Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny
Jun 30, 2026 · 43 min · 11 segments
Have Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender just become the party they always swore they weren't? Can a "free vote" constitution and no party room really survive contact with a Senate seat? Does the…
Zali SteggallGuestAllegra SpenderGuest
Mark KennyHostMaria TaflagaHost
Now Maria, last week the Teal Independents in Federal Parliament, or at least two of them anyway, announced the formation of a new political party, Community Strong Australia.
These two MPs representing leafy electorates on either side of Sydney Harbour are Zali Stegall and Allegra Spender.
Hopefully the bells won't ring and drag you away, but great to have both of you back on Democracy Sausage.
Now, let's start with the, I suppose, I want to sort of start with two things, I suppose.
The name, how you came to it, but also if we could briefly cover just the logic of what it is that you're doing.
Having community strong is pretty upfront with voters about what the proposition is.
And that actually goes to the why, right? A lot of it is about giving more communities that opportunity to have a say in politics and to contribute to policies.
We've been working really hard for our communities and part of this is doubling the impact for our communities through being able to get into the Senate.
But it is about bringing more voices to the table and there are structural disadvantages for getting more community representation in parliament and people are very disillusioned and want choice.
I think a lot of people are deeply cynical about the major parties, deeply frustrated with them, but they're also really concerned about extremism.
And, you know, they may feel that they'd be in a part of a community where they feel like they'll never get an independent up, but then they'd like to find someone to support in the Senate.
Or they may be a community which, you know, which could, you know, develop an independent but actually wants a bit more support because it's really hard to run as an independent.
And so what I, I mean, why I got, you know, why I was really keen to do this with Dali is because I think we need more choice.
I think Australia's politics is at a crossroad and I think that we need some sort of rational decision evidence-based but community-driven policies and solutions to the problems that we have in this country rather than the sort of grievance and shouting and I think you know to do that I think there's a there's a real benefit of of working more closely together you know the independents already work pretty closely but I think there's an opportunity to do that is work more closely together to develop more of those solutions and offer more opportunities to more communities in Australia.
But, I mean, there's obviously a sort of a consciousness here about creating a political party and then there's the perception of political parties out there in the electorate, which I think are probably in the degree of tension from what I've understood so far in terms of the justification of this.
So that's a kind of an interesting thing because this is really trying to be a new kind of party, isn't it?
Now Maria, last week the Teal Independents in Federal Parliament, or at least two of them anyway, announced the formation of a new political party, Community Strong Australia.
These two MPs representing leafy electorates on either side of Sydney Harbour are Zali Stegall and Allegra Spender.
Hopefully the bells won't ring and drag you away, but great to have both of you back on Democracy Sausage.
Now, let's start with the, I suppose, I want to sort of start with two things, I suppose.
The name, how you came to it, but also if we could briefly cover just the logic of what it is that you're doing.
Having community strong is pretty upfront with voters about what the proposition is.
And that actually goes to the why, right? A lot of it is about giving more communities that opportunity to have a say in politics and to contribute to policies.
We've been working really hard for our communities and part of this is doubling the impact for our communities through being able to get into the Senate.
But it is about bringing more voices to the table and there are structural disadvantages for getting more community representation in parliament and people are very disillusioned and want choice.
I think a lot of people are deeply cynical about the major parties, deeply frustrated with them, but they're also really concerned about extremism.
And, you know, they may feel that they'd be in a part of a community where they feel like they'll never get an independent up, but then they'd like to find someone to support in the Senate.
Or they may be a community which, you know, which could, you know, develop an independent but actually wants a bit more support because it's really hard to run as an independent.
And so what I, I mean, why I got, you know, why I was really keen to do this with Dali is because I think we need more choice.
I think Australia's politics is at a crossroad and I think that we need some sort of rational decision evidence-based but community-driven policies and solutions to the problems that we have in this country rather than the sort of grievance and shouting and I think you know to do that I think there's a there's a real benefit of of working more closely together you know the independents already work pretty closely but I think there's an opportunity to do that is work more closely together to develop more of those solutions and offer more opportunities to more communities in Australia.
But, I mean, there's obviously a sort of a consciousness here about creating a political party and then there's the perception of political parties out there in the electorate, which I think are probably in the degree of tension from what I've understood so far in terms of the justification of this.
So that's a kind of an interesting thing because this is really trying to be a new kind of party, isn't it?
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