THE GUARDIAN - Preferential voting opened a pathway for independents to bypass the right’s hyperpartisan approach to climate policy
Climate was not the only issue in the Australian election – it never is – but it was the dominating policy issue and all of the winners – Labor, the Greens (who won two more seats in the lower house) and the teal independents – were campaigning for stronger action and higher targets.
For the first time in a long time, climate action had a good election. It’s instructive to ask why. Certainly, the enduring legacy of the “black summer” was part of it. But we must not understate the role that the rise of the teal independents – and the tectonic shift in Australian politics that it represents – played here. Continue reading...
