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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

The historic teal wave at the last election delivered the two major parties their worst electoral results in decades. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the government looks set to introduce new laws that could make it harder for newcomers to compete. The minister responsible says he wants to address the “growing threat of big money in politics”. With rules like a requirement that all donations over a thousand dollars be disclosed, caps on the amount that could be donated and a requirement that those donations are made public in real time. A cap on spending is also on the table, somewhere around a million dollars per candidate, per seat. Which is significantly less than many of the Teals spent to win.

Today, independent member for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel on how much it costs to beat an incumbent and the double standards of the major parties.

It’s Monday July 29.

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RUBY:

Hi Zoe, thanks for joining me on 7am.

ZOE:

My pleasure, Thanks for having me.

RUBY:

Zoe I thought we could start by going back to 2022, when you ran against and you successfully unseated Liberal MP Tim Wilson. Why do you think you won?

ZOE:

I mean, I must say, when I was asked by a community organisation to run in Goldstein, my initial response was, there is no chance we can win that seat. You know, it had been a safe liberal seat with a male member for more than 120 years. But it became very evident during the campaign that a lot of people felt the same way as me, that they were sick of two party politics. And they wanted someone who could contribute in a different way. And also that the issues that I was focussed on, particularly climate policy, gender equality and integrity in politics really resonated with a lot of people. And I think that we were able to build momentum around those issues and run a really positive campaign

Audio Excerpt — Zoe Daniel:

“What we have achieved tonight is incredible. A safe Liberal seat…Two term incumbent…INDEPENDENT!”

RUBY:

And of course, at the time, a lot was made of the so-called teal wave and the backing that you had from Climate 200. Can you tell me about how you raised money for your campaign and how much you raised?

ZOE:

So we spent I think in the end, it was about $1.8 million on the campaign, and we raised over a million of that from within the electorate. So Climate 200 obviously made a substantial contribution to my campaign. And Climate 200 is a crowdfunding movement with around 11,500 donors. And a lot of the funding that came into my campaign from Climate 200 went to advertising, for example. But the main fundraising effort on my part was within the community. So, my team and I spent a lot of time out simply talking to members of the community, around why it was important to do politics differently. And we had thousands of people who donated quite small amounts to the campaign. So I had very few large donors. So I didn't have any one individual donating hundreds of thousands of dollars or even $100,000 to my campaign. It was predominantly, people inside and outside the electorate, who were keen to get an independent into Parliament.

Audio Excerpt — Zoe Daniel:

“If not us…?

Audio Excerpt — Crowd, cheering:

“WHO?!”

Audio Excerpt — Zoe Daniel:

“If not now…?

Audio Excerpt — Crowd, cheering:

“WHEN?!”

Audio Excerpt — Zoe Daniel:

“Let's do this Goldstein!”

ZOE:

So as an independent, you really need to spend a lot of time building that reputational respect, if you like. And the only way of doing it really is through direct engagement with people.

Audio Excerpt — Voter 1:

“I’m with Zoe because I believe in positive change”

Audio Excerpt — Voter 2:

“I’m for Zoe because I want to see the GOLD in GOLDSTEIN…”

Audio Excerpt — Voter 3:

“I’m with Zoe because the current Federal Government is not doing enough for climate action or women’s equality”

ZOE:

So although we did a lot of fundraising, that money was spent on the right staff, with the right skills to enable the kind of campaign that I ran. Predominantly the funding went to advertising…

Audio Excerpt — Zoe Daniel, Television ad:

“Vote on the issues, vote with conviction!”

Audio Excerpt — Narrator:

“Authorised by Zoe Daniel, Brighton”

ZOE:

Billboard advertising, which is extremely expensive, and social media advertising and corflutes. So the election signs that people put on fences. It's quite a lot of moving parts.

RUBY:

And so obviously all of that worked. We of course, saw a whole lot of community independents actually, including you and people like Monique Ryan and Allegra Spender win against major party incumbents. So how important was being able to raise funds to campaign in the ways that you're describing. So billboards, social media, hiring the right people. How important was all of that ultimately in changing the makeup of the Parliament, the way that Australia is now represented?

ZOE:

Look, it's really critical. It's unfortunate that you need, you know, a substantial amount of money. And each of the independents that were elected at the last election, spent a substantial amount of money to get elected in safe Liberal seats. As a new face and a person with new ideas. You have a really limited amount of time and runway to actually get those ideas out to people and to help people to understand what they're voting for. I mean, obviously, I can see where you're going with the conversation. And I think that, you know, the tension is, the fact that that's required in order to enable fresh thinking. But at the same time, we certainly don't want to end up with a US style system where, you know, people get elected because they've got a lot of money. And money kind of rules, that's definitely not where we want to end up.

RUBY:

The special minister for state, Don Farrell, is expected to table a set of proposals that if they pass they will be some of the biggest changes to the way that we run elections in this country that we've seen. Can you tell me what your understanding is of what's being proposed and why you think it is that the government is doing this now?

