If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and steals bread off tourists like a duck – well, it’s probably a small yapping poodle, according to the Victorian Electoral Commission.

Despite carrying similar branding, sharing wealthy backers such as Climate 200, copy-pasting policy, using very similar websites, and in most ways presenting themselves to the public as a ‘movement’ – the Teals remain ‘Independent’.

That didn’t stop the Liberal Party from lodging a formal complaint with the Victorian Election Commission against Teal Independents which Climate 200 has called ‘baseless’ and ‘vexatious’.