When Alex Fein, research and intelligence principal at RedBridge Group, runs focus groups around the country, the feedback she hears is both illuminating and sobering. “When it comes to the two major parties, people overwhelmingly feel ‘a pox on both their houses’,” she says, pointing in particular to their failure to address rising economic pressures.
“They’re despised almost across the board and people often don’t see a difference between them. They see them as being in hock to vested interests and serving big business over the interests of ordinary people. They say, ‘It’s the government’s job to protect us.’ And they believe the government – Labor or Liberal – has not done that job.”
So who could do that job? In this environment of eroding trust and rising disaffection, new political forces are emerging. A wave of political disruptors – women, notably – is offering an alternative.
There’s Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall, two independent MPs who – following the success of their community-backed campaigns, which demonstrated voters are willing to support candidates outside the traditional two-party system – have formed Community Strong Australia. There’s Charlotte Mortlock, who’s kickstarted a movement to create a new political party from the ground up. And there’s Bronwen Bock and Lucy Bradlow, who founded Better Together, a party built on challenging the status quo via collaboration, which for them meant campaigning as job-sharing candidates.
“Many of the problems we see in the two-party system are that the parties prioritise conformity of thought,” Bradlow says. “That’s why it’s so exciting to see other women come together to form political parties, especially when these new parties are non-hierarchical and encourage active disagreement and debate.”
Some of these movements are emerging as an alternative to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, another anti-establishment force capitalising on the prevailing mood. But, as Mortlock says, “Australians want a political party that’s radical in its ambition and tenacity, not necessarily radical in its ideology.”
Meanwhile, young women such as political commentator Hannah Ferguson, who has voiced her intention to run as an independent candidate in the Senate, and senator Fatima Payman, who left the Labor Party for the crossbench, are unafraid to challenge legacy systems.
Why women and why now? Perhaps it’s a response to stalled progress on issues that disproportionately affect women. Combine that with peak frustration at internal party culture, and it’s no wonder women are choosing to step up and respond to disillusioned voters. Or, maybe it’s because if you want something done, you ask a woman. Here, we speak to four of these advocates for political change.
Charlotte Mortlock
Earlier this year, Charlotte Mortlock realised she was politically homeless. A long-time Liberal member and advocate for women in politics, she’d worked as a political reporter for Sky News, a media adviser in federal parliament and as founder of Hilma’s Network, a community designed to empower liberal-minded women and raise money for female Coalition candidates.
But in February she left the Liberals, citing a loss of confidence in the party’s direction. “I became quite frustrated with the lack of will to evolve and try new things,” Mortlock says. “I realised if the party was so unwilling to address the women’s issue and take real action to fix it, they weren’t going to fix any of the other issues I had … One of the real nails in the coffin happened on the morning of MP Katie Allen’s funeral, when six Liberal men met to discuss their own ambitions in rolling [leader of the party] Sussan Ley.”
Still driven by a huge passion and energy for democracy, Mortlock assessed her options. “I decided that instead of sitting at dinner parties complaining about the state of politics, I’d go out and do something myself.”
That something was Something Better, a grassroots campaign to create Australia’s next major political party. To date, about 1200 people have signed up, and at 1500 signatories the movement can turn into a party, the details of which will be shaped by the community. Mortlock says she has no interest in entering politics herself.
“Something Better is focused on being a hopeful and positive movement as opposed to blaming different cohorts for what’s happening in the country. We’ve got 10-year goals for Australia, not election promises,” she says. “We think that’s really important because Australians are sick of the shortsightedness of politicians.”
The model takes cues from French President Emmanuel Macron, who founded his own political party in 2016 and won the election the following year, and also draws inspiration from Taiwan’s pioneering open-source framework (making government technology and data more transparent).
“We’re hoping to digitalise democracy and participation, because you need to meet people where they’re at,” Mortlock says. “If people aren’t volunteering and they don’t want to be part of political parties, how do you still engage with them in a constructive way that isn’t populist?”
