Simon Holmes à Court at the National Press Club (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)
Simon Holmes à Court (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)

There’s a lot of talk in NSW politics about the principles of democracy. Both sides of the political spectrum are embroiled in a protracted war with a powerful group — the gambling lobby — over donations and perceived influence. Today a parliamentary inquiry will examine allegations of impropriety involving a property developer and the Hills Shire Council. And there’s a state election in less than six weeks.

Allegations of corruption and influence-peddling have been part and parcel of NSW politics since the days of the Rum Corps. But this election is different, for two reasons. Premier Dominic Perrottet presides over a minority government, giving real power to the crossbench, and in several seats the electorate can vote for independent candidates promising to represent voters’ views, not those of a political party or its major donors.  

At last year’s federal election, six community independent candidates (known as the teals) took seats from the Liberal Party in inner-city Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Backed by Climate 200, an election crowd-funding group founded by energy investor Simon Holmes à Court, they campaigned for action on climate change, integrity and gender equality.

Climate 200 is backing five candidates in the NSW election — four in metropolitan Sydney and one in the Southern Highlands. But in between the federal election and this one, something happened: the Victorian state election. Despite high hopes, the handful of teal candidates failed to win a seat.

At a panel event in Sydney’s Whale Beach last week, convened by northern beaches bookshop Bookocino, Holmes à Court was asked about the differing results. He said Dan Andrews’ Labor government was not as unpopular as Scott Morrison’s Liberal government had been, and had taken more action on climate change. And state caps on donations and campaign spending in Victoria and NSW strongly favour incumbents over challengers.

However, he said wresting a seat from a major party was often a two-step process, pointing out that two of the Victorian candidates had come within a few hundred votes of winning and would probably succeed next time.

Allegra Spender’s victory in Wentworth and Monique Ryan’s in Kooyong built on previous campaigns by Kerryn Phelps (who won in 2018) and Oliver Yates, he said. James Mathison’s run for Warringah in 2016 was a stepping-stone for Zali Steggall’s winning campaign in 2019. The legacy of North Sydney independent Ted Mack was a sign to Kylea Tink’s campaign that the seat was definitely winnable.

One problem for NSW challengers is that candidates have a spending cap of $198,700 for political campaigns, about 10% of what Allegra Spender spent to win Wentworth in the federal election, where there is no limit.  

On paper, the five seats backed by Climate 200 look like a challenge. According to election guru Antony Green’s NSW election pendulum, the smallest margin is 12.9% (Manly) and the widest is Pittwater (22.4%). But the one thing analysts and journalists learnt from the federal election is that normal rules no longer apply. If the richest electorate in the country (Wentworth) and a seat which had voted Liberal since 1945 (Kooyong) can fall to an independent, any of them can.

When Liberal MP Jason Falinski suffered a 16% swing and lost the federal seat of Mackellar to independent Dr Sophie Scamps, it emboldened other members of this affluent northern beaches community to target the state seats. Scamps’ campaign manager, Jacqui Scruby, is running in the seat of Pittwater, the boundaries of which sit largely inside Mackellar’s. If enough locals carry over their disaffection for conservative politics to the state arena, this picturesque pocket of Sydney could go teal. (Labor has never won the seat.)

Scruby’s campaign received a tremendous boost when the local Liberals ignored Perrottet’s preference for a woman and preselected Rory Amon.  

Further towards the Sydney CBD, business consultant Joeline Hackman is running against NSW Environment Minister James Griffin in the seat of Manly, which sits inside the boundaries of Warringah.

Two organisers of Tink’s North Sydney campaign, Denise Shrivell and Kristen Lock, have also switched focus to the state campaigns, lending help to independent challengers Victoria Davidson in Lane Cove (14.7% margin), sitting largely inside the boundary of North Sydney, and Helen Conway in North Shore (17.8%, inside North Sydney and Warringah).

The outlier of the group is optometrist and local councillor Judy Hannan, who is running in the Southern Highlands seat of Wollondilly. Liberal incumbent and plumber Nathaniel Smith is the son of former NSW attorney-general Greg Smith, a leader of the hard-right Catholic faction in the Liberal Party and former president of anti-abortion group Right to Life.

Smith, who was parachuted into the seat from Sydney’s Epping in 2019, is on a 14.2% margin. I’ll be heading down there closer to the election to see what’s happening.

All five Climate 200-backed candidates attended an event a few weeks ago with one of the real powerbrokers of NSW politics, independent MP Alex Greenwich. The member for Sydney, a dynamic, highly competent protégé of Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore, has been able to use the power of the crossbench to bring the government to the table on contentious legislation such as the voluntary assisted dying bill. 

Greenwich and fellow independents Greg Piper in Lake Macquarie and Joe McGirr in Wagga Wagga are shining examples of how unaligned MPs can wield real power in NSW’s Parliament if there are enough of them.

But the tight spending caps mean that for independent candidates, it’s not a level playing field.

Holmes à Court said that since the 2019 NSW election, incumbents had received $179 million in public funding. Climate 200 analysts came to this figure by combing through returns lodged with the Parliamentary Remuneration Tribunal.

From these, they were able to calculate that incumbent politicians had received $54.3 million from an administrative fund — reimbursement of administrative expenditure — and $42.3 million in election payments.

This figure includes $13 million paid in advance of an election, based on the votes the party received last time. In addition, NSW parliamentarians received a total of $40.5 million in communications allowances and $42.3 million in electoral allowances — meaning NSW politicians were able to boost their profiles with $82.8 million of our money.

“Meanwhile, independent challengers have no such access to funding … and must fundraise from the public — no more than $3300 from each donor — to build a ladder and climb over that wall,” Holmes à Court said.