Independent MPs launch new Australian centrist party
Two independent Australian MPs have banded together to launch a new centrist political party that they say is a response to an increasingly divisive landscape.
The Community Strong Australia party - launched in Canberra on Thursday - will offer ‘unity over division and reason over rage’, have no leader and allow members to vote freely, rather than along party lines.
Its two members, Sydney MPs Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender, are from a group of independent MPs known as teals who share socially liberal values and want greater climate action.
Both MPs said the party will provide an alternate political force to the current two-party system in Australia.
The two-party system has traditionally been dominated by the centre-left Labor and the Liberal-Nationals Coalition. Labour won a landslide victory at last year’s federal election, securing a second term in power, while the Coalition suffered its worst defeat ever and followed months of in-fighting.
In recent months, the right-wing One Nation party has surged, with some polls finding the party’s leader Pauline Hanson as the preferred prime minister. Steggall and Spender said the rise in support for One Nation and its anti-immigration rhetoric spurred their decision to form a new party, guided by the grievances voiced by voters.
“We absolutely hear those grievances,” Spender said. “People are frustrated and tired of the status quo.” She added that if she weren’t in politics, she wouldn’t know who to vote for.
Spender, who won her seat in 2022, said the party wants to hear from communities beyond her own that want a voice that genuinely reflects them.
Steggall, a former barrister and Winter Olympian, has been a federal MP since 2019, after she unseated former prime minister Tony Abbott in an electorate that had been held by the Liberal Party for more than a century.
“We don’t want the in-fighting, we don’t want the blame game. We want solutions that will make a difference to us,” Steggall said.
Key issues for the party will be housing affordability and cost of living pressures, as well as climate change, childcare, education and healthcare.
The pair also told local media that Climate 200, a political organisation that has helped fund independents that have won several Liberal seats in recent elections, was not involved with the new party. New electoral funding laws allow political parties a much bigger budget for campaigning, which some independents have said will disadvantage them.
Several other independents have ruled out joining, with another two teals considering their options. The party has lodged an application with the Australian Electoral Commission with registration expected to be finalised in October.
