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Giant billboards featuring the face of Australia’s treasurer, Josh Frydenberg of the Liberal Party, loom over busy intersections across the affluent electoral division of Kooyong, which covers several inner Melbourne suburbs. An army of volunteers is knocking on doors to support Monique Ryan, an independent candidate. Ryan is a promising pediatric neuroologist.Higher emission reduction targetsAs the May 21 federal election approaches. Many homes have Ryan campaign signs. Some dogs even sport bandanas that bear her name. The fabric squares are teal and combine the colors of the Greens Party and Liberal Party blue.
The battle in Kooyong will be repeated among electorates across the country as independent candidates—who promise to tackleClimate Change—vie with members of the Liberal Party. The major party in Australia’s ruling coalition stands accused of failing to take meaningful action on the issue.
“I would really like to see a number of [independents] get in and hold whichever party gets into power to account,” says Stacey Cleary, a 35-year-old research physiotherapist, who has been wearing a Ryan t-shirt to drop her kids off at school and pick up groceries for the last few months. “When we’re talking aboutClimate Change, it’s an emergency.”
Continue reading: The Window to Adapt to Climate Change Is ‘Rapidly Closing,’ Warns the IPCC
About 20 so-called “teal independents” are running in seats traditionally held by Liberal politicians in some of Australia’s richest electorates. They are overwhelmingly women and have received overwhelming support from community members who have passed out flyers and knocked on doors. They’ve also received millions of dollars in funding from individual donors andClimate 200, a group set up by Simon Holmes à Court, the son of Australia’s first billionaire and a clean-energy investor. The group supports candidates who are committed to a science based response to climate crisis, restoring integrity and gender equality.
These 20 candidates could shake-up politics in Australia. “The more independents that have a progressive platform on climate policy in parliament, the greater the chances for good climate change policy outcomes,” says Frank JotzoHe is a professor at the Australian National University and directs the Centre for Climate and Energy Policy.
Independent candidate Monique Ryan (C) smiles at a pre-polling centre in Melbourne on May 12, 2022.
William West—AFP/Getty Images
Australia is behind in climate action
The Australian political landscape is dominated by two major parties, the center-right Liberal Party or the center-left Labor Party. Whichever party gets a majority—76 of 151 seats in the House of Representatives—forms a government, and the party’s leader becomes prime minister. If neither party gets a majority, they must form a coalition together with a minor party. The current government is made up of the Liberal Party (the larger, conservative National Party) and the Liberal Party (the smaller, more rural party that typically represents farmers and regional voters). The Greens currently hold only one seat in this House.
The government of the Prime Minister Scott Morrison—who is a member of the Liberal Party and in 2017Brought a softball-sized lump coal. into parliament to taunt the opposition party over its renewable energy plans—has pumped tens of millions of dollars into new gas projectsand has steadfastly support the continued Use of coalEven though much of the developed world is focusing on the transition away from fossil fuels, this is not true.
Australia is one of the world’s leading exporters of coal and natural gas. Tallying those exports with domestic consumption makes the country responsible for about 5% of global emissions—the world’s fifth-largest emitter, according to Climate Analytics. Despite setting a 2050 net-zero target, it has refused a more severe interim target.Bushfires in the apocalypseRecent floods have caused severe damage to the country. Former Prime Minister Malcolm TurnbullClimate action advocate and Liberal Party member, John Davidson, said this month that moderate voices in Liberal Party had declined on climate action issues.
Continue reading: Australia’s Bushfires Burned an Area Twice the Size of Florida. Climate Change Means That’s Just the Beginning
Anthony Albanese, leader of the Labor Party, has promised tougher measures from the opposition Labor Party.ClimateThe Liberal Party has other targets, and it stated that it will support investments into the grid and tax reductions on electric cars. Albanese also promised to help blue-collar voters in an effort to win them over.Support new coal mines.
HoweverSome pollsWhile climate is a top issue for Australian voters, the major parties rarely mention it during campaigns. “It’s become politically unpalatable for either of the major parties to actually take any action. I think the only way we’re going to see action is through independents,” says Kate Chaney, who is running as an independent in the electoral division of Curtin in Western Australia.
In many of the electorates for which teal independents are running, voters “would never vote for Labor, but they might vote for these people who look and present like old school Liberals—concern for business, concern for general living standards and maintaining the capitalist system—but they’re concerned about climate,” says Stewart Jackson, an expert on Australian politics from the University of Sydney.
The Ashton coalmine outside Singleton, New South Wales (Australia) on Friday, May 6, 20,22
Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Integrity, gender, and climate policy
Many of the independent candidates also promise to do work on gender equality and integrity if they’re elected. In 2021, anger swelled against the Morrison government’s response to accusations of rape and sexism in governement, leading to Large marches were held across the country.
“Every woman is secretly seething underneath, because the current Liberal-National government is so revolting with their attitude towards women,” says Traude Beilharz, a 54-year-old biomedical research scientist who will be voting for Ryan in the Kooyong electorate.
There are deep-seated issues of integrity at national politics. Transparency International gave Australia in January its worst ranking since 2012 on its Corruption Perceptions Index, which is a global measure of anticorruption efforts. It did this because Australia failed to set up a federal anticorruption commission. However, such commissions are still available in individual states. Meanwhile,An IPCC ReportAustralia was mentioned earlier this year, as a country where fossil fuel industry lobbying has been successful in delaying climate action.
Continue reading: Mike Cannon-Brookes says Australia Could Be a Green Superpower
“If we had real integrity in politics, we would have good climate policy,” says Holmes à Court. “On issues like climate change, we basically know what we need to do, but we’re not doing it…. Because of the vested interests controlling the political system.”
On November 15, 2019, in Colo Heights (Australia), a kangaroo escapes from the fire when the fire front approaches a property. /Getty Images)
Brett Hemmings—Getty Images
Climate actionAnd Politics in Australia
The race between Labor Party and Liberal Party looks tight and current government leaders are concerned. Frydenberg stated that he is currently in theHis life was a political struggle. Morrison has warned that voting for independents could throw parliament into “chaos and uncertainty.”
Indeed, polls suggest that independents have a chance to knock Liberal politicians out of several seats—and climate change might be why. “Climate is definitely one of the most important—if not the most important—issue in the electorate,” says Zoe Daniel, a former Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist who is running as an independent in Goldstein in Melbourne’s southeast. Some 6 in 10 Australians say “global warming is a serious and pressing problem,” and that the country “should begin taking steps now, even if this involves significant costs,” according to a 2021 poll by the think-tank the Lowy Institute.
It’s possible neither of the major parties will get a majority, and deals will have to be struck with independents or other minor party candidates to form a government.
“If independents end up holding the balance of power, then I think there’s an opportunity to really bring [climate change] to the fore in terms of commitments, as a prerequisite to form government,” says Chaney. “But even if independents don’t hold the balance of power, I think it can change the conversation by having those voices in parliament, asking questions, and setting the agenda.”
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