‘It’s a Kate versus Goliath kind of battle’: Inside the next challenge for the teals

On paper, the South Coast electorate of Kiama should be ripe for a teal groundswell.

Voters rarely reward a government in a byelection, and the Liberals have suffered brand damage from the federal campaign.

Tree-changers have relocated to affluent areas such as Kangaroo Valley, and the coastal town of Kiama, which is attracting sea-changers, has joined the $1 million club for median regional house prices.

Then there’s the similarity with last year’s Pittwater byelection, which was triggered by sexual abuse charges against Liberal MP Rory Amon (which he denies). Kiama voters are being forced to the polls after Liberal-turned-independent Gareth Ward was charged, then convicted, of sexual assault.

Also like Pittwater, Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 has stepped in to back a teal independent. But while Jacqui Scruby was able to replicate the narrative of the federal teal movement by wrestling Pittwater from the Liberals, Kiama hopeful Kate Dezarnaulds faces an entirely different challenge.

How can a teal prevail when Labor is the frontrunner?

“It’s a Kate versus Goliath kind of battle,” Dezarnaulds said.

Her pitch to voters is to vote “independent for independents’ sake”. She believes “Labor overreach”, namely its pro-housing agenda, will steer locals to vote independent if they don’t feel heard by the government on overdevelopment fears.

“The thing that is absolutely, like, fundamental to people’s love of the South Coast is the character of its villages and towns, and blanket changes to planning rules to allow mid and high-rise buildings through our villages is going to change the character of them for generations,” she said.

“People are very angry and are very worried about losing the opportunity to have an input into those decisions.”

Climate 200 says it backs candidates who share its values rather than enact a broader strategy to target certain seats, but history shows teals have a much harder job beating Labor than conservatives. Federally this year, teal Jessie Price looked poised to take Bean in the ACT but was ultimately defeated by Labor candidate David Smith by 700 votes after preferences.

Labor operatives will publicly play cautious about their chances of picking up Kiama, but going by the betting markets, former journalist and union campaigner Katelin McInerney is by far the favourite. The Liberals have a much tougher job after coming in a distant third in the 2023 election, but expect to win back a portion of Ward’s voters.

Throwing a further spanner in the works for the Liberals and Dezarnaulds is the array of independents and minor parties that could split the vote. The Greens will be on the ballot and council menace Andrew Thaler has put his hand up along with Shooters Fishers and Farmers, Libertarians, Sustainable Australia and Legalise Cannabis.

“The vast majority of the cases where independents have been competitive has been against the Liberal Party and where a Labor win isn’t particularly feasible,” election analyst Ben Raue said.

“I think there’s a chance that if the Liberals have a really bad campaign … that the vote scatters, and that’s in some sense helpful to Dezarnaulds.”

The other factor making an independent victory difficult is the optional preferential voting system in NSW. Unlike federal elections in which voters have to number every box in order of preference, in NSW voters simply need to vote 1, which advantages the front-running major party.

Shooters Fishers and Farmers, and Legalise Cannabis will snare some protest votes, and preferences are sure to be erratic.

Labor is going into this byelection with little to lose on the politics. They’re throwing everything at the seat (already the premier has visited four times) and this weekend Labor staffers will descend on the electorate to letterbox-drop.

The Liberals are also coming from behind. With the brand damage from the federal election and the Ward connection, candidate Serena Copley faces an uphill battle to turn the seat blue again, but the Liberals are in no way bowing out.

Senior frontbenchers and leader Mark Speakman have been out and about in the electorate talking to voters about local infrastructure.

Dezarnaulds thinks a stampede of major party politicians can be “off-putting” for a regional community such as Kiama.

“People want to see a kind of fair contest and a fair fight and, and when one party machine is so very dominant … I think it has the risk of backfiring,” she said.

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