It was an inauspicious start, but the huge sporting name and particular political mission still made an incredible splash.
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Not too long after hanging up his boots, just before Christmas, former Wallabies captain and Brumbies star David Pocock was making a run for the ACT Senate through a series of Zoom interviews from the other side of the planet, in his birth nation of Zimbabwe.
Amid all the vagaries of this historic pandemic election, it can now be revealed Pocock soon contracted COVID, leaving him unable to quickly come home to Canberra and capitalise.
Despite the risk of a March election, it was several months before the community-endorsed, Climate 200-backed Pocock campaign kicked into gear.
But when it did, it really did - mobilising thousands of volunteers across the ACT, outlining a wide policy platform, drawing in thousands of community donations and shaking the Canberra political establishment.
Here's how the estimated $1 million Pocock campaign successfully tapped into the aspirations of those in the national capital, and how Liberal senator Zed Seselja simply drove voters away.
The capital offence
There's always been something different about the ACT. The heart of power in Australia. More than 314,000 voters in a territory the size of Manhattan.
The most educated, vaccinated, politically literate and engaged voters in the country. Across nearly 50 years of territory representation, the federal results always returned the major parties, with a major lean towards Labor.
And yet since 2013 in the Senate, Canberra had a hard-right Liberal representative in Zed Seselja.
The ACT returned a very high Yes result in the 2017 marriage equality postal plebiscite, and the senator abstained when given the chance to reflect that vote with his own in Parliament. There was also the ongoing Coalition controversies regarding climate action, integrity and - more pointedly - territory rights. The locals long felt taken for granted. The territory is not a state, so is not covered by the same laws - and Seselja made sure voters knew it.
Across the political spectrum, more than 75 per cent of the Australian population backs moves to allow the territories to make their own laws regarding voluntary assisted dying. Just before polling day, NSW became the last state to legislate voluntary euthanasia, but for the ACT and the NT that issue has been roadblocked for years - with hardwired conservative Senator Seselja manning the barricade. All efforts to return territory rights were stymied to the very end of the Morrison government.
Gary Humphries, a moderate Liberal who Seselja replaced in the Senate - says his successor underestimated the people he represented.
"In fact, I think many people found it, frankly, insulting," he says.
"Essentially, he was saying the people in the territory don't have the capacity to make this decision for themselves. [He was saying] 'We, in the Federal Parliament, are better equipped to make that decision.'
"Pocock would not have succeeded if Zed hadn't bared his chest to him and said, you know, 'Stab me here.' It really did lay the groundwork for the Pocock campaign, with a series of positions that just weren't tenable, and just defied the values of Canberra voters.
"I think it's a massive failure of political judgement."
Mission almost impossible
The sheer numbers needed to take down either the Liberal or Labor incumbent were always higher for the Senate than the House.
A seat quota is a high bar, one-third of the total votes plus one (33.3 per cent). So instead of about 30,000 votes for victory, 100,000 are needed - which makes contesting an ACT Senate race like covering three electorates.
Senator Seselja's seat was always the most vulnerable, with the Liberal vote in the ACT historically always lower than the Labor vote. The usual threat came from the Greens, and that party came closest in 2010 and 2013 with then-candidates Lin Hatfield Dodds and Simon Sheikh.
But the Liberal primary vote had never quite been pulled down far enough.
The key was to have a progressive candidate who could appeal to left-leaning Liberals.
It can now be revealed Pocock began his campaign in May 2021, when he was first approached by the group proACT to run as an independent for the ACT's Senate seat, and possibly earn their endorsement. Apart from rugby, he was a known entity in taking a stand on marriage equality and environmental issues, such as his decision to lock on to a coal digger in 2014.
The group had him on one side, and widely respected constitutional expert Kim Rubenstein on the other. The professor burst on the scene shortly afterwards, announcing her run in September, and was talking to the Simon Holmes à Court funding vehicle Climate 200 about support.
proACT had to pick one, and Rubenstein was seen widely as a perfect Senate candidate: independent to the core, and the go-to for advice on pesky section 44 conundrums and territory rights.
Both candidates pitched and were quizzed in December through a town hall process and interviews, with Pocock ultimately endorsed as an "outstanding, authentic leader".
A day later, on December 17, Pocock announced his Senate run.
He had to go then, ready or not, to make the deadline to register as a party, and get a crucial above-the-line position on the Senate ballot.
A detailed analysis of the 2019 election showed the two keys to winning were targeting wavering Liberal voters, and securing second preferences from Labor voters.
Pocock ended up pulling everyone's vote down - including the Greens and Labor, to the point the ALP had to call in help from Julia Gillard to ensure Senator Katy Gallagher retained her seat.
Money, money, money
From its standing start after the announcement in December, the Pocock campaign had no Climate 200 funding and no functioning mechanism to take donations.
It would be later in February before donations started coming in.
From there, the campaign scaled up rapidly, getting attention and signing up an extraordinary 150 volunteers a week - ending with around 2200. It was possibly the biggest single-campaign volunteer base in the country.
