Melbourne.
Thanks Ben. I always find your posts interesting and worthwhile.
I am still disappointed though at your continuing to refer to community independents as teals. Surely we all realise it’s a nonsense term invented by Murdoch, adopted by the MSM, the duopoly and commentators as it suits their narrow views. You must agree that community independents should be recognised as a very different phenomenon to traditional independents and are playing a very important role in strengthening democracy. There were various reasons why the community independents didn’t perform better, as in gain more seats, in this past election, but surely we can expect them to continue grow as a force in our politics. Tim Dunlop is a commentator I much value who I believe is able to see past the outdated views. It would be great if you could explore this further as well.
All the best.
I agree that “teal” is a contested term but I think the MPs referenced in this blog post clearly fit the definition. It’s not derogatory and it has a useful purpose.
On the other hand “community independent” is a nonsense term. All candidates come from the community and none of them can claim to represent the community until they win an election.
There have always been independents of various ideological types. But there is a common ideology and approach to politics amongst a lot of these independents. The term “teal” while imprecise has value for describing those people. “Community independent” is utterly meaningless.
Agree Ben, an alternative term could be ‘Inner city Independents’ as this is the target demographic that these MPs perform well in. Their characteristic is quite different from other types of independents, namely ex-Nationals (Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor or Andrew Gee) who won in rural seats or statewide popular figures (Nick Xenophon and Brian Harradine) who won election to the Senate.
Even Dai Le and some of the other ‘right leaning’ independents like Steve Christou, Paul Garrard and Angelo Tserakis (ex-Labor members who defected from the party) behave differently compared to the ‘teal’ independents as most of them are either centrist or left leaning.
Louis,
Are you aware of who Simon Holmes à Court is?
Simon wrote a book called “The Big Teal”. Who do you think it refers to?
We’re celebrating the launch of Simon Holmes à Court’s book The Big Teal, sharing the story of how enormous change happened at the 2022 federal election.
Join Simon in several events across the country marking the launch of his book. You can buy the book online or in all good bookstores and you can catch Simon at the events below.
https://www.climate200.com.au/the-big-teal
“The Big Teal” has nothing to do with any media conspiracies you wish to float.
“Community Independents” are a way of having a political party without having the constraints of a political party. They are not required to have minimum membership numbers, a constitution or a clear and transparent candidate selection process.
Queensland has specific provisions to address this in Local Government elections and I suggested that
the general principles could be implemented at the Federal level without much modification.
https://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/ data/assets/pdf file/0018/7092/LG-Fact-sheet-5-Information-for-groups-of-candidates.pdf
Only candidates who are members of a registered group (or endorsed by a political party) can
conduct group campaign activities. Group campaign activities include any of the following activities,
carried out in an intentionally coordinated way by two or more candidates:
– using a common platform to promote the election of the candidates (e.g. promoting the
same political policies);
– using the same advertisements (e.g. pamphlets, billboards);
– using the same campaign slogans;
– using the same brands or images;
– using the same how-to-vote cards;
– participating in the same fundraising activities or events;
– sharing the same resources for election campaigns (other than volunteers); and/or
– sharing gifts or loans.
My other suggestion to JSCEM 20222 was that the word “Independent” only be permitted for those not part of a group.
Pat Leslie did a really good study on Parliamentary voting behaviour in the AJPS – https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10361146.2025.2498152
Not all independents are the same, but many of the independents who have defeated Liberal MPs or taken Liberal-held seats have adopted teal-coloured clothing for their campaign attire. At least most of them that are affiliated with Climate 200. I may be oversimplifying here, but most of those seem to be pretty moderate to center-right on economic issues while being left of center on climate and other similar matters. It is almost as though they were functioning as the counterbalance to the Nats in the Liberal caucus, as many of them originated from Liberal politics. It is emblematic of the squeeze that the Liberal Party finds itself in, being pulled in one direction by the Nats and people like Jacinda Price and having the desire to recapture lost ground from the “teals.” I think there is a greater risk of other independents, unaffiliated with Simon Holmes a Court, getting associated with them than anything else.
I suppose “Community Independent” evolved from the notion that they were not formed from the older established parties. Still, since they are supported by Climate 200, it is not as though they spontaneously emerged from a neighbourhood meeting. I try to avoid labels altogether unless they are registered names (such as Liberal, Greens, Labor, etc.) or the candidates identify themselves with the labels and use them on their literature. Everyone will spend a lot of unnecessary time and energy arguing over the wording of candidates. AEC lists them as Independent on the tally sheets, so that is what they will be until otherwise.
Dai Le formed Western Sydney Community with Frank Carbone, but still sits in Parliament as an Independent. That fact is less interesting. It is more interesting that she has managed to attract voters in a seat that ordinarily would not vote for a Liberal or another right-leaning candidate. Of course, with an assist from Labor parachuting someone in. A good political party would never leave any votes on the table, but Labor can afford not to worry about places like Fowler right now sitting on 94 seats. Still, the pendulum will eventually swing back at some future date. The question is, when will the Liberals get their act together, and what does it look like when they do?
The non-classic contests listed in this article include Fowler and Wannon, neither which can be described as “teal”, and only one of which can be described as a “community independent”.
“Community independents” is indeed a valid term when referring to those independent campaigns that do arise from a community listening effort are a distinct type. Ben’s statement that “all candidates come from the community” isn’t true when it comes to party preselected candidates. By definition, party candidates come from their parties, which is not the same thing as a community.
Any winning candidate may claim that they “represent the community”, but that can be a hollow claim, because votes belong to voters and they can be given and taken away from one election to the next. The only real claim for a candidate to be representing a community comes from policies (and, if elected, votes in parliament) that are based on the things a community wants. That rings true for party and independent candidates alike.
