Mia
Hello, friend. This is a first for the podcast. I'm about to interview a political candidate. Got Marketing is not a political show, and I am not a political journalist. Let's just put that upfront. But I care deeply about the future of this country and also the future of the Northern Territory. If you've been around here for a while, you'll know that I live. And breathe campaigns. When I'm explaining a marketing campaign, I often use a political analogy. So when I heard about Phil Scott, an independent running in the upcoming federal election, I was curious. Because building a grassroots political campaign from scratch, that's serious and strategic marketing.
So in this episode, we are gonna talk about what it actually takes to run as an independent, how he's getting the message out there without the machinery of a major party, and why the term teal has become more loaded than I realised. Plus, my real fear about Peter Dutton and whether voting independent.
plits the progressive vote and what Phil would actually do for small businesses and women if he's elected. So hopefully he joins us soon.
Phil
Oh, hello. Good day. Good day. Hi. So nice to meet you. Absolutely pleasure. Yeah. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. Oh, thanks for being interested. Yeah. Being curious.
Mia
Yeah, totally. Well, we both run campaigns now. We do. Yeah. We could, uh, get some expertise, expert tips, and most welcome. Oh, for sure. I'm very generous towards your campaign. I love what you've been doing. I'm gonna vote for you and I would love. To let the got marketing listeners know what it is that you stand for and why they should also vote for you. So should we dive in?
Phil
Let's do it.
Mia
All right. Okay. So you are running as an independent with no party machine behind you. What does your campaign actually look like on the ground?
Phil
On the ground, we are increasing by the day in terms of the number of volunteers that we have a part of this, we started a couple of years ago with.
A strong sense that things just weren't right here in the territory for us. We weren't getting the shift on all sorts of things like economic development, cost of living, women's issues, domestic and family violence. All of these issues are, um, are not shifting in the way that we want them to. So we said about asking questions and we used the process developed by the Victorian Women's Trust that was facilitated. Kitchen table conversations about eight people around a table, 90 minutes, and we ask people what they love about our community, what their issues and concerns are, and what good representation looks like to them. They responded. We analyzed the responses to those, we compiled it into a report qualitatively and quantitatively, found out what people care about, and we reflected that back to the community to say, Hey, this is us.
This is what we're saying. 86% of the community didn't feel adequately represented.
Mia
Wow. That's huge.
Phil
It's massive. Yeah. So then if we're gonna ask the questions, it's then beholden on us to explore, well, what do our responses need to be here? What's clear is that the major parties are failing at. So independent representation and a grassroots way of representing is what it's all about. So lots of people got excited through that listening process, and they are the ones who are volunteering. Many of us have given up jobs to be a part of this campaign, which is a culmination of all of that curiosity, all of those questions and all of that energy and drive and motivation to get authentic representation for ourselves.
In Canberra. So what it looks like on the ground is all of us learning what being a campaign manager looks like, what being a candidate looks like, what being an operations lead looks like. Volunteer management, social media management of a campaign. Uh, there's so many roles and we just keep adding them on.
There's more volunteers come in 'cause there's always lots to do.
Mia
Yeah. I love that so much. I say this all the time, that marketing is just really good listening and it seems like that's exactly what you started with. You're like, well. I'm not gonna sit here and guess what people want? I'll just go and bloody ask them.
Phil
Yeah, yeah, that's right. And I think actually it's because we are from the community and we care deeply about the community. We are really driven. So I mean, I suppose in your work, you, you are marketing products to sell. Uh, you have to have something decent to begin with because we've listened. We actually know that people want something other than what they've got at the moment. And we are pretty confident that. Independent grassroots representation is appealing to people, and that's what we're picking up on the ground in a quite a striking way that folks are up for this.
Mia
Can you get specific, what exactly do they feel that is missing that your campaign is gonna deliver for them?
Phil
They can see that the things that they care about, nothing's shifting on. We have grinding levels of poverty in the Northern Territory. Yeah. We have gendered violence at rates that are awful. Awesome. We need to be honest about these things. We have a stagnating economy and we have two major parties who have [00:05:00] promised change on these things every three years for decades, and yet we find ourselves in this position.
