Dr Monique Ryan is running as a ‘teal independent’ in the seat of Kooyong at this week’s federal election. Photo: AAP

“Gough’s been sacked!,” Mum shrieked as she drove us from school in Irymple along the Calder Highwy to our home in Mildura, a conservative stronghold in the Mallee region of Victoria.

I remember the 11th of November 1975 well. A dark day in the history of Australian politics, in our house anyway.

It ranks among those memorable moments as a young kid like Cyclone Tracey or the first time I went to watch a VFL match (Collingwood v Footscray at VFL Park in 1976, my Magpies lost but I loved every minute of it).

The news of the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor Government came across on the cassette radio we had on the dashboard of our HR Holden station wagon. When Mum and Dad weren’t playing Daddy Who? Daddy Cool by Daddy Cool, the radio was firmly fixed on the ABC.

Mum and Dad were both primary school teachers and firm rank-and-file members of the VTU, the Victorian Teachers’ Union. Gough championed a lot of their beliefs: workplace fairness; healthcare for all; a fair go for everyone; and taking both an anti-war and anti-nuclear energy stance.

The Old Man had the “WE WANT GOUGH” and “SOLAR NOT NUCLEAR” badges and stickers on the family car and he and Mum would watch all the classic ABC current affairs shows of the time such as This Day Tonight (TDT) hosted by Peter Couchman, Bill Peach and Mike Willesee at various times.

Others included Nationwide, Four Corners and of course the classic 7pm ABC national news bulletin when we all had to be quiet.

I had a keen interest in politics from a young age, fascinated how government was structured, formed and how it functioned. And I was given a pretty good idea (according to Mum and Dad) who the good politicians were and who the bad ones were too.

Like a lot of people, I had my opinions formed by what I saw and heard at the table at home and comments from Dad yelling at people like Country Party MP Doug Anthony as he talked his way out of something on the TV.

They say you become a little more conservative as you get older. Maybe I have when it comes to the bad music they play on the radio or the rule changes in footy (that’s a whole other piece of writing), but I find myself holding onto the same values I’ve always had and sometimes, at the polling booth, moving further to the left of politics if the current policies of the ALP aren’t up to my liking.

In recent times I’ve sensed a shift, even by those with traditionally conservative voting intentions, to a more progressive view toward energy policy and climate change policy. For a nation that deals with drought, bushfires, floods and the effects of these, it is logical to want to move in this direction.

Maybe even Doug Anthony would agree, as some of the hardest hit by these issues are farmers. Unfortunately, his party is these days made up of many different factions and the traditional farming base is now the minority amongst extreme right-wing characters with many contrarian ideas to the traditional National Party voter.

And unfortunately, the Liberal Party of today is hamstrung by some of these characters and some within their own party who have managed to be elected to Parliament. As they need to form a coalition with the Nationals to form government, these people make up a good proportion of the Coalition and progressive policy on energy and climate change is pretty much stifled.

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This election, though, we are seeing a large number of, for want of a better term, ‘conservative lite’ candidates running for seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. They’ve been referred to also as teal candidates.

I think these are an attractive choice for many in traditional Liberal or National Party seats as they hold some conservative traditions but are passionate about climate change and clean energy. And what we might see, but of course there will still be pockets of the electorate unwilling to change, is a more bipartisan Parliament that is eager to make the necessary changes sooner than later.

Any Chicken Little “sky is falling” rants by establishment conservative politicians are purely turf protection. A classic example of this is Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. He has been the MHR for Kooyong since the 2010 election after the retirement of previous sitting member Petro Georgio.

Frydenberg, born and bred in the electorate and son of a surgeon, has enjoyed a comfortable majority in the seat of Sir Robert Menzies, the nation’s longest-serving Prime Minister. The born-to-Rule attitude of Menzies is ingrained in this part of Melbourne where the rich and political elite have rubbed shoulders at parties, school pick-up and bumped into each other tyre-kicking at the Mercedes Benz dealer in Kew on a Saturday morning for decades.

Enter ‘conservative lite’/teal candidate Dr Monique Ryan. Like Frydenberg, born and bred in the Kooyong electorate, she is a successful paediatric neurologist with serious concerns for the environment and climate change.

An increasing frustration at a lack of action and indifference, even denial on both subjects by numerous federal governments, has forced the hand of people like Dr Ryan to stand as a candidate.

Kooyong and several other traditional Liberal-held seats such as Goldstein, in the bayside suburbs of Melbourne where former journalist Zoe Daniel is up against Tim Wilson, the sitting Liberal Party MHR, are a real chance of changing to Independent candidates.

For me, this is a positive sign, where people may still hold those traditional conservative values but have moved into the 21st century and adjusted their priorities when it comes to their vote with the environment and climate change at the forefront.

So, any soundbites on the news or current affairs shows or 3AW are purely out of desperation by the establishment, supported by their cheerleaders, those rags published by the Murdoch inner city firm, Australia’s most dangerous gang, whose influence is clearly not as strong as it once was.

They know change is on the horizon and their hold on power is slipping rapidly.

It’s been over 46 years since Mum freaked out on the way to Mildura, and the Old Man’s badges and stickers on the HR Holden are finally becoming serious issues at the polling booth for much of the political spectrum.

This coming Saturday could see a real change in the direction Australia takes to some of the most important issues of the modern age, along with repairing our relationship with nations around the world which have been damaged by the current Prime Minister.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, and I can picture an HR Holden station wagon leading the convoy out of that tunnel. An electric one of course …