Voting with climate in mind? Here’s how to put climate first in the 2025 federal election.
In Australia’s preferential voting system, every number counts. Place your strongest climate candidate as number 1, then order the rest according to your values. To maximise climate impact, put climate-denying or fossil fuel-supporting parties last.
If you live in Corangamite electorate – the Geelong or Surf Coast regions – and would like to prioritise climate safety, we recommend numbering your Lower House ballot as follows:
CORANGAMITE
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CORANGAMITE
1. LOCKHART, Kate – Community Independent
8. JACKSON, James – Trumpet of Patriots
7. BARKER, Paul – Libertarian Party
2. POPE, Mitch – The Greens
6. SEABROOK, Colin – Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
4. COKER, Libby – Australian Labor Party
3. MCKENZIE, Harley – Legalise Cannabis Party
5. DUNSTAN, Darcy – Liberal Party
CORIO
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CORIO
6. HELMAN, Adam – Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
3. HATHWAY, Sarah – Socialist Alliance
2. DE LORENZO, John – Independent
1. FLYNN, Emilie – The Greens
5. BULLER, Darren – Liberal
4. MARLES, Richard – Australian Labor Party
We have ranked Emily Flynn from the Greens and Kate Lockhart, Community Independent, as Number 1 on their respective ballot lists. The main reason being: They both have strong climate policies, and they are women.
Photo on top of this page: Emilie Flynn and Kate Lockhart
How to vote for the Senate, also known as The Upper House
Vote Climate suggests you vote above the line, and use approximately with following numbering:
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The most important thing to remember when voting for the Senate above the line is to number not just the required six but at least 12 parties.
There are 6 senate seats being contested in Victoria. Only the sixth seat is likely to be hotly contested. The first five seats will go most likely two to Labor, one to Greens and two to LNP candidates who will be elected after the first few rounds of counting.
However, if you stop at six, your ballot paper could be ‘exhausted’ before the all-important sixth Senate place is decided. The contest for the last spot could be between One Nation and the Legalise Cannabis Party, and if you haven’t voted for either of them, you may end up with the party you like the least.
If you choose to go below the line to vote for the 66 individual candidates, you must number at least 12 boxes for individual candidates in the order of your choice (with number 1 as your first choice). You can number as many additional boxes as you choose (i.e. more than 12 boxes).
Times Group’s candidate profiles and questionnaires
Meet your Corangamite candidates
The Sustainable Hour’s interviews with candidates
You can read more about independent Corangamite candidate Kate Lockhart‘s climate policies here:
…and you can listen to our 45-minute radio interview with Kate Lockhart here:
You can listen to our interview with Corangamite Greens candidate Mitch Pope here:
Here’s a Facebook video post from Corangamite candidate Dr Harley Mackenzie, Legalise Cannabis Party:
→ Surf Coast Times – 10 April 2025:
Torquay software developer joins Corangamite race
You can listen to our 18-minute interview with Corio independent candidate John De Lorenzo here:
We interviewed Corio Greens candidate Emilie Flynn on International Womens’ Day:
We interviewed Corio Socialist Alliance candidate Sarah Hathway here:
The Pulse’s 2025 Federal Election Candidate Forum
Starts 4 minutes in. Mitch Pope, Harley McKenzie, Paul Barker, Kate Lockhart
John De Lorenzo, Emilie Flynn, Sarah Hathway
HOW-TO-VOTE CARDS, TOOLS AND GUIDES
Compare climate policies: independent scorecards
Do your own research! There are multiple tools and scorecards you can take inspiration from. Learn about the candidates for the Lower House in the following guides, tools and scorecards which are listed below.
These tools and guides were also where we found advice as we ranked the Lower House candidates in Corio and Corangamite.
Climate Council’s Scorecard – rates major parties (Labor, Coalition, Greens) on climate and energy
Vote Climate One’s Traffic Light Guide – ranks all candidates green/orange/red based on policy strength
ACF’s Election Scorecard – tells you where the big parties and independents stack up
Climate Council’s Election Policy Scorecard
Climate Council has summarised the climate and energy policies of the Australian Labor Party, the Liberal National Party, and the Australian Greens so you can vote in the 2025 federal election armed with the facts.
→ Election Policy Scorecard: How do the biggest parties measure up on climate policy?