So at some point, what's the definition of insanity? Keep doing the same thing and to expect a different result. Our community, there's a certain awakening. That we have come to here, but also a real passion and drive for change, recognizing that we have all the knowledge, all the expertise, all the wherewithal amongst us as doctors, nurses, teachers, tradies, economists, non-working parents. Hmm. Um, to actually advocate on our own behalf, take advocacy positions to Canberra and demonstrate that a lot of the law making that's happened at a federal level for decades has excluded territorians and our unique context throughout that whole time. Yeah. Having a major party back bencher in government or in opposition has clearly been ineffective. And what I've learned actually, and we are all on this journey, is understanding that when we go to our local major party, uh, representative, they defer to, they often have to get back to us to see what the party thinks or what theirs position is supposed to be based on what the party's line is, what the agenda is, and if that agenda.And that power is sitting 3000 kilometers away in Canberra, then their role is meaningless. Yeah. Can we all accept that Victoria in Northern Territory have different priorities? Right. They don't understand our context. Yeah. And so this is actually recognizing what extraordinary power we have embracing that, and it's so energizing Thing.
Mia
Yeah.Totally. Well, what drew me to you was that you seem to be the only candidate who's actually trying, like you are pounding the pavement and you've mobilized the community and you look like you are trying to win this, as opposed to just sort of phoning it in. We've spoken about this before, so I'd love to understand what kind of, we call them channels in marketing. But like, what activities are you doing to ultimately get elected?
Phil
First of all, we throw it out to our, uh, [00:07:00] community to engage and be a part of it. I am simply, uh, a vessel for the community's voice. Mm-hmm. Sure. Someone's got a stand. That's the way our democracy's kind of structured. I do note that there are a couple of women down in Melbourne who have sought recently to stand as a pair.
As local representatives for an electorate. I was really curious about that. I'm super supportive of those two extraordinary women saying that, uh, there are actually different ways of being able to do this and, and explore what Good job sharing. Right. It was job. They were totally job sharing. They were both parents.
Cool. So look that up. I wish I knew, um, their names, but we can perhaps follow up afterwards, but
Mia
we'll put them in the shownotes.
Phil
Thank you, but essentially we have this concept of radical trust and we gift that to ourselves as as candidate. I gift it to the team because I know how extraordinary they are. The team gift it to all the rest of the volunteers because we all know how extraordinary we are.
We trust our knowledge as long as we're grounded in a few key principles of respect and courtesy and politeness. We can trust that everyone's behavior is going to be consistent with the sort of change that we want to achieve. So we give free reign to our volunteers. And one of the videos that went viral recently, I think it got up to one and a half million views, and who knows if it's up.
Uh, higher than that. Now, that all just came out of, uh, volunteers being joyful, doing something joyful. They wanted to sing on that particular night. I think all of them acknowledged they were a bit outta key, and maybe that's one of the reasons why it went viral. But regardless, we're not going to control that.
And that's, I think, the difference. The parties have very strict controls on messaging because they've got so much at stake, so many varying interests at stake. When our interest is only the community's interest, well give them free expression.
Mia
I love that. Do you know there are so many synergies between what you are doing and what a small business does or a startup does?
It's like all the bureaucracy of a big business. You don't have, are you running a very modern campaign? Like I'm not [00:09:00] seeing a lot of candidates who have a social first approach, whereas you are doing all sorts of things on social media, which is where people are hanging out today. They're not watching television commercials.
Uh, what you are doing, we have a technical term for that in marketing. It's called out of Home Media. Those are posters that I see everywhere that's out of home media. Uh, you're running events. What I really love about your campaign is you have like a volunteer gathering. I think it's every Monday night down at Night Cliff.
So clever. Just really giving everyone an opportunity to check in, see how it's going, get re-energized about what's left to do before the actual election. What else?
Phil
Uh, absolutely and uh, it's really important that our community understands that they are welcome in here. So this is their campaign. I. Yeah, regardless of how you've ever voted before, it doesn't matter.You belong. And we also set out at the start of this campaign with a really clear objective, and that was to build community. So winning an election campaign is part of it, but actually our real work is to build a. A healthy and strong community. Otherwise, it's all for Naugh. So we're really grounded in that and win or lose on election day. That's the goal. We know what healthy communities look like and in those people are connected. And so everything that we do must be designed to, in some way build a connection through that event or through that social media posts. People need to be connected to one another. To local services, to local places.
