High risk or the right time? Zali Steggall on the new teal party
6/25/202627 min
This week independent MPs Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender announced they would form a new political party, Community Strong Australia.
Steggall was successful as the first teal candidate, winning the prize seat of Warringah on Sydney’s north shore from former prime minister Tony Abbott in 2019.
Spender took Sydney’s blue-ribbon electorate of Wentworth from Liberal David Sharma in 2022.
But the leaderless Community Strong is a high-risk strategy, as all other teal MPs have declined to join.
Today, Steggall is a special guest on Inside Politics with Jacqueline Maley to talk about, amid the fracturing of the Coalition and the rise of One Nation, why now is the right time for Community Strong Australia.
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First 90 secondsJacqueline Maley· Host0:00
[gentle music] I'm Jacqueline Maley, and you're listening to Inside Politics from the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. This week we have a very special interview for you. We are talking to Zali Steggall, who of course is the community independent MP for Warringah in Sydney's north, and she has just announced this week that she will form a new political party called Community Strong with fellow independent MP Allegra Spender of Wentworth. Zali, a very warm welcome to Inside Politics.
Zali Steggall· Guest0:31
Thank you. It's exciting to be here.
Jacqueline Maley· Host0:32
This move has been much anticipated, much picked over by the press gallery, much discussed. Can you tell us how long you've been contemplating, secretly contemplating, uh, forming a political party?
Zali Steggall· Guest0:42
Uh, look, to be fair, I started thinking about this in 2020 when I introduced the Climate Change Act, and the difficulty in getting the major parties to the table on clear, cohesive climate policy that will keep us safe, but really, uh, take action and do the things that so many in our community want. So at that time, I, you know, I respect that I am 1 out of 151 votes in the Lower House, and how to keep, uh, growing the movement and paying it forward. At the time, I felt like the best way to pay it forward was actually to help maybe mentor other communities to get a community independent electorate elected. So we shared our learnings from our 2019 campaign with the teams in Mackellar, North Sydney, um, Wentworth, and Bradfield, and, and broader. Um, and we saw that great wave of community independents