More and more women — frustrated with a government they feel is out of touch with voters, backdoor decisions not debated in a public forum, and the interconnectedness of lobbyists, fossil fuel industry representatives and rich donors — are putting themselves up for a position in politics.
These women, ranging from former Liberal Natalie Baini to businesswoman Allegra Spender and former journalist Zoe Daniel, are running either as independents or with smaller parties in the upcoming election to challenge the status quo. The most recent to join their ranks is former columnist Jane Caro, who yesterday announced she’d be running for the Senate with the Reason Party.
But why are so many women stepping up to the plate now — and do they really represent a threat to Australia’s two-party system?
What’s the driver?
There’s an undercurrent of anger for many independent candidates. Watching from the sidelines as the government bungled its bushfire response, COP22, March4Justice and assault allegations, they felt the Coalition was failing over and over again.
Caro flirted briefly with the idea of entering the 2018 race as an independent against Tony Abbott but stepped down so as not to split the vote. This time, she’s going hell for leather.
“Watching this government, I’ve just become furious but also spirited and disgusted,” Caro tells Crikey.
“I think that a lot of people, progressive people, people who care about our planet, and women, in particular, are feeling under threat.”
But it’s not just the current government at fault: many independents believe Australia’s democratic system is failing, brought about by heavy-handed major parties out of touch with voters, using wedge politics to stop any kind of progression and preselecting their popular favourites instead of who is best for the role.
Former newspaper columnist Elizabeth Farrelly, who is running as an independent candidate for Strathfield, NSW, tells Crikey she’s seen these failures firsthand. In 2018 she was approached by the Labor party to join with hints at running for the federal seat of Reid — before quickly realising that no matter how well she resonated with voters, it was up to powerful Labor figures to decide her fate.
“There were no preselection battles … and once I left, party members were vindictive. There was nastiness everywhere, which surprised me,” she said.
“It was arrogant … and my treatment afterwards was unjustified and unwarranted, and, for me, reinforced my initial sense that both of the major parties are especially out of touch with the electorate.”
Does feminism play a role?
The Me Too movement exposed a dark and prevalent culture of sexual abuse and harassment in Australia, bolstered by prominent survivors including Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins and Kate, who accused Christian Porter of rape — which he strenuously denies — publicly telling their story.
Farrelly believes the current feminist movement in Australia is 20-30 years overdue, with progression stalled following former minister for women Tony Abbott’s reign.
“We should be ashamed of how backwards it all is,” she said. “There’s a lot of hatred to women and we need to address it because it disempowers men as well as women.”
Speaking on a Crikey Talks panel last night, Jo Dyer, outgoing director of Adelaide Writers’ Week and independent candidate for Boothby in South Australia, said the movement had played an important role in galvanising and amplifying independents. She was a childhood friend of Kate, whose 51st birthday it would have been yesterday.
“Women are sick of waiting for power to be shared and they understand that now they need to get in there and take it,” she said. Dyer believes the movement showed older women that daily harassment wasn’t something they just had to live with.
“There’s a generation of women saying, ‘We are not going to accept the shame … and we will find a voice to lay the shame where it belongs, which is back with the perpetrator.’”
She said this became particularly apparent after Scott Morrison announced his support for Porter despite Kate’s allegation.
“We hear the rhetoric all the time from people, including the prime minister, who was saying, ‘We need to hear your stories, we need to listen to what women are saying’,” Dyer said.
“But when there’s a very specific story, which doesn’t suit our political agenda, then we are going to dismiss it.”
What outcome do they want?
Farrelly, Caro and Dyer are each progressives who have previously supported the Labor party. But they each want a different outcome in the upcoming election: Dyer believes a Labor majority with an independent crossbench would be the best outcome; Caro simply wants the current government to go — and would like to see a Labor prime minister — while Farrelly believes a hung Parliament would be a fantastic outcome.
“These independent women are actually independent,” she said. “They’re going to work according to principle and not along party lines, which means each vote has a conscience vote.”
But whether the scores of independents rushing to the political field will actually be a threat to the government remains to be seen. Already it appears some Liberals are squirming: Tim Wilson has asked constituents to dob in people erecting Zoe Daniel political signs early, while the Morrison government has attempted to frame the independents as a front for Labor.