So we host different events and different politics in the pubs or conversations and cafes, but we also want to build trust. We want to build empowerment, engagement in decision making, creative use of the resources that we have. So we don't have the money of a big party machine, but those are all the elements of strong communities.
I think that being focused on that helps us be effective in this way. So yeah, we've got markets, uh, we're really big. This is a market town. Yeah, actually. And it's a, it's a great way to get direct voter contact. Uh, we are doing a lot of door knocking and we're doing a door knocking blitz at the moment, so we want to knock on as many doors as possible.We're trying to take data on how many doors and conversations we have, 'cause we know we need thousands of votes. But the main challenge for us to, from the outset was. Everyone understands the major parties, those brands are set. Yes, they're established and people know or have a perception pretty much of what they are with us.
No one knew this bloke, uh, you know, only a couple of months ago. So the challenge was, uh, well first of all, we suspected that we had the product that they wanted, which is. Grassroots, independent, authentic community representation, but we've gotta test that. So we did some polling and found out that actually people are really keen, so that gave us confidence. Secondly, we need to get exposure. And when we don't have lots of money, we can't afford television. Although we are going on TV now, we're happy to say, but social media's a great way to do that. And so, and, and waves, people can participate in the wave at the side of the road. Everything [00:12:00] has to be joyful.
So as long as we're having fun, it's not a chore. People want to get involved.
Mia
Well, it looks like you've got a really good chance of winning, which I'm very, very happy about. What has been some unexpected tactics or unexpected things that you've done that you're like, wow, that worked better than I thought?
Phil
Well, we had a paint the candidate event at Busted Town the other night. I was like, love it. Uh, this is radical trust, uh, at work where a couple of the volunteers like, don't worry, Phil. All you need to do is rock off. It's like I wasn't physically and personally painted, but it was. It was a chance to get to know the candidate and just it's paint and sip. You know, lots of folks love doing that. So we provide the paints. It's there when lots of other people are there just socializing. They didn't know the event was on, and all this activity happens around it. Again, we build connections. People that we hadn't met before come in and want a bit of a paint wee little fundraiser.
Not huge, but that was nice. And it's also uplifting too. So that was a good one. Tonight we've got a disco tech and that is disco tech. Yeah. Uh, that is a millennial. I know, actually I was just like, yeah, I was. And we've actually posted it like that and it's actually targeted more at, uh, gen Zs. Than us, but we've still called it Discotech.
So we've still got a bit to learn. But that's basically saying, look, lots of folks come up here and you might live here for a while, and we're saying, you live here, you love it here, vote here. So we want them to change their enrollment address to here. Uh, and that's a little bit of a part of the event, uh, and the evening, but not.
Not too heavy, like we're there to have a good time, but just trialing that testing and we can do that. 'cause we're nimble. Uh, we're agile. We don't have lengthy approval processes that the parties do, so we can just try stuff.
Mia
Totally. And if it doesn't work, let's shift gears for a minute. When I spoke to you for the first time at the markets, and I think it's great that you're showing up there, it seems like all of Darwin comes out to get Alexa per markets. We had a little conversation about this teal term and I didn't realize that it was pejorative, so can you talk through that? I think that could be really interesting. It doesn't need to be pejorative, but I note that it is often used pejoratively. The first thing to note is that it's an Exon M, so it's a, it's a term applied to others or applied to somebody else that they don't.
Use for themselves. So automatically that's an indicator of how loaded that term is. There are no community independent candidates like myself who call ourselves teals. And so, so there, there's something there. I think it came outta the origin of people are just surprised by the fact that actually this is something that's successful.
And these were women in, uh, usually liberal seats that were campaigning on climate action. And so that's a green issue and they're in blue liberal seats. And so you put the two together and you get this color teal. Oh my god, that makes so much sense where it comes from. Um, but again, there's a certain resentment about that and I think there's a resentment from where power sits. If we talk about, we think about, and talk about where power sits in our society, [00:15:00] as you well know, and many of your listeners probably well know. It sits certainly with the two major parties, certainly with men, and certainly with big business, this dynamic. Was a threat to the institutionalized power. And so the term is used as a way of diminishing those women, uh, and what they stand for and their extraordinary work. Mm. So, uh, they will call themselves independence or community independence, and that's the term we use.
