The winds of change are blowing through the glorious gum trees of Sydney’s North Shore. For more than a century, residents have peacefully practised their faith, pottered around their camellia gardens and voted for the Liberal Party.
However, a revolution is coming. The morning after the 2019 election, locals woke in shock to discover that their beloved Tony Abbott had been deposed by an independent named Zali Steggall.
Last year former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian — a local North Shore girl made good — had to step down after adverse findings by a corruption inquiry.
At the subsequent state byelection in February, the Liberal Party suffered a 17.7% swing against it and was almost defeated by independent candidate Larissa Penn, who spent diddly-squat on her campaign and had hand-made signs.
All this, plus independent Kylea Tink’s steamrolling campaign to defeat Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney, one of two NSW electorates which have NEVER been out of Liberal hands. Suffice to say, the North Shore is in turmoil.
The latest body blow to the party of Robert Menzies is the arrival of Nicolette Boele, who has put up her hand to stand against Paul Fletcher in Bradfield, the fourth safest Liberal seat in the country. Fletcher has been elected five times by basically putting his name on the ballot and turning up on polling day — in 2019 he won two-thirds of the vote.
But 2022 feels a bit like 2007, when the Ruddslide swept the country, bringing with it a swathe of new politicians. Only this time it’s not a Labor wave, it’s the “teal” independents.
Last night I trekked to the Kipling Bar in Turramurra to catch up with the members of Voices of Bradfield, Boele’s support group. There I met some of the 450 volunteers, almost all of whom have never been involved in a political campaign.
Max told me that the most common response to the volunteers has been one of relief.
“People say, ‘at last I have someone else to vote for’,” he said. The main issue that voters want to talk about is climate change.
Boele, 51, is one of those ridiculously well-qualified women that the various “Voices Of” groups around the country seem to throw up with monotonous regularity.
Her unbelievably impressive CV includes executive roles at the Responsible Investment Association Australasia, the Investor Group on Climate Change and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
She says that her “passion and deep love” is for climate action, working at the Sustainable Energy Development Authority and The Climate Institute. Currently, she’s advising The Good Car Company on how to scale and bring affordable electric vehicles to the Australian marketplace, and she’s also a member of the Climate Committee for New Zealand’s Climate Venture Capital Fund.
Basically, Boele is a million miles away from the standard party hack that both sides of politics foist on us and think we don’t notice.
Fletcher won 60% of the primary vote at the last election, which turned into 66% on the two-party-preferred. Boele’s campaign strategy is to convert a third of those votes — 20,000 of them — to her column. Like all the teal independents, Boele is not directing voters on preferences, but if she comes second, the preferences of the ALP and Greens could help get her over the line.
This task was made slightly easier last Friday when she won the top spot on the ballot, which does confer a slight advantage — you’d be amazed at how many people donkey vote.
Boele’s campaign has had some funding from Simon Holmes à Court’s Climate 200 group, but has raised the rest of the money from the public, who have been generous. One observer told me that they’ve been helped by the propensity of the major parties to spend the bulk of their campaign funds in the marginals, starving the safe seats of funds.
It sounds insurmountable, but stranger things have happened in politics, and if Fletcher’s communications are any example, for the first time ever the Liberal Party in Bradfield is taking the contest seriously.
He has put up a large billboard in Chatswood with the strapline “A Voice for Bradfield”, and his leaflets are starting to talk about carbon emissions.
Fletcher told the North Shore Times this week that “I’ve been chosen at five successive elections but I never take it for granted”.
Last night, about 100 engaged North Shore residents turned out at a local venue to hear a panel discussion with Boele and others on clean technology. Could the gracious art deco columns of the Pymble Golf Club actually be ground zero of a political revolution sweeping the North Shore? Incredible.