For Mortlock, it feels liberating to start something fresh with no baggage or history, but also risky. “You’re risking the humiliation of failure because you’re trying to do something pretty hard,” she admits. “But I think women have that determination and commitment to future generations. They want to improve the country and leave it better than [how] they found it.”
Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender
“I like big goals,” says Zali Steggall OAM, champion skier, former barrister and the independent federal member for Warringah since 2019. “I guess I’ve never been afraid to tackle something that might seem too big to manage, whether it was making it to the Winter Olympics, going from sport to a career at the bar, then taking on Tony Abbott to transition into politics. They’re fairly big choices.”
Her latest big choice is to establish a new political party with fellow “teal” independent MP Allegra Spender, the federal member for Wentworth. Community Strong Australia plans to bring the successful, community-led model of the teal movement to more communities across the country, promising unity over division and reason over rage.
“Our country’s success wasn’t built on complaining or fighting each other. It was built on the common good of hard work, tolerance, shared identity and purpose,” says Spender, who entered politics in 2022 with decades of experience in business leadership and economic policy.
“It was built from communities up, and that is where politics needs to return.” Motivation to form the party, rather than continuing as independents, was shaped by a desire to “double the impact” along with underlying structural considerations.
“For communities to be represented in the Senate … you need a party structure to be above the line on the ballot paper,” Steggall explains. “And with the current trend of One Nation surging in popularity, I think it’s important that there be a community representation and sensible centrist alternative on the table.”
As Community Strong – now in its “start-up phase” – works towards contesting the 2028 federal election, it faces a fundamental challenge: how to build a political party without reproducing the culture and structures it set out to replace.
“Allegra and I are very cognisant of that challenge,” Steggall says, noting that the party will have a community-centric membership model, where members can get involved through volunteering rather than monetary fees, and no singular leader. It represents politics done differently, which is something Steggall and Spender are adamant their voters want. Especially women.
Steggall says, “I hear it a lot: women have had enough of politics done under the status quo. They’re ready for a change.”
Fatima Payman
“Let me know if the buzzing sound is annoying,” says Fatima Payman, independent senator for Western Australia, who is expressing milk while her six-week-old baby, Aaliyah, sleeps. “I think women are great multitaskers and we adapt to new challenges and are solution-focused. We get the job done and we don’t faff around.”
In 2022, Payman, who fled the Taliban when she was five, became the first Afghan-Australian and the first hijab-wearing Muslim woman elected to federal parliament. She was 27, and won the final Senate vacancy from third place on the ticket, a feat not accomplished by Labor since 1984. But her experience inside the major party quickly fell short of expectations.
“I noticed they were kind of using me as a token poster child when it suited them,” she says. In June 2024, Payman crossed the floor to support a Greens motion to recognise the State of Palestine.
“There was a clash between the party platform around Palestinian statehood and the party’s position at the time,” she remembers. “And I was like, we spend months putting together this party platform, are we not actually going to put it into action now that we’re in power? It felt very hypocritical to me.” Soon after, Payman left the Labor party and launched her own movement.
“I began Australia’s Voice after hearing from so many people who were struggling to find a political home,” she says. The party ran five unsuccessful candidates for the Senate in the 2025 federal election, but Payman, who is currently representing her community as an independent, has left the door open to running under the banner in the future. “Right now, we’re seeing women leading the way to diversify options and choices for everyday Australians.
They’re saying, ‘You don’t have to stick with the two major party duopoly or even with the minor parties.’ We’re seeing a lot of disenfranchisement, and we’re seeing pushback and critical thinking from Australians who are no longer just blindly following a party because their parents or grandparents told them to.
“Something I’ve learnt is that Australians want to see brave and courageous leadership in their elected officials, not just holding onto power and lacking the courage to do what’s right for people,” continues Payman, whose appetite for disruption is only growing. “I guess having a baby has changed my perspective because I think, ‘What kind of a world are you going to grow up in?’”
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