Party atmosphere without the party machine: The army behind the teals

At 11am on Easter Monday – the day before pre-polling began – Glenferrie Road in Malvern was quiet. Most shops and cafes were shut for the public holiday. But inside Monique Ryan’s pop-up campaign office it felt like a party.

Dozens of volunteers chatted and busied themselves, a barbecue was cooking out the back, and Shania Twain’s Man! I Feel Like a Woman blared over a Bluetooth speaker. Monique Ryan’s campaign staff and volunteers prepare pre-poll and election-day material. Credit: Rachael Dexter The scene provides a glimpse into the teal army: the unpaid foot soldiers of the community independents’ movement who knock on doors, organise, create social media content, arrange corflutes and feed the troops.



The teals are the seven women who took Australia by surprise in 2022 when they won or held formerly blue-ribbon Liberal seats. In Victoria, the teal wave was led by Ryan, who ousted former treasurer Josh Frydenberg from the seat of Kooyong, and Zoe Daniel, who won the bayside seat of Goldstein from Tim Wilson. During this election, the teals are looking to cement their position by winning a further term while holding true to their promise of a “new way” of doing politics.

However, the teals’ commitment to greater integrity has come into question during the campaign after Ryan’s husband, Peter Jordan, was caught on video removing a sign backing Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer, and teal volunteers released “dirt files” of unfavourable material about their rivals to the public through social or mainstream media. Another challenge is the broadening of the teal message, with more candidates emerging like Alex Dyson in Wannon , who dresses in the orange of a community rural independent but shares many values with the teals and a common funding source in Climate 200, and Ben Smith, Victoria’s reigning father of the year , who is running in the Mornington Peninsula seat of Flinders. Election day is shaping as a test of whether the teal wave was a one-off phenomenon or is a political movement that is here to stay.

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