Liberal women won Australia’s election Labour inadvertently benefited from the Teal revolution

Why such a big loss? The simple answer is that, in the words of the Australian journalist Laura Tingle, this was “the climate change election”. Neither of the two main parties wanted the election to be on these terms — Labor because of their massive defeat at the hands of Liberal party leader Tony Abbott in the “carbon tax” election, and the Liberals because of a deep split between realists and deniers in their party. But voters had a different view: the increasing frequency of bushfires and flooding in Australia in the last few years ensured climate action was top of their agenda.

The Australian electoral system is an Alternative Vote (AV) system), in which you vote for first and second-choice parties. This entrenches the two largest parties by channelling the votes for smaller parties votes towards major parties once first preferences have been counted. But this time around, the system was derailed by the creation of a new party: the “Teal” Independents. The “Teals”, named for their campaign colours and for their political positioning — green-leaning “blue” politicians — are in effect an Australian form of Macron’s En Marche.

First, they ran as a “start-up”, and like all disruptors were free of the constraints of legacy organisations. I remember being told by Ismael Melien, Emanuel Macron’s adviser and campaign strategist, that the most important book he read before setting up En Marche wasn’t a political campaign textbook but a book by the CEO of a successful software start-up, which gave him the confidence to “make it new” from top to bottom.

The Teals brought new people into politics. In the “Teal” target seats of Goldstein and Kuyong in Melbourne, and Warringah and Wentworth in Sydney, 800-900 volunteers came out: mainly cashed-up female retirees in their first ever political campaign. The Teals, then, are an expression of the continuing feminisation of Australian politics. The Liberal party had resisted positive action for women in selections for parliament. The Liberal leadership’s view, as often with incumbents. was that conservative-leaning women had nowhere else to go. They were wrong — and the Liberal party learned two hard truths: sisters could do it for themselves; and that once you break one link of party discipline (membership) you find it easier to break others (on policy).

And so they hit the streets, leafleting shopping centres and malls, and they hit the doorsteps, in many constituencies knocking on every single door. It was a tsunami of “Teals”. And they used humour, producing “Throw them out” posters that could be stuck on wheelie bins, so that at least once a week their message was rolled out through the electorate. One, now former, Liberal MP Tim Wilson, ill-advisedly took legal action to ban some posters opposing him; he won in court, but lost in the court of public opinion.

There was a nimbleness and flexibility about the “Teals” that neither the Liberals nor Labor could compete with. They were a network rather than a party — a vibe as much as a movement.

In a sense the rise of the Teals is all about demographics. Since Liberal Prime Minister John Howard won a series of victories over the ALP by winning over “battlers” — the lower middle class, small business, “tradies” — Australian politics has focused on swing seats in the outer suburbs. The small ‘l’ liberal women voters in the inner suburbs were dismissed as “doctors’ wives” — well-meaning, bleeding hearts who wouldn’t determine any election. Well, it turns out they matter. They’re not “doctors’ wives” any more — they’re doctors, themselves or surgeons, lawyers, accountants, and executives. More importantly, professional women as a class are now larger in number than tradies. Demographic change isn’t political destiny, but it sure feels like it when you have been chucked out on your ear.

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John McTernan is a British political strategist and former advisor to Tony Blair.

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