Traffic Light Election Guide
Vote Climate One is an independent non-partisan tool which ranks candidates according to the climate policies. Each candidate is given one of the colours from the traffic light:
🚦 Green: Strong climate action commitment
🚦 Orange: Moderate commitment
🚦 Red: Poor or no commitment
Corangamite green light candidates are:
• Kate Lockhart
• Harley Mackenzie
• Mitch Pope
Corio green light candidates are:
• Sarah Hathway
• Emilie Flynn
ACF’s interactive scorecard
Australian Conservation Foundation’s Election Scorecard tells you where the big parties and independents stack up, fall short, or flat out fail in their commitments to save nature, champion renewables, reject nuclear, and stop the climate wreckers.
This scorecard provides a detailed analysis of each party’s stance on critical environmental issues.
Greens: 98/100
Labor: 54/100
Coalition: 1/100
Leading Community Independents received high scores for their strong climate and nature policies.
→ The Guardian – 15 April 2025:
Coalition scores just 1/100 points for environment and climate policies from conservation organisation
“Australian Conservation Foundation says opposition has ‘failed every single test’ while Labor passes with 54% and Greens achieve 98%.”
CAHA’s climate scorecard
Which parties pass the climate and health check?
AYCC’s climate justice scorecard
Vote Earth Now
Vote Earth Now: Hold politicians accountable on climate
Vote Earth Now is a non-partisan initiative empowering Australians to ensure their votes drive real climate action. By analysing federal parliamentary voting records, the platform assigns a Climate Action Score to each party, reflecting their commitment to environmental policies.
Key features:
- Climate Action Score: Evaluates parties based on their parliamentary voting history on climate-related legislation.
- Electorate insights: Enter your postcode to discover how your local representatives have voted on climate issues.
- Direct engagement: Easily email your MP to express your stance on climate policies.
- Community impact: Join a network of citizens pledging to prioritize climate in their voting decisions.
By participating, you signal to politicians that climate action is a decisive factor in your vote. This collective pressure can influence policy decisions and promote environmental responsibility.
Looking for more resources to help you and your networks make informed voting decisions?
Check out Project Planet’s new Build a Ballot tool and the ABC’s Vote Compass to see how candidates stack up against your values and priorities this election.
- They vote for you: See how your MP has voted on the issues that matter to you
ABC Friends Geelong’s election scorecard
ABC Friends Geelong contacted the four leading Corangamite candidates for their response to the joint ABC Friends and ABC Alumni election platform. Here’s how they rated them:
Green means they or their party fully support the proposal, orange means they haven’t completely ruled it out, red means they are opposed to it.
The group wrote: “While Libby Coker is a former member of ABC Friends and strong supporter of the ABC and her party has restored a lot of lost funding, they are not prepared to meet all of our requests. Darcy Dunstan didn’t ever respond to our emails and messages, but the Liberal Party HQ eventually sent us a statement of their position. We were able to meet both Kate Lockhart and Mitch Pope, who were very enthusiastic in their support for a well-funded independent ABC. You can see the complete scorecard and read a full explanation of our ratings here.”
Want to compare with how things looked last election?
Here’s what we recommended in 2022:
How you put climate first in the 2022 federal election
Endorsed by Centre for Climate Safety and The Sustainable Hour.
Let us know if your organisation would like to endorse this guide as well, and we will then add your organisation’s name here.
Authorised by Mike Lawrence, 2172 Ballan Rd, Anakie 3213
Why not the Greens or in the case of Corio, Socialist Alliance, in both electorates? Kate Lockhart being publicly backed by Democracy First, an organisation that rails against “climate alarmism” and softly tries to both sides the “debate”, isn’t good. At least the Greens and Socialist Alliance have a broad platform that their candidates can be held to and can’t, unlike this independent, try to be everything to everybody (thus becoming nothing to nobody)
In Corangamite, both Kate and Mitch have better climate policies than any of the other candidates. From the climate’s perspective, either of them could be placed as No. 1. However since there is no such thing in Australian elections as a “Shared No 1”, we then looked at other things as well, and had a quick internal vote. Everyone would have had their own reasons for who they voted for, but it probably mattered that Kate is a woman who has been given special recognition for her climate activism work and that she is part of a broader Community Independent movement which is changing the way we do politics in this country.
Where did you pick up that Kate is publicly backed by Democracy First? That is incorrect information. Kate is backed by a community group called Voices of Corangamite, http://www.voicesofcorangamite.org – and apart from that, she is fiercely independent, also economically. However, I don’t think you can say that she is trying to be “everything to everybody”. You can read about her policy platform on her website.
Cheers, Mik