'Real political force': The Teals look set to capitalise on the Liberal Party's collapse, move on from Labor-Greens alliance

Sky News AU

06-05-2025

It is easy to portray yourself as the good guys when it comes to fighting climate change.
Fighting for the environment is always a winner, as it should be.
A virtuous climate-friendly agenda is what multi-millionaire and Climate 200 founder, Simon Holmes à Court wants the Australian public to buy into.
But this election has exposed the desperate Teals' complete lack of integrity.
So many of the Teal candidates have disgraced themselves over the last month of campaigning that it was essential to compile all the highlights into a single article – even if there isn't enough room.
The reason why this is important is because the Teals now threaten the democratic process in Australia.
Let us look at the double standards on display by the wealthiest of candidates who pretend to be the average punter.
Allegra Spender paid social media influencers to frame her as a superhero, without disclosing the payments she made.
Ms Spender also failed to disclose roles in seven new companies she had formed and yet, with a scandalous campaign that would have sunk any LNP member, she has been voted back in.
Teal candidate for Bradfield, Nicolette Boele, has had one of the worst, scandal-ridden election campaigns in living memory.
Ms Boele was banned from a hair salon after making inappropriate remarks to a worker, and has since been found to have had anti-Semitic posts on her social media accounts during the 2022 campaign.
She recently apologised for the posts and said they were posted by a previous volunteer working on that campaign.
One might think Ms Boele would not wish to court anymore controversy, yet without taking a backward step, then paid a marketing company to place her election poster corflutes on power poles, which is universally supposed to be against campaign rules for all candidates.
Even with the second largest Jewish community in NSW, Ms Boele has been endorsed by the people in her electorate with a swing towards her comeback.
Monique Ryan is a former member of the Labor Party but parades as an independent without political bias.
Controversy began when her husband was caught tearing down campaign posters of Liberal rival, Amelia Hamer.
Then Ms Ryan's campaign took what should have been a last straw stuff-up when she embarrassingly would not answer whether it was right that fellow Teal Ms Spender used social media influencers and agencies to create positive spin without disclosing payments to the public.
More smoke and mirrors came with the allegation that 'volunteers' from a group called the Hubei Association, a group who have been accused of having links to the Chinese Communist Party to help with intelligence gathering, were handing out how-to-vote cards for Ms Ryan.
These Hubei Association 'volunteers' have also been linked to the Labor and Greens parties.
Where is the inquiry?
Where is the uproar?
During this campaign, 16 Teals candidates were unwilling to disclose to the ABC the value of the donations they have received from Climate 200 and other donors, with billionaires a large part of the donor mix.
There is a huge risk to the future of the two-party system in Australia and also the democracy at large if the Teals, backed by Climate 200, become a real political force.
They have begun to prove that, not just with the candidates they have had elected, but by helping to stack the odds in Labor's favour through preferencing.
Labor feels secure with the Teals' support and an unprecedented number of seats won by the ALP during this election, but if the Teals continue on their upward trajectory, their influence will go beyond merely voting in parliament with Labor and the Greens between 73 and 81 per cent on almost every issue, to actually controlling the narrative.
It would not take much to form the Teals into an official party and with the Liberal Party in disarray and without much power in the Senate, Climate 200 strategists will see this as an opportunity to take advantage of the power vacuum created by a weakened opposition.
The risk that the Teals pose to Australia's parliamentary system cannot be understated.
The Liberal Party need to learn from this period and hopefully rebuild the party, to become a credible alternative to Labor.
They must, or Australia will have a new party in the form of the Teals that could dominate all in its path.
Robert Weir is a freelance journalist whose work has also been published in The Spectator Australia. He enjoys writing political, lifestyle, and environmental stories as well as film reviews