Independent MP Allegra Spender has confirmed that she asked for a reference to Simon Holmes à Court be removed from the Australian Financial Review’s ‘covert power list’.
Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Spender said she had a problem with the idea that the Climate 200 founder was somehow covertly “pulling the strings” of her political decisions.
“I heard that Simon Holmes à Court was on the ‘covert power list’ and I have a problem with the idea that women like myself get here and there’s someone covertly hiding behind us pulling the strings,” she said.
“I’m a woman of my middle ages, I’ve spent 10 or 15 years running companies, I’ve got three kids, I’ve got a life that I’m trying to run. I feel this continual…insinuation that somebody out there is pulling the strings is insulting to me but I think it’s insulting to women around Australia who are saying ‘look, we make up our own minds’.”
Holmes à Court is a business person and founder of Climate 200, a political crowd funding organisation that backs independent candidates committed to the values of climate action and integrity in politics. It helped fund the ‘teal’ independents who swept to power at the 2022 federal election, including Spender.
Spender went on to say that one of the “big learnings” from the 2022 election is that women make up their own minds, and we need more women in positions of power.
“We talk about women and talk about Peter Dutton and the Libs…one of the things that concerns me on so many different levels, including with the abortion debate that we are somehow now having again, is that we need women in the rooms of power and across our parliament,” Spender said.
“If the Liberal Party is serious about women, I cannot understand how they’ve managed to preselect 17 men in Queensland out of the 18 seats that they currently hold. That is absolutely remarkable.”
Spender was also asked about the prospect of a future hung parliament and how she would approach negotiations with major parties.
“Then it is a negotiation, and that matters,” she said. “Climate is incredibly important to me and my community … and frankly it is unacceptable that the Coalition pretends that they care about climate action, when they are saying they won’t have a 2030 target. That is unacceptable and it is ridiculous. Let’s see what actually comes out of any negotiation.”