Forrest candidate Ben Small dismisses teal talk as Voices for Forrest continue in challenger hunt

The Liberal candidate aiming to replace long-standing Federal Government member Nola Marino at the next election says the rise of a teal-style independent movement is unlikely to sway voters across the South West electorate. The new Voices for Forrest grassroots party have not yet identified a candidate to take on the Liberals’ Ben Small, who said he was unconcerned about the threat despite the impact of the teal movement at the 2022 Federal election. “The so-called teal independent movement in Forrest, funded by the charity set in the Eastern States, is not cutting through and isn’t focused on key local issues, like Labor’s plan to install gigantic wind turbines across Geographe Bay,” he said. “In my view, the seat will be won by the party with policies that clearly focus on the cost of living and other day-to-day concerns of people living in Bunbury, Busselton and other regional communities across the electorate.” Voices for Forrest received $20,000 in financial support from the Climate 200 Community Accelerator Fund, but the new party says it is not directly linked to the teal movement that put high-profile members like Kate Cheney in Parliament. Liberals insiders think the political climate now is vastly different from the mood in 2022 when six new independents — including Ms Chaney in Curtin — ousted incumbent MPs from formerly blue-ribbon seats. Yet if the party fails to defend against independent campaigns targeting Forrest as well as Moore, it could drop to just three representatives in Canberra. Voices for Forrest co-convenor Gita Sonnenberg said the hunt for a candidate continued as the new party sensed a genuine appetite from voters who wanted politics to be done differently. Ms Sonnenberg said while Mrs Marino was “quite loved as a person”, in some 400 conversations with community members the group had found a significant sentiment they weren’t being well represented in Canberra. “People are really quite sick and tired of political games,” Ms Sonnenberg said. “The idea of having someone who’s not aligned to a party and who . . . has the space to choose topics that are relevant for our electorate, with the focus on our electorate and has to spend less time doing stuff that’s actually not important for us, that’s a really, really strong vision. And it appeals to a huge amount of people.” She said the Voices movement had a good geographical spread across the electorate within its organisation and supporters. Ms Sonnenberg said the Voices movement intended for its candidate to be guided both by their values and the community’s opinion. “If a majority of people that share their views with us say I don’t want that wind park there, then that’s what we have to go by,” she said. Former Liberal MP Ian Goodenough would also contest Moore as an independent after losing his preselection to Vince Connelly. That both targeted seats were being contested by new candidates rather than incumbents was seen as another factor favouring potential change.