The independent challenging the two-party system

As I sit at Il Brutto Café bar tucked in Fremantle’s leaf speckled streets, I see Kate Hulett walk in. The waiter casually greets her asking “Soy or oat milk today?”. I take it as an indication of how well known she is.

It’s been almost a year since Hulett announced her intention to run again as an independent for the seat of Fremantle in the 2028 Federal election. Back in 2025 she almost won the historically solid Labor seats in both State and Federal elections.

While Labor kept both seats with more than slim margins the results reflect a broader social shift – a challenge to the two party system and a city dissatisfied with the major parties offerings.

The recent by-election in Secret Harbour saw a One Nation candidate win a lower house seat. Frustration with the major parties is brewing on a national scale and smaller parties from across the political spectrum are gaining momentum.

According to data from the Australia Institute, 2025 was a record year for independents and minor parties who made up 34 per cent of the primary vote in the Federal election. 

Hulett tells me she never imagined herself in politics. Having lived and worked in Fremantle for over a decade, she became a part of the local community. She describes her career in WA as a culmination of ‘odd-jobs’ including working in marketing teams and for Perth Design Week, between spending 12 years running her Fremantle homeware shop ‘Kate and Abel’.

Editor of the Fremantle Herald, Steve Grant has spent two decades watching local politics unfold and community concerns shift. He says the topic of environment has never left the electorate’s agenda: “I saw a disillusionment with the existing party systems.

“I feel like people in Fremantle felt that the major parties weren’t making decisions that would take us in the direction we’d like to see our community move, so they started to look for people who were promising to do things differently, particularly around issues such as the environment”.

Votes in full swing

While the 2028 Federal election seems many moons away, Grant says Labor is already aware that their seats aren’t guaranteed. 

“I’ve got to say, they’re promoting every little initiative that they did very strongly. They lobby me to get stuff in the paper that in previous years I wouldn’t have been interested in. You know, a minor thing, but now they’ll try to make it more interesting for me.

 “They are definitely aware of the Kate effect here, and how close they came last time,” he says.

Fremantle’s Federal electorate extends beyond the Café peppered streets of Freo, stretching South and East of the city centre, moving into what Grant calls “FIFO territory”.

He says a concern raised in the last Federal election was Hulett’s ability to secure votes in the broader electorate, where young FIFO families may not take to her progressive environmental policies. 

“Many of them are working for fossil fuel companies, or companies that rely on work from fossil fuel companies. So I think that that’s the big challenge for her to convince them,” he says.

But Hulett’s convinced the broader electorate before. According to the Australian Electoral Commission, Hulett lost the state seat of Fremantle to Labor MP Simone McGurk by only 14,000 votes, meaning the safe seat of Fremantle is not so safe.

A call from community

Hulett didn’t just fall into politics. Her ascent was not only supported, but actually requested by the local community group ‘Voices for Fremantle’ a non partisan group from the Fremantle electorate affiliated with the Voices for WA initiative. It goes by the catchier online moniker of V4FREO.

Having spoken with Fremantle residents and business owners, V4FREO generated a list of attributes that their desired independent candidate would have. The list was a series of brushstrokes that painted a picture of Hulett.

Notre Dame University professor of politics Martin Drum says the community group doesn’t operate like a political party.

“It’s just a group of people in the community that have a view, so there’s no election or anything like that but obviously it helps any independent to be backed by a group,” he says.

Recounting the first time that V4FREO approached her, Hulett reflects on the immense responsibility she felt to serve her community.

She describes a feeling of ‘moral obligation’ that pushed her to run in both the State and Federal elections. As a community member she sees the systemic issues impacting her community.

“Kids aren’t getting educated, they’re going to school hungry, and people are waiting up to 12 hours in the hospital,” she says.

Without a background in politics Hulett sought to challenge the standard political landscape, but she isn’t the only woman challenging a strong Labor seat.

This year Cheek Media owner Hannah Ferguson announced her plans to challenge the Prime Minister’s seat of Grayndler in Sydney. Hulett says independents challenging safe seats shows that there is an opening in politics for anyone who shows up and gives it a crack.

Hulett says: “When I see people like Hannah stepping up, I think it’s the best thing in the world, because it doesn’t matter if she wins or not. The fact that she’s trying and the fact that it holds power to account and shines truth on what’s happening in the world broadly. I mean, there’s nothing more powerful”.

According to the Federal Election 2022 Gender Equity Analysis nine out of ten independents who won seats in the 2022 Federal Election were women, and six of them retained their seats in 2025.

When we think of Australian politics, suits and grand chambers are usually the first images that come to mind. But politics tends to orbit our everyday lives, hidden in community actions. Hulett says it was her interest in community drew her to politics.

Hulett grew up in Mullaloo in Perth’s northern suburbs, before moving to London where she pursued a creative career. She studied philosophy and psychology, her interest in humans as ‘social animals’ fuelled her throughout her degree.

“I was interested in people and the way people interact,” she says, back in the Il Brutto Café, between sips.

Having opened her own retail business in the heart of Fremantle, Hulett developed an understanding of how money goes into and out of a business, prompting her to question our governments handling of economic affairs.

Campaigning across social media she engaged an audience through her blunt refusal to use complicated political jargon.

“For me, that was literally the thing that cut through to people because they were like, ‘oh, I understand what you’re saying, because you’re talking just the way I talk and you’re looking at issues the way I would look at it’,” she says.

Grant agrees that her immediacy in online posting and her responses to social commentary resonates in the electorate. 

“She’s very good with social media, she’s quick to respond, whereas Labor have to go through quite a hierarchy to respond.”

As my conversation with Kate ends, another begins. Walking back into the crisp morning streets her attention is caught by her friend Sarah Booth. They chat and plan to meet up later in the day. As Hulett’s life leaned into politics, Sarah took on her former role as a director Spacemarkt. It is a property management enterprise working to re-use Fremantle’s empty, disused spaces. There is work to be done and Hulett still takes a keen interest.

 Even on Fremantle’s coldest mornings, the ‘Kate effect’ is in full swing.