So Ben, could you simply please call them all “independents”? We don’t use special terms for ex-council independents like Dai Le, ex-National independents like Andrew Gee, or regional community independents like Helen Haines.
They’re all independents though.
All candidates come from a subset of their community, whether it be a party branch or voices of group or just a bunch of people with a common interest, and no candidate can represent the whole community, so I’m inclined to agree with Ben. A “community listening effort” just means you are in the community and talk to people, all candidates engage in something like this, and very few if any, not including the teals or most parties, would seriously change their policy based on it.
@Yoh An “Inner-city independent” is not useful as Bradfield and particularly Mackellar are not inner-city areas. Mackellar in particular is very outer suburban. It has semi-rural suburbs with horses and livestock like Ingleside and Duffys Forest.
@Craig While some of the teals are more centre-right on economics they’re still be more to the centre than the Coalition. Many have opposed the asylum seeker policies of the two parties so they’re progressive in areas other than the environment. Some had backgrounds in the Liberal Party but others like Zali Steggall, Sophie Scamps and Monique Ryan don’t.
Totally agree with Ben on this and thank him for making his thoughts on this so clear.
The AEC terms are the registered Political party names or “Independent”. That’s it – anything else is just a snow job with a barrow to push (looking at you Louis de Villiers and Alex).
Finally I have to point our the extreme absurdity of Alex in trying to argue that Ben’s statement that “all candidates come from the community” is false. He says “by definition, party candidates come from their parties, which is not the same thing as a community”
Where the hell do you think local party members who pre-select and support the party candidates come from? The moon?? I asked Nicolette Boele at a forum what the hell “Community Independents” even meant and how the process she was selected differed rom that of the Labor or Liberal candidates in Bradfield (I noted that the Liberal candidate even went through a very public local pre-selection). She answered by saying she’d never been in a party so couldn’t say how it differed but then said the process by which she was selected was much better, as she spent the next 5 minutes describing a process that was EXACTKY the same process as that by which the Labor candidate had been selected.
ALL CANDIDATES CVOEM FROM THE COMMUNITY. THERE IS NO WHERE ELSE THEY CAN COME FROM
I will call them all independents when I am referring to all independents. However when I am referring to a specific sub-type I will refer to them as such.
We used to have a term “voices independent” which referred to the way in which those independents emerged, rather than their ideological bent (although it sort of did refer to that too) and that made much more sense than “community independent” but that seems to have faded.
Agree High Street, although I think what Alex is trying to argue is that the major parties often don’t select candidates who are ‘local’ to their respective districts. They may live outside the boundaries of the seat in question, usually a short distance away which is probably not too bad as long as it is in the general vicinity (eg Tim James who lived in Mosman but ran for the seat of Willoughby centred around Chatswood and Tanya Mihauluk who lived in East Hills/Padstow but ran in Bankstown). What is not a good look is when someone tries to run in a seat that is a long distance away from where they lived/grew up (eg Kristina Kenneally in Fowler or Andrew Charlton in Parramatta).
“The non-classic contests listed in this article include Fowler and Wannon, neither which can be described as “teal”, and only one of which can be described as a “community independent”.”
I did not refer to Fowler or Wannon as teals. I used the word in specific contexts. I compared Wentworth to the other teal seats, and referenced the Melbourne teals. I think you could argue about Wannon, I did a whole blog post about these categories, but don’t pretend like I said something I didn’t say.
Absolute nitpick on one of your prior comments Ben, but there are certainly many candidates that don’t come from the community (or at least the community they’re running in).
I’ve definitely never heard of an independent candidate from outside the electorate winning though.
Totally agree with Ben on this one. The “teal independents” are all backed by Climate 200, have similar political views (generally economically conservative but socially progressive), and run in similar electorates (affluent traditionally blue-ribbon). Simon Holmes a Court, who funds these independents, literally calls them teals. From a political analysis point, it makes perfect sense to group them together, given they have succeeded in very similar political situations, have the same financial backer, have similar ideologies and use the colour teal.
Alex and Louis’ statements make no sense. My local Labor MP is a part of local community groups and has been since before they got elected. Yes, they’re a member of the party, but they are also part of the community. “Community independents” is such a vague term, and the teals have a lot of similar traits.
The colour is actually turquoise first used in the 1985 Manly election
I was there when we chose it
Clean air clean water clean politics
Teal is easier to say
@Clarinet
Yes, listening to the community is important irrespective of political persuasion (although the extent to which listening is done and its degree of influence on policies appears to vary), but there is a difference in listening when it is done by a partisan organisation relative to when it is done by a non-partisan community organisation (such as a “Voices of” group). It’s notable that ‘Voices of’ groups publish their findings. This is information that the whole community can access to see what others have said, and that any political candidate can utilise.
@High Street
In Australia, if you want to be preselected to run for a party, you have to be a member of a party. As Clarinet says, this is (at its best) a subset of a community, and as Yoh An and Bryce say, it is (at its worst) a parachute candidate.
In comparison, a candidate who is selected by a community organisation based on their personal and community credentials (and not their party membership credentials) is indeed a “community independent”.
@Ben
Yes, I agree that “‘Voices of’ independents” and “community independents” are interchangeable terms.
I’m not trying to say that you’re saying something that you were not, I was just mentioning the some of the electorates mentioned in the list (or more accurately, in the *table*) that do help explain more of the breadth of the non-classic contests. This, and other articles you’ve written, show that there is quite a lot of diversity in these places. The focus on “teals” tends to remove all that nuance, and it also tends to omit consideration of other independent contests.