Mia
So I think people. Don't understand and I didn't So totally owning it that you have no affiliation with other independents, you are independent of them. Correct. Yeah. So it's not like, um, this is gonna probably be a really terrible example, and I'm sorry to anyone.
This is a thought bubble, but like, you know, IGA, like Independent Courses Australia, they are actually affiliated so that they can get discounts on product. So they come together when it suits them. Is that a terrible example?
Phil
No, actually that's quite a good one. I support you using it and drawing it because what is important is that we nonetheless, we share knowledge, we share experiences, we are connected. Our communities are very, very different. There is very little that connects our community here in Palmerston and Darwin to Monique Ryan's community in Koh Young in Melbourne. However, we do share similar motivations in that we want. Action on climate, we pursue gender equity as a goal in our advocacy. We are grounded in evidence-based decision making and we are using participatory democratic processes to achieve the outcomes.
So we do share. Those things in common, but those aren't ideologies. Those are goals that we happen to share. But I mean, when it comes to those community needs, they're completely distinct. However, if we share ideas and we're connected with one another, perhaps just like the grocers are, then that's important.
And in fact, we're going to be more successful if we collaborate at certain levels in that way. And so we do that. Yes, but we are genuinely and authentically independent, and that's how we will be voting on the floor of Parliament when we get in.
Mia
Amazing. So good. All right, so how do you see the role of independence in championing the issues major parties often sideline?
Phil
Excellent question. There are so many issues. That are not elevated into the realm of public discussion by the major parties because they have little interest in those issues being addressed. And this is where the conflict of interest becomes really, really apparent. If we have had chronic diseases in the Northern Territory for as long as we have affecting our population, grinding poverty, gender violence, as we spoke about.
For this long and yet we get, we get kind of piecemeal responses to actually doing anything, uh, meaningful on these things. That's telling us something about the political will that exists to actually address them. So that's not there us. Standing has already changed the dynamic and a big motivation for us was actually to get out there into public discourse issues. Like the community's really caring about that. It's really frustrated it hasn't been heard on early childhood Developmental vulnerabilities is another one. Following on from the Four Corners Report. Why does it take, you know, such a, a terrible descent into. Uh, neglect and abuse of children on the part of an industry, as they called it, and why haven't we been having the sort of conversation we need to have around what's, what's at the heart of all of this?
Why is it an industry in the first place? Were we having that conversation? Decades ago, and whether the major party's interested in it, we would've gone some way to addressing it by now. So now as independence, I'm personally very motivated by that issue to be able to explore well, all right, and what are the changes that need to be made?
Mia
Yeah. Great. Awesome. So let's talk specifically about what Concerns got Marketing listeners, which is small business and women. So what are you gonna do for us, Phil?
Phil
Yeah. So, uh, first of all, we note that. Small businesses are getting the raw end of the deal as are working people when it comes to doing the heavy lifting for Australia's tax burden.
Mia
Yeah. We actually pay tax is what you mean.
Phil
That's exactly right.
Mia
Yeah. I'm supposed to pay 28%. Yes, we do.
Phil
Right. And so, well, okay. I like, I speak to a lot of small businesses and of course everybody would like to pay less, but there's generally a mature and sanguine recognition on the part of normal people that. This is paying tax is necessary because it gives us stable government and the sorts of institutions like education and health that we rely on. So of course it's also a sign that your business is doing well if you are able to pay tax, right? Yes. And there, so excellent point, because there are so many businesses doing so well. These are large businesses who are paying. Zero to very little tax and that is simply not [00:20:00] fair. We've been gaslit by the major parties about, with all sorts of reasons and rationales why they, they ought and pay tax, but I've got a spreadsheet at home of a thousand large corporations who have paid little to no tax well below.
28% and we're allowing this to happen. But there's a reason why we're allowing it to happen because they donate to the major parties and it is their agenda that gets served by the major parties. The major parties retain power by serving that agenda. And we, as small businesses and working people become a very distant third in that whole dynamic.
So even though we are 90% of businesses are small businesses, even more than that in the territory, right?