ZOE:

So I haven't seen an exposure draft. I would love to see one because we do have concern that the two major parties will collude to protect their Coles and Woollies duopoly, and to cut out new entrants. My understanding of it is that they're looking at real time disclosure and reduced thresholds for real time disclosure. And this is something that I, and everyone on the crossbench did anyway, at the last election. And I think reducing the threshold for that to say, $1,000 is absolutely fine and, and should happen and people should have transparency around where donations have come from. And then, it seems evident that they're looking at either donation caps or spending caps or both. And that's really at the core of the issue.

RUBY:

Do you agree with donation caps and spending caps?

ZOE:

Well it depends what they are. And really, the devil is in the detail here because the playing field is already tilted in favour of the major parties because of their history, their visibility, the entrenched awareness in the community of them. But also that they have the collective power, if you like. So a general ad that just says Vote Liberal or Vote Labor will still benefit the individual candidate within my electorate. Because some people don't really care who the candidate is, they'll just go in and put a one next to a particular party. And if, for example, I think what has been floating around in the press is that the cap could be $1 million per electorate. Well, the vast majority of that still flows to the major parties. And do they have to spend only $1 million in each, each electorate, or can they split it up to spend more money in marginal seats and less money in other seats? And they also have sort of external funding vehicles. And they do things like run dinners where they charge, you know, $5,000 a seat to sit next to the minister and those sorts of things. And there's a level of opacity around those kinds of fundraising mechanisms. So I think the key to it is the level playing field, but also the transparency. And you can't sort of let the major parties get around it. With, you know, things that are convenient to them. And then the bigger concern is that because obviously, if the Labor Party and the coalition got together, to push this through, then no one else has any say in how that looks. And to me, that means that the roughly 30% of the population who didn't vote for either of the major parties is not being heard.

RUBY:

So is the government listening to crossbench concerns? That's after the break.

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RUBY:

Zoe, the government is working on this draft legislation to change the parameters around electoral spending. Have you had any consultations with the minister who's driving this - Don Farrell - about your concerns around this and how have they gone?

ZOE:

The independents as a group have had a couple of meetings with the minister. I'm not going to talk about what's happened in those meetings. I mean, that they are, in effect, meetings in which the crossbenchers have been able to articulate the kinds of concerns that I've articulated to you, and the minister has done some listening. And the crossbench has since been doing some waiting for an exposure draft so that we can look at the kind of details that I am talking about.

RUBY:

And Don Farrell has accused independents of being hypocrites, essentially. He's quoted as saying that some of the teals are saying to us that they agree with banning big money, just not theirs. What's your response to that?

ZOE:

No, I mean, he kind of would say that, I suppose. But, I guess I would throw the same thing back to him. I mean, take a look at how much money the major parties raised, which is in the hundreds of millions for the last election. You know, a single donation from a union could have funded my entire campaign. But all that money went into Labor's coffers, so it's a little bit pot/kettle. And also, Climate 200 which was only a contributor to my and the other campaigns is made up of 11,500 donors. These are ordinary Australians, who want politics done differently. So this whole sort of equivalency that both the major parties like to use in regard to the independents that, you know, were funded by a billionaire, or a multi-millionaire, it's just complete rubbish. And is very sort of convenient for them to foster their own position.

And what you've seen in New South Wales and Victoria, for example, is that changes to donation rules in Victoria, in effect, meant that the independents all lost their seats at the last election and I don't think that that's what the population wants.

RUBY:

And so if that is the case, if the smaller players do get cut out, what is it that voters stand to lose?

ZOE:

Accountability, pressure. A new way of doing politics. This is still a very new, phenomenon. And look, I think anyone who expects, you know, politics to miraculously metamorphose into something that's perfect. In two years after, you know, 120 plus years from Federation of bad habits being created is being somewhat naive. But, absolutely. There has been positive change, in, in terms of the fact that the crossbench interacts with the government and the opposition, to some degree, to create better policy. And it's to do with holding the government to account, making them more ambitious and calling out failures, bad behaviour, when they can do it better. Working with the government on legislation and policy, to point out the issues, and to stack up evidence based reasons to, to create improvements, rather than just having a combative environment of one side says, we're going to do this, and the other side says, no. I think we've been stalled for a long time on a range of policies because of that approach, and that's what the crossbench seeks to change.

RUBY:

Zoe I thank you so much for your time.

ZOE:

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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RUBY:

Northern Territory senator, Malarndirri McCarthy, has been named as the new Minister for Indigenous Australians as part of a cabinet reshuffle that was announced yesterday afternoon. Senator McCarthy replaces Linda Burney, who will retire from politics at the next election. Linda Burney was the first Indigenous person elected to the New South Wales parliament and the first Indigenous woman to be elected into the House of Representatives and be appointed a cabinet minister.

And…

Tony Burke has replaced Andrew Giles as the Minister for Immigration. Mr Giles has been under increasing pressure for months over his handling of last year’s High Court ruling on indefinite detention. Clare O’Neil has been removed from Home Affairs, she will now be Housing Minister.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am thanks for listening.

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