No-one wants to get back into Parliament as badly as former Liberal MP Tim Wilson.
Wilson, who lost Goldstein in 2022’s teal wave, kept “MP” in his Twitter handle until May of this year. He’s the only Liberal who lost to an independent currently trying to win back his old seat; in March, he defeated two women for preselection, prompting a rebuke from Sky News Australia: “Get the message, Tim… you’re not wanted.”
“The Honourable Timothy Wilson” is known to pester local councils with inane questions about his victor, prompting one councillor to label him “annoying” (he then questioned council about that). And few could forget Anzac Day 2023, on which Wilson took it upon himself to lay a wreath, refusing to hand it over to the appointed volunteer.
All of this has made life interesting for Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel, the former journalist who won the seat on the teal trifecta of climate, gender and integrity. The independent is reluctant to criticise Wilson, who’s now driving around in what he calls “Polly the Victory Van”. (“That’s their call,” she says delicately, when asked about the Liberals’ choice of candidate). But there’s no doubt his conduct has raised eyebrows in the wealthy bayside seat.
Daniel, meanwhile, is facing increasingly cynical attacks in the media. The Herald Sun recently ran the headline “Teal MP Zoe Daniel referred to national corruption watchdog”, quoting a vexatious referral from former Liberal MP Jason Falinski, another victim of the teals, who suggested a staffer calling the AFR (regarding Simon Holmes à Court’s inclusion on the “power list”) amounted to a “misuse of taxpayer-funded resources”.
In a statement, Daniel denied the call came from a current staffer or on her behalf, condemning the weaponisation of the NACC. Staffer or no, it’s laughable to think the anti-corruption commission would investigate a request over a wanky power list — not that this mattered to Falinski, or to the News Corp reporter who ran it as a real story.
Despite being a journalist for years, Daniel says the level of mudslinging in politics has surprised her. She’s reluctant to give more air to the NACC story, but it’s obviously galling, with the Coalition now playing games with a corruption watchdog they never wanted in the first place.
“The remit of the NACC is really important, and it’s important to rebuilding public trust in politics,” she says, noting Falinski was stridently opposed to establishing one when he was in Parliament. “Utilising it for political purposes sort of undermines the whole point of having it.”
I ask Daniel whether she thinks such claims will sway votes in Goldstein. Polls suggest it’s one of two teal seats the Libs are most competitive in, though with the election still months out and Daniel’s volunteers still “ramping up”, all polling should be taken with a grain of salt.
“I don’t think voters want that,” she says of the gamesmanship. “I think they see it for what it is.”
“It kind of stiffens my resolve, to be honest, because it’s like, no, we can do better than this. Fight the game on the field, on policy.”
When it comes to policy, Daniel doesn’t think the Liberals have grasped what drove Goldstein independent in 2022, pointing to recent attacks on refugees, “backsliding” on climate, and ongoing attitudes towards women. She rejects Wilson’s claim that the independents have been ineffective, reeling off changes to the Climate Change Act, the Fair Work Act and the National Reconstruction Fund she achieved by working with the government.
“There’s no ‘jumping around in Parliament’,” she says, quoting Wilson back at me. “There’s usually sitting around a table with a minister going through a bill line by line. And I guess the former member has never done that, so he probably doesn’t understand how that process works.”
There has, of course, been some jumping around of late. Daniel and Wentworth MP Allegra Spender, whose seats have among the highest proportions of Jewish voters, have become the most vocal teals in condemning antisemitism, while copping heat for any sympathy shown towards Gaza. Daniel has refrained from overtly criticising Israel, emphasising “social cohesion”; it’s a far cry from a 2021 letter she signed, which accused Israel of maintaining “an apartheid regime against Palestinians” (she defended it ahead of her election, saying it was “not innately antisemitic to criticise the government of Israel”).
Despite the framing of last week’s October 7 debate as a “test for the teals”, Daniel and Spender both voted for Labor’s motion — a mild acknowledgement of pain on all sides that nevertheless outraged the Coalition and pro-Israel groups. As Daniel told Parliament: “The pain of more than one group of people can coexist, no matter where that pain began.”
Daniel says this is a line she has consistently held, taking a “reasoned humanitarian position” while also speaking out about the “deep-seated fear” among the Jewish community who make up around 9% of her electorate. Many would disagree — and they do, vocally. Daniel has faced “an avalanche of backlash from both sides”, with the pro-Palestine side accusing her of supporting genocide, and the pro-Israel side arguing she’s “let them down”.
“There is a desire for MPs to take a really defined either pro- or anti-Israel position, and I’ve taken neither,” she adds. “As I said in that speech, the pain of that group of people can’t cancel out the pain of everyone who is grieving and harmed by what’s happened since in Gaza and Lebanon. And I think that you can hold those two things.”
There’s no doubt the Coalition will seek to use this issue against Daniel in the upcoming election. It already tried to last election, and that was before October 7 brought everything to a boiling point. But Daniel says there are many people in her electorate, Jewish or otherwise, who support her approach.
“This is such a delicate space, but I do think that a lot of people in the Jewish community do not like the political weaponisation of this issue — either the issue of the conflict or the issue of antisemitism. And I don’t either.”
Members of the Jewish community who don’t share her views probably didn’t vote for her anyway, she says.
So does Zoe Daniel have a better understanding of Goldstein than Tim Wilson, who, like the Coalition, has taken a one-eyed approach to all things Israel? Time will tell, but one thing seems certain: the former MP will be fighting by any means necessary to win back the seat he feels was taken from him.
