Chaney has come under significant media pressure over her backflips on key WA issues, including Woodside’s bid to extend the life of the North West Shelf project and Labor’s live sheep export ban due in 2028.

The front page of The Sunday Times suggested losing was “no big issue” for Chaney, a claim she said was taken out of context.

WAtoday understands Chaney’s campaign team considered Seven West Media hostile, but had resisted publicly addressing her grievances.

The final straw was a video published by veteran Seven West columnist and reporter Ben Harvey on Tuesday night.

“The teals like all politicians are a little bit full of shit, but they’re actually worse because they act so pious like they’re above politics,” Harvey said in the video.

“If you vote for a teal candidate without knowing whether, when push comes to shove, whether they’ll go with him [Anthony Albanese] or him [Peter Dutton] you’re a f---ing idiot who doesn’t deserve to be part of democracy.”

In the video, Harvey railed against Climate 200’s backing of teal independents and Chaney’s family history, including her father Michael Chaney, who was a former Woodside chairman.

“She’s made a political career by calling the old man a destroyer of worlds,” Harvey said.

Chaney is one of the biggest beneficiaries of Climate 200, having received $260,000 from the organisation in six separate payments since August 2024.

The West Australian editor Chris Dore told this masthead Chaney’s claims were “nonsense”.

Asked whether he would elaborate, Dore said: “Sure. Absolute nonsense.”

Loading

The public stoush comes amidst a flurry of LinkedIn posts deriding Chaney’s links to Climate 200 by a senior lieutenant in Stokes’ investment vehicle, Australian Capital Equity, which has shareholdings in Seven West Media through its controlling stake in Seven Group Holdings.

ACE finance and investments director Brian O’Donnell has posted eight times on his public LinkedIn page in the past nine days, detailing to his followers why he cannot vote for Chaney as a constituent in Curtin.

O’Donnell’s biggest gripe was with the big money pouring into Climate 200’s coffers.

“My reaction to these articles is that it isn’t possible to see Climate 200 as a grassroots movement given the big money behind it, and this reinforces that I can’t vote for Kate Chaney in Curtin,” he told his followers on Wednesday.

“In general, I think it’s easier to see the correlation between the motives of donors to the major parties and the policies they pursue. It gets harder when a candidate with a number of very large donors tries to present as truly ‘independent, accountable and balanced’.”

O’Donnell said the posts were his personal views and did not reflect those of ACE and that he was not seeking any media publicity for his views.

A spokesman for Stokes said he had no input into editorial decisions at SWM.

Chaney said she had not changed her positions on live exports or the North West Shelf.

“I voted in support of WA farmers to keep the sheep and nothing has changed,” she said.

“We need gas for our energy transition, but any new projects need to stack up financially and environmentally, especially if they would result in 50 years’ of emissions.”

At 1.3 per cent, Curtin is one of the most marginal seats in WA.

The Liberals have pumped significant effort and resources into their candidate, former Uber executive Tom White, to wrest back control.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.