Mia
Yeah. And the small businesses in the Northern Territory, we are doing it tough. Like it is a depressed economy that you talked about. We don't have foot traffic. There is so much violence that is causing break-ins. And now, you know, ice cream shops in the CBD need to get CCTV cameras and bars on their windows. How do they afford that? How [00:21:00] can they afford that without foot traffic? So we are really doing it tough. In the Northern Territory when it comes to small business.
Phil
Absolutely. And so there is an interconnectedness here and this principle of interconnectivity is really important for us to understand Our economy doesn't exist in isolation.
Yeah. Again, the major parties might have us believe that, but we often hear language from them that, uh, something's gotta give. You know, we have to have this big gas industry and it's gotta come at the cost of something, be that our health or be that our environment. We are the only ones saying. You can have a strong and durable economy that's innovative and have good environmental outcomes and social outcomes and health outcomes for the community.
It is not unreasonable to expect that and to demand that and to work hard to achieve it. It shows a laziness and a lack of imagination on the part of the major parties that they refuse to do that in the first place. But it shows also shows that conflict of interest. So leverage our strengths up here.
First of all, address these social issues that are causing crime in the first place by preventing it from happening, by supporting especially early, uh, the, the best thing that you can do to get good social outcomes is to invest. In a child as an infant and its mother and its dad and its family in those early years, first thousand years, days of life or first five years, sets that person up for life to break that cycle.
Break the cycle. And that takes, that takes, that's a 20 year investment and it takes political will to do that. So we are saying that that's what we want, not the short term three year cyclic focus on these social issues that are affecting our economy now and that. That where we are reacting strongly to.
So, but look at our other assets. We've got, we're lucky. I grew up in small country towns. We're lucky to have a university in this town. We have extraordinary knowledge, research and development potential sitting there that could be leveraged in service of local, small businesses. And we're on the gateway.
To Asia and the [00:23:00] population that would have, uh, an extraordinary interest in what we have to sell, what our small businesses might want to sell or promote or the services they want to deliver to. So what we know can happen out of the sort of processes that we are proposing is bringing a. The business community together, coupling that with community energy and enthusiasm and the political will on the behalf of a representative to actually say, right, what do we do?
You know, what are the options here? What would we like research and development support, perhaps better training and education for our young people so we can get staff easier, a better tourism campaign to target audiences that's creative and that's, that's going to attract people in. None of these things are.
Need be difficult, just need the political will. Totally.
Mia
Okay. So if you had to summarize your position, so when we think about liberal, they love to run on security and I love the fear Monk love the fear mongering that they're doing now about war is imminent. And of course if you vote liberal, we will invest in defense.
This is totally trying to get defense votes. My husband sees it coming a mile away and is not buying what they're selling cost of living security. Cost of living labor is like a little bit more sensible. I will say. They are, you know about for everyone, not just for the 1% of town. The greens. We know about the greens.
What about you? How would you summarize what you are running on? Like what is your position?
Phil
We're campaigning on meaningful action to address the cost of living. We're campaigning on a stronger, more diverse economy here in the Northern Territory. We're campaigning on integrity in government and integrity in politics.
We're campaigning on community safety, meaningful measures that are actually going to work to keep people safe because everyone deserves that. And we're campaigning on climate action. So good. All my boxes checked. Awesome. And we're running on actually being able to deliver a process where the community has real, [00:25:00] authentic, genuine power.
And what our agenda is that we take to Canberra. Yeah. So many of the volunteers in this campaign have been into the MP's offices and either been ignored or been derided or, or had their issues diminished or not responded to. We're saying, set the agenda, be a part of this, and, and we have, uh, we have principles on which we stand equity and justice.
Accountability, transparency, nothing about us without us. You know, we, we, we take that, we actually can, we can deliver on the process, and that's what people are wanting. They're just wanting to be respected. And if they have knowledge and expertise, we're saying, come in and write the policy for us, or come in and be a part of what that agenda can look like.
So that's the difference. Mm-hmm. That's deep and that's meaningful and that's disruptive. Yeah. 'cause people are used to kind of having those decisions made by a party somewhere and not being able to have access to the process through which that agenda is developed and then set and advocated.
Mia
So what you're saying is our agenda, our position is whatever our community wants it to be.
Phil
Right?
Mia
Right.
