CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Australians who live in really nice suburbs with fairy lights on the main street are now finally being given the opportunity to vote for independent candidates at a state level.
After already plunging a teal blade into the heart of Scott Morrison by booting the Libs out of their safest seats at the 2022 election, it seems that a change of Federal government was not enough to scratch their urban neoliberal urges.
They now want to send a message to the Victorian and New South Wales branches of the Liberal Party.
However, with state governments having much less say in climate change policy – it remains unclear as to what the fuck a state teal would even be doing if elected – especially considering the fact that the Premiers are already beholden to independent corruption watchdogs.
This was never the case at a Federal level, which is why the campaign based on tackling climate change, integrity and the treatment of women in politics was so successful for the Independents in May.
Teals defeated six sitting Morrison MPs – with Allegra Spender in Wentworth, Kylea Tink in North Sydney, Zoe Daniel in Goldstein, Monique Ryan in Kooyong, Kate Chaney in Curtin, and Sophie Scamps in Mackellar. In addition, the teal case study, Zali Steggall MP was also re-elected.
But at a state level, the teals do not have much to bang on about, aside from the giving affluent voters the opportunity to oust a couple of rich old homophobes from a high-paying job on the public tit.
According to the state independents, the state teal agenda is all about ‘planning and development’ – which is a nice way of saying ‘stop increasing the supply of medium density urban dwellings because they are casting shadows over our favourite cafes and introducing in-cohesive immigrant families into our schools’.
With another Labor landslide on the cards in Victoria, and a likely Labor victory expected in NSW, it’s not known why anyone feels to the need to run against the Liberals in their do-nothing seats anyway… If not to make sure their nice suburbs remain in the hands of rich white people for the foreseeable future.
However, with the state teals still insisting that they will be adhering to the lovey dovey corporate feminist ideology of the Federals, these candidates must continue pretending to care about the resettlement of refugees and extreme lack of emergency womens shelters in suburbs they will never visit.
“I spose it’s better than nothing” says one war-wear Syrian, Abbud (45), whose family have spent the best part of a decade bouncing between tropical processing centres and bridging visas.
“I always wanted to see what an Australian beach looks like… But if these are the conditions of my settlement… Don’t worry, we’ll stay well away from the teal seats!”