While Caro believes independents have been underestimated, she said the level of support she was receiving online showed many candidates were getting the attention they deserved.
“The tone has been, ‘Oh, at last, someone I’d actually want to vote for’,” she said.
Jane will get a vote from me, and I am a lifelong Labor supporter. I have spent up big on Climate200 aswell, the more successful Teal candidates we have, the better our government work.
Go girls, and into the bin with conservative dinosaurs and criminals.
Good on you Fairmind. I am more than happy to support your comment with a positive vote and a positive post. At the time of writing this there were two red ‘down-votes’. (Wait until you see how many negative votes I attract with this post!!)
There is a strong contingent of ALP voters here at Crikey. If you do not tow the ALP line they get upset very easily and sometimes rather nasty; but do not worry, they are all ‘paper tigers’. (As the lyrics of the old song goes, “Their roar is much worse than their bite. Here, kitty, kitty!!)
I have a Teal candidate standing in my electorate and I wear a tee-shirt with her name on it every morning when I am out on my geriatric walk, (just to ‘fly the flag’ for her). The ALP is irrelevant in my electorate. I ought to know, I have lived here for over 70 years and I spent 16 of those years as a paid-up member of the ALP trying to see the seat go to Labor. But I gave that fruitless task away after Hawke and Keating became de facto Liberals.
Very true. I imagine most progressives hope for an ALP government above an LNP one, but that doesnt mean the ALP are the only voice on the progressive side of politics, indeed in some areas they more than happily tow the mega corporate line. They dont own lower house seats yet their vitriol when the Greens or progressive independents stand is quite appalling, not to mention undemocratic. We’d all be a lot better off if that energy was directed at the Tories rather than those to the left of them.
Having more independent women in politics can only be a good thing. I look forward to it.
Dyer believes the movement showed older women that daily harassment wasn’t something they just had to live with.
Yep. I’m 80 and can be counted in that group. I hold all of Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins, Saxon Mullins, Chanel Contos, Kate and Alex Eggerking in very high regard. I see the major political parties losing support because of their continuing failure to recognise the differing experiences and viewpoints of women and to include these in their policies.
I’m in a yeah, no camp with this one. I’ll probably vote for Caro, but I do have concerns about these people as candidates. Whilst they might swing progressive, they are still inner city gentrifiers with all that implies. I’m afraid that I absolutely came to loathe Elizabeth Farrelly through her columns. They just screamed ‘inner city progressive gentrifier who will object to social housing on my street on spurious grounds’.
I would like to see independent political parties go out and get more candidates like Jacquie Lambie. Where are the working class in these candidate choices? Where are the people who work in retail and hospitality and call centres and trades? People like Jacquie Lambie and Russell Muir when he was in the senate really think about issues. They really listen to people. They come from real communities in places that people from the inner city sneer at. They might stumble every now and then, but they are open to listen and learn. We need more candidates like that and fewer whose life is based around being an inner city progressive whose friends are all inner city progressives. People wonder why some voters are attracted to Pauline Hansen and her ilk. Maybe it’s because they are not offered a real alternative.
I don’t think Jane Caro sneers at anyone, she seems a genuine person who genuinely cares and you shouldn’t hold her social status against her! But I do understand what you mean!
I didn’t say anything about sneering. I don’t think she does either. And I’m sure she is genuine and that she cares. But the fact that these three women all come from the same very privileged demographic is a concern.
Indeed. I’d vote for them but I found the long read on Jacqui Lambie in the Monthly of March very welcome too. Lambie’s great strength is her ability to think, reflect and grow. And her bloody humility.
Farrelly’s comments, to me seemed rather arrogant. Because she “joined Labor and there was a hint she might get Reid” but everyone was nasty to her after she left? I’m an 81 year old female and in my thinking, she expected a position she was, perhaps, found not to have the necessary abilities for even if she thought she had – the times I’ve seen such expectations are too many to put here. Could the “hint of Reid, or elswhere” been real but not as immediate as she thought her brilliance warrented, and her spitting the dummy and leaving was the reason for the nastiness?
Why should she or anyone else get a position just because they are female? If she gets in as an independent, will she vote on the merits of the legislation or as revenge?
And I, for one, welcome our new feminist overlords.