Phil
Okay. I mean, how good would that be? Yeah. But with some guardrails. Absolutely. It's not a, it's gotta be, uh, decision making has to be evidence-based. So that's, that's important. But it's like a, a, we have good practices for evidence-based decision making in a jury. You have a random selection of people, but there is some evidence that is admissible for those jurors to be able to make their final determination on.
And there's some evidence that is inadmissible. We would say the same thing. We only want to look at the data that tells us what works, what do we know is effective? And use that to come up with what our advocacy positions need to be.
Mia
So if you wanna have a crocodile in your backyard, that's not really a position that you are prepared to entertain.
Phil
Hey, if there's evidence to say that's not gonna harm anybody, go for it. But that's, that's another important principle. This is the value of being principles led. And not ideologically driven is that you can say one of our key principles is do no harm. Yeah. Yeah. The measure of a healthy society is the way that it treats its most marginalized and its most disadvantaged people. Yeah, we want to grow a healthy and strong society, so whatever the outcome from that community deliberation, one of the key objectives that needs to meet is that it hasn't harmed anybody anymore than what they are Now. We can deliver that and again. It's a creative process. Throw it out to the community to come up with that.
Mia
Totally. So electoral math just is just way too confusing and it hurts people's brains. I think the biggest concern for the listener is that if they vote independent, I. It could somehow take votes away from labor, and then we end up with Peter Dutton, which is worst case scenario. So can you put our minds at ease?
Phil
Yeah, I, I actually can. First of all, I'd say that there's no such thing as a wasted vote in our excellent proportional representation system that we have here in Australia. So a vote for me as community independent. Hopefully everybody does that and we get into Parliament, but if we don't, and if we bail out early or earlier in that round, I.
That's when your second choice comes into play. So if you don't want Peter Dutton put Peter Dutton last. Yeah. Because then your second choice comes into play. So you can't really split the progressive vote if that's the voter's concern, because if you put all of your three progressives or however many there are up the top and they still fall short, well it wasn't because you somehow split the vote.
It's simply because the community voted. That way.
Mia
So you get your second choice. The worst case scenario is your second choice
Phil
Yeah, or, or if you, or if your second choice bows out, then your third choice comes into play. That's why for us, the, it's really important to get a lot of first preference votes because Yeah, we know that actually we're, we, we can shake this thing up.
Mia
So, yeah. Awesome. All right. Well if someone is listening today and they are inspired by what you are doing, like I was, how can they support your campaign?
Phil
They can follow us on socials Phil Scott for Solomon. They can go to our website, phil scott.com au. There are simple things they can do. They can host a call flute on their sign that's worth a hundred votes.
It signals to our community that, where's my call? Uh, please register your house on the website. Sign up the corner of. Oh yeah, we did. Yeah, we need that one from there. So, all right, that's something that's a do now task. Okay? Uh, okay. Or, or maybe just after a podcast task. So that's something you can do that's signaling to your community that this is actually okay to engage in our politics and in fact, we get better decisions when that happen.
Other things you can do is volunteer on the [00:30:00] website or through the website, and we ask a couple of little questions out. What are your skills? You got marketing experience, have you got experience volunteering? People? Do you love researching? We've got a job for you. No question. So come involved. Get involved that way, like us, follow us, and share our content on social media, but even better, if you like it, create your own and tag us and get the word out there about why this is really important.
A really big thing though too, in addition, is have those conversations. With your family, with your friends, with your professional and social networks about how we can do better and, and why This theory of change actually is one that is in our community's best interests. 'cause those conversations are really, really powerful.
And our communities now, there's this ripple effect. These little ripples are traveling across the pond of Darwin and Palmerston, and people are coming in from everywhere. This is one moment in time. We want to seize it. It's really, really important. This is a, a critical time for us in our [00:31:00] communities', uh, future, but also in our planet's future.
We need action on a whole bunch of things that isn't gonna happen unless we seize this moment.
Mia
Totally. Thank you so much for your time. I have one final question. Did you offer any payment for me to do this show today?
Phil
I did not. And nor did I receive any, uh, which I fully support because that's what we're all about.We run on the smell of an oily rag and, um, uh, no we didn't. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. It was really, really good to see you again. Such a pleasure. Thanks Bia. Thank you.
