Accent Research and RedBridge Group polling flags the formerly safe Nationals seat of Cowper on the NSW Mid North Coast, and the south-west Victorian seat of Wannon as seats independents could take.
Cowper, currently held by Nationals MP Pat Conaghan, was turned marginal due to nursing director Caz Heise’s independent campaign in 2022.
Wannon is held by Coalition immigration spokesman and Liberal MP Dan Tehan. In 2022, independent Alex Dyson almost doubled his primary vote in his second tilt at the seat.
Both Conaghan and Tehan have been contacted for comment.
In Queensland’s Darling Downs seat of Groom, former social worker Suzie Holt almost turned the electorate marginal at the last election.
McGowan said the fund would help emerging campaigns, and raise money from rural and urban donors, like Climate 200, a third of whose donors were rural in 2022.
“We are focusing on the rural and regional campaigns we know best,” she said. “Forty per cent of Australia’s 151 seats are rural and regional. It would be incredible if we could help four [independents] win. We want to hear from everyone out there who’s in a rural or regional community campaign, who wants to have a red-hot go.”
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Child sexual assault protection advocate Michelle Milthorpe announced last month that she would run in Sussan Ley’s rural NSW seat of Farrer and Claire Ferris Miles is running again in Casey on Melbourne’s eastern fringe. Meanwhile, “Voices Of” style groups and campaigns have sprung up from the Gold Coast to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, including Peter Dutton’s outer suburban Brisbane seat of Dickson.
Read about the next wave of independents in Good Weekend this Saturday.
