Why calling teal candidates ‘Climate 200 independents’ is misleading and unfair - The Guardian

Why calling teal candidates ‘Climate 200 independents’ is misleading and unfair | Nina Ardill | The Guardian

I’ve never seen the media refer to “the Meriton-backed Liberal party” or “the CFMEU-backed Labor party”. Nor read about the “Clubs NSW-backed Chris Minns/Dominic Perrottet”. They do, however, continually refer to “Climate 200-backed independents”.

As one of many people volunteering to support a community independent, I find it irksome to see the media continually highlighting just one donor to these campaigns while this is never the case with political parties and their candidates.

It started during the 2022 federal election campaign when the Liberal party and rightwing media outlets attempted to discredit community independents with labels such as “fake independents”, “Climate 200 independents” or even “Simon Holmes à Court and his political party” in an attempt to discredit them.

Unfortunately, their misinformation campaign seems to have worked – to the extent that many reporters across the wider media still refer to “Climate 200 independents” seemingly without thinking about the accuracy or implications of their language. Some recent examples include:
“Environment minister James Griffin is the first target of the Climate 200 group for the March state election.” (SMH)
“[Jacqui] Scruby is one of five Climate 200-backed candidates vying for seats the independent funding machine deems winnable.” (The Guardian)

Such terms reinforce two common misconceptions about the relationship between Climate 200 and the independent candidates it helps to support. First, that Climate 200 chooses the candidates, and, second, that Climate 200 supplies all their funding. Neither of these are true.

Climate 200 has nothing to do with choosing independent candidates or in which seats they should run. The candidates are found by community groups, such as North Sydney’s Independent in the case of Helen Conway and Victoria Davidson.

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Only once the candidates’ campaigns are up and running, does Climate 200 choose to support those that share its values. It’s frustrating to see our role mistakenly attributed to Climate 200 or Simon Holmes à Court.

As for funding, Climate 200 provides a minority of each independent’s total. And the proportion is much smaller in the current state election than it was federally because of a cap on donations to independent candidates of $3,300. This applies to donations from Climate 200 just as it does to anyone else.

With more than 200 donors to Davidson’s campaign so far, Climate 200’s contribution makes up just 2% of funds raised and this proportion will become smaller as more donations come in. Even in the federal election, where donation caps did not apply, Climate 200 only contributed 44% of Kylea Tink’s total funding.
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Here again, the media’s focus on funding of community independents, as if it is the sole reason for their success, ignores the incredible efforts made by the armies of volunteers (and indeed the candidates themselves) who work tirelessly to build and run their campaigns from scratch.

I get that Climate 200 was newsworthy when it started, especially because it was founded by someone well known and well off. And I get that Climate 200’s support goes beyond just money because it leads to increased publicity, but surely it’s time to move on. Mention Climate 200 when it’s relevant, don’t when it’s not. But never make it part of an independent’s name.

So how should the media refer to community independents? The candidates and their supporters understand that “community independent” is a mouthful and doesn’t make for a catchy headline; because of that, the “teals” label has probably gained traction.

There are mixed feelings about being called teal – some hate it, some like it and some of us are just OK about it. At least it doesn’t arbitrarily highlight a single donor.
Nina Ardill is a volunteer for North Sydney’s Independent and community independent candidate Victoria Davidson