00:02It's viable in the sense that it will help the TEALs respond to the political
00:06finance reforms that are coming into play in January next year.
00:11Now what they're going to do to the independents is to kill off this very vertical, top-down,
00:17getting all your money from Climate 200 approach that they're currently taking, and it will
00:21allow them to have a much more horizontal type approach to attracting money and spending
00:27money.
00:27At the moment, they're going to be really badly punished by these new laws, and I think
00:32on those grounds, coming up with this new party is probably quite sensible, and it will certainly
00:37make them more viable going forward.
00:38On the other hand, running a major party is really tough, and they're going to find it
00:42really difficult to listen to a leader, to have to agree on policy positions, where at
00:47the moment they tend to end up with a consensus, but it's a very different process, and feeling
00:52that whip hand of a party leader is a lot harder.
00:55Yeah, and Zali Stegall has said as much. She said, you know, the challenge is to build
01:00something that expands our impact while preserving the independence and community-first values
01:05that define us. I mean, these TEALs, they were elected on their independence. What is their
01:10justification going to be for creating a party? How are they going to maintain independence?
01:16Well, their justification at the moment is that they need to do this to tackle the challenge
01:20from One Nation. That's a bit hard to get my head around, because I don't think that the people who
01:24are currently telling us and did tell us in the South Australian state election that they will vote
01:28One Nation would necessarily be considering voting for TEAL independence. There's nothing stopping the
01:34TEALs at the moment from running candidates across the country. The only thing that will stop them at the
01:39next election in 2028 is these finance and donations reforms that will make it a lot harder
01:45to spend big like they have in the past. We know that a couple of MPs have ruled themselves out
01:50already.
01:50Independent Monique Ryan is ruling herself out. The Shadow Treasurer, Tim Wilson, has said that no one
01:56is taking this seriously. What is it going to need to form? How many moderate Liberals are going to
02:02need to peel off and join them? They won't necessarily need to win off any libs to form a
02:08party. They could do that on their own back. I think to be taken credibly as a threat to the
02:13coalition, they would probably like to take off some of those more moderate MPs, you know, senators
02:18like Andrew Bragg or even someone like Tim Wilson himself, who won his seat back from Zoe Daniel. I don't
02:24think there's much enthusiasm for that inside the coalition right now. The party seems to be
02:28coalescing behind Angus Taylor, who, even though he is much more further to the right of the
02:33coalition, does seem to have a clearer economic plan and is working quite well with the nationals.
02:39So I think if we were having this conversation six months ago, I might have been a little bit more
02:43concerned for the future of the coalition. But I think at this point in time, the coalition is doing
02:48okay on its own. And this is very much just about the Teal's putting themselves on a more
02:53financially sustainable footing going forward. Okay, so if that is the case, it obviously still
02:58needs to be appealing in the electorates. Can a centralised party boost its appeal beyond the
03:05seats that the Teals currently have? I mean, are they going to appeal in the regions?
03:09There's absolutely an electorate for this kind of party, someone that is socially liberal,
03:14fairly economically liberal. At the moment, a lot of these voters are voting for Labor,
03:18who they see as quite centrist. Now, outside of the suburbs, they probably won't get too much
03:25electoral support. But, you know, there's all these inner city and inner suburban seats up for
03:30grabs at the moment. And I suspect at the moment that Labor's feeling a bit hot under the collar
03:34about the prospect of a Teal's party. But again, on the other hand, you know, they have had these
03:39voters on lock for the last couple of elections, and they would really have to drive this government
03:44into the ground, I think, before they are going to lose some of these inner suburban seats to Teals.
03:49I'm sure, Julie, you probably heard the former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's comments this
03:52morning. He's saying that the opposition has left a vacuum in politics that has created a prime
03:58condition for a new political movement. Do you agree with that?
04:02Look, I think there is an electorate for someone like Malcolm Turnbull. You know, there are plenty of
04:07voters who would be very happy if Malcolm Turnbull were still leader of the Liberal Party. But it's
04:12really hard to form a party that gets enough votes to be in the running for government with that
04:18electoral base. I think people like Malcolm Turnbull tend to underestimate the appeal of
04:23conservative politics in Australia. And on an issue like immigration, I think the coalition is probably
04:28much closer to the average voter than a party like the Teal Independence Party would be.
04:34If this party was to get up, what would it mean for the two-party political system? Would that be
04:40the
04:40end of it? I'm very bullish on the two-party system. I think that the mathematics of how we vote
04:45mean that we tend to have two major parties. I tend to disagree with commentators who are saying that
04:50this is the end of the two-party system. I think what we will see, particularly with regards to One
04:54Nation, is a four-party, two-block system where we have One Nation on the right, just as the Greens
05:01sit on the left of Labor. And they don't form government, but they do have an active role in the
05:05Senate. And I think a Teal's party, if they are to go through with this, would probably find
05:10themselves in a similar position. Political scientist Dr. Jill Shepard, great to speak with
05:14you. Thanks for your thoughts. Cheers.
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