One of Pocock's 12 major donors over the threshold of $14,500 was himself and his wife Emma. Another was Climate 200. The candidate knocked back a large number of corporate donations, refusing to take money from companies in the fields of fossil fuels, tobacco, junk food, property development or gambling. Ultimately, it is understood there were large donations from trusts - and it is planned that they will be declared next year in line with current rules.
The Pocock campaign took in more than $100,000 in community donations through his website alone.
Under the Climate 200 model, candidates are assessed for policies and viability before funding is allocated. There is seeding money, and then more is drip-fed as confidence grows in the campaign. Expensive polling is also undertaken on behalf of the candidates.
Momentum and the blanketing of Pocock's face around the ACT were everything. Campaign material, like moving billboards and social media posts, was professional and slick-looking. Political observers spoke of the campaign having the "smell of success". Uni students stole large David Pocock billboards in the dead of night - and posted themselves doing it on social media.
The key was that Pocock was high-profile, authentic and capitalising on "not politics as usual".
"He ran a grassroots campaign more akin to what a House of Reps candidate might run - that he was very visible," ANU political scientist Professor Ariadne Vromen says.
"He was on the ground. He was attending community meetings. He was using social media, he was very present in traditional media, interviews and articles as well. There was coverage of his campaign around the country, not just in the ACT.
"And he organised people to back his campaign, in that he had - like a lot of the other teal candidates and the independents and, importantly, what started with the 'Voices For' movement - he had a strong group of people around him willing to campaign with him."
It looked expensive, and it cost money. But at the same time, the slick visuals and social media were provided by a talented friend and creative, Lincoln Magee. Pocock pulled together a strong team around him.
It is unsourced, but the Liberal Party claims "the left" has spent more than $12 million over the past decade trying to unseat Senator Seselja.
By the end, The Canberra Times can reveal the Pocock campaign cost around $1 million, with Climate 200 funding representing less than half of his campaign total. Climate 200 supported 23 candidates in 2022 with up to $500,000 each on a "no strings" basis, but Pocock and Rubenstein were the only two backed Senate candidates.
Pocock says money isn't everything.
"When you look at [Clive Palmer's] UAP: $100 million. Huge name recognition. Tanked. So you have to back it up with being able to talk about the issues," he explains.
A direct threat
The minute Pocock arrived on the scene, Seselja was roused into action.
With the aspirant attacking the government over neglected infrastructure, particularly sporting infrastructure, it felt like a kick into the Liberal senator's home territory.
Government funding announcements flowed for the AIS Arena, Viking Park and the Home of Football.
The Liberal proxy attack unit Advance Australia also got in on the action, exposing itself as an ally of Seselja by specifically targeting Pocock with its "Greens Superman" advertising and robocalls which breached electoral laws. It also letterboxed 200,000 homes.
The efforts confused voters, but ultimately failed. The challenge for independents is always name recognition and people knowing that they are running.
Pocock did not have to run hard on climate - Advance Australia did that for him.
"I think people just shook their heads in disbelief at that stupidity," Humphries says.
"I think people just said, 'Well, this guy must be desperate, this senator must be desperate to hold on if he's resorting to measures like that.' And pretty much the same with the numerous expensive promises that were rolled out on the eve of the election."
Pocock attended all community forums, toured businesses and held well-attended Politics in the Park events.
The army of Pocock volunteers, many who had never been involved in politics before, spread out from the centre of Canberra, doorknocking in Tuggeranong, Belconnen and Gungahlin. The effort included leaving personalised messages on pamphlets.
The volunteers fully staffed the six pre-poll voting centres and the 91 booths around the ACT on polling day.
Both Labor, the Liberal Party and the independents, through Climate 200, conducted voter-intention polling throughout the campaign. Only the Climate 200 polling was published. The two sets of data were a wake-up call for the entire field.
The political landscape has changed
The ACT is a microcosm of the national picture.
The Labor vote was down, but people collectively chose the ALP to lead while sending the strongest possible message about political integrity and core representation.
It was felt more strongly in the ACT.
Gary Humphries insists the Canberra Liberals must start a frank appraisal of the election result, and make a serious effort to make the party more relevant to Canberrans.
"We really have to address the fact that we have a conservative element in our membership which is dragging us away from the mainstream of Canberra values," he told The Canberra Times.
"As a party, we were not connecting with what people in the territory believe and want to see us do."
Senator Gallagher, who has now been sworn in as Finance Minister, has been maintaining a mantra that politicians should never be comfortable.
"Any politician that just goes into this thinking 'That seat's mine, will always be this way, it'll never shift,' ... this election surely has run a line under that approach," she said.
Am independent blueprint?
Similar independent Senate campaigns could be run in Tasmania, and perhaps the Northern Territory - but logistically, larger states such as NSW and Queensland are perhaps a bridge too far.
But could the ACT House of Representatives seats, long held by Labor, ever change hands? The fight in the seat of Canberra is now between Labor and the Greens, not Labor and the Liberals.
"I think we've got to work hard to keep them. And I think that's without doubt, and we know that we've got the Greens snapping at the ankles, and they will continue to do that," the new minister says.
"We've got to absolutely make sure that we work hard for this community, and when we next ask them for their vote, that they're not wondering why."
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