How Australia’s electoral system allowed voters to finally impose a ceasefire in the climate wars

‘The flexibility of preferential voting meant that an independent could come through the middle, offering voters policies and personalities that they wanted.’ Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images

Climate was not the only issue in the Australian election – it never is – but it was the dominating policy issue and all of the winners – Labor, the Greens (who won two more seats in the lower house) and the teal independents – were campaigning for stronger action and higher targets.

For the first time in a long time, climate action had a good election. It’s instructive to ask why. Certainly, the enduring legacy of the “black summer” was part of it. But we must not understate the role that the rise of the teal independents – and the tectonic shift in Australian politics that it represents – played here.