An ambitious campaign: Elizabeth Farrelly running for NSW upper house as an independent

By ERIN MODARO

Writer, essayist, columnist, architecture critic, former City of Sydney Councillor, Archibald prize portrait sitter, PHD holder- Dr Elizabeth Farrelly seems to have seen and done it all in Sydney’s city limits. Now, Farrelly is re-entering the political realm with a new and ambitious goal. 

Farrelly is running as an independent for the upper house in NSW Parliament at the 2023 state election; a feat that no one has succeeded at before.  

No independent candidate has ever been elected to the NSW upper house. The two current independents serving in the Legislative Council, Fred Nile and Justin Field, were voted in as a Christian Democrat and a Greens member respectively, before leaving their parties to become independents.  

Farrelly recognises the difficult nature of the task ahead.  

“Everything’s stacked against you” she said. “As an independent, you don’t get your name above the line on the ballot paper and that makes it almost doubly difficult to have anyone recognise your existence.” 

On ballot papers, independent candidates don’t have their name displayed above the line, unless they run as a part of a party. In a move most famously employed by Sydney’s long-reigning Lord Mayor Clover Moore, Farrelly found herself a party so she could begin with a fighting chance.  

Political parties must be registered for a full 12 months before an election. So, Elizabeth assembled a team of independents and co-opted the Keep Sydney Open Party which first began in opposition to Sydney’s lockout laws.

The party name is currently in the process of being changed to Elizabeth Farrelly Independents. 

“A lot of people think it’s weird. To be an independent and have a party” Farrelly acknowledged. “Which it is.” 

This political acrobatics reflects a tactic that other independents have used. Sydney is a greenhouse for successful independent campaigns. Olympic swimmer Dawn Fraser swept up the seat of Balmain from under Labor’s nose in the 1980s.  

Clover Moore’s team has dominated the polls for Sydney’s mayorship for 17 years. Alex Greenwich has sat in NSW’s Lower House since 2012, recently celebrating 10 years in Parliament.   

Sydney, of course, saw major success for teals in the federal election this year, with Allegra Spender taking a safe-Liberal seat in Wentworth.

However state elections represent a much different playing field to federal ones. Strict caps on political donations make running as an independent difficult. In 2022 to 2023, donations to a registered party or group of candidates are limited to $7000. While third party campaign groups are able to spend $26,700 on seats, often independents don’t have access to this sort of support.

“[Third parties] can spend a lot of money on sort of indirect support and campaigning for the major parties” Farrelly said.

Heritage, planning and development

As a strong advocate for city planning and heritage preservation in the past, Farrelly says these areas are a focus of her campaign. Farrelly published ‘Killing Sydney’ in 2021, a deep dive into development in Sydney over the past 10 years.

The current wave of rezoning and re-development within Sydney has Farrelly concerned.  

“I’ve always been concerned about heritage, but I’m very concerned, for example, about proposals at Central Station.”  

The Central Precinct, a state government overhaul with multiple high-rises planned for the areas around Central station, has been a topic of contention for locals and heritage groups. Recently the National Trust, of which Farrelly is a board member, opposed plans for a 45-storey commercial skyscraper being constructed over a heritage postal building.  

Farrelly referred to the Central Precinct plans as “a great forest of towers”.  

She said she wants a change to how planning decisions are made, moving them to favour public benefit.  

“How can this development… be garnered and shaped around doing good things for the public? 

“It’s a kind of conceptual shift that we will be pursuing and slightly longer term.” 

Farrelly also mentioned public transport cuts affecting Pyrmont.

“There’s been about four or five bus services just cancelled, so there’s almost no remaining public transport.”

A forum of vocal Pyrmont residents has been campaigning for a fix to the public transport situation in the inner-city peninsula, in which some commuters have said it now takes 40 minutes to get to Barangaroo.

“Change the balance of power”

In launching her campaign, Farrelly said she chose the upper house, as the concerns she was finding on the ground weren’t confined to a geographical electorate, but rather “a stratum of society, culture, community… of really passionate, concerned, interested, engaged, people who really want change”.  

The current composition of the upper house, Farrelly says, is split 20 to 22 down the line of more progressive members versus conservative. 

“And so, if you had even one seat, you could actually stand to change things quite significantly change the balance of power” she said.  

While Climate 200 is not officially backing any particular candidates for NSW in 2023 yet, it’s hard not to spot the teal amour brandished on Farrelly’s campaign posters.  

Farrelly said it was “crazy not to be a part of the same livery” as the teals.  

“They essentially had three those three values, which was gender equality, climate action, and transparency. And we absolutely support all of those things.” 

However where Federal teals met on the battleground over climate policy and ICAC, state teals are zooming in on over-development and planning. Independent candidate for Vaucluse Karen Fryer will face off with new Liberal candidate Kellie Sloane, both calling for a look at the balance between over-development and meeting housing needs in the eastern suburbs.

While no funding from Climate 200 has been allocated, Farrelly said it “looks promising” that the funding giant will back teals in the NSW election, just over 4 months away. Simon Holmes à Court recently said that his fundraising group is considering funding up to 10 teals in NSW, after backing 4 candidates in the Victorian election.

“It’s really exhilarating,” Farrelly said about the launch of her campaign.  

“It’s exciting to see people prepared to give up time and energy and money for, for what’s really an altruistic pursuit to try and make the world a better place.”