Two prominent teal MPs have called on “angry” One Nation supporters to consider voting for their new “Community Strong Australia” party but deny the movement has been set up to avoid recent changes to political donation rules.

Federal independent MPs Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender say the new party will support other community-backed candidates in both the House of Representatives and the Senate who “share a commitment to integrity, climate action, and economic prosperity”.

When unveiling their newly registered organisation on Thursday, the Sydney-based MPs rejected suggestions they were doing so to take advantage of new electoral laws placing strict caps on spending and donations.

“No, it isn’t. Actually — I think this is an opportunity to make a real difference,” Ms Spender told reporters when asked whether the primary motivation for the new party was financial.

Ms Steggall, who represents the former Liberal stronghold of Warringah, said there were significant barriers to other community independents being elected to Parliament because the cost of running campaigns is expensive.

“The donation reform laws, embed an advantage for the major parties, it’s naive to not think that that needs addressing and so this is an infrastructure and a model that allows more communities to come and be part of it.”

Under the organisation’s constitution, “members” are elected representatives and candidates, unlike the typical model used by the major parties where supporters with paid memberships meet and vote on policies and preselect prospective MPs.

“We currently have 1000s of volunteers that do it out of good faith, because we reflect their values, they don’t need a membership and to pay money to a party to be committed to its value,” Ms Steggall said.

The former Olympian said her new party would also try to win over frustrated voters who were considering supporting Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party.

“My pitch to them is, come and build a better future. Don’t just be focused on blaming or being angry. I agree it is valid to be frustrated, but things won’t fix themselves. We have to build solutions”.

“It has to be focused on reason, on proper solutions, not just blaming or vested interests. And so that’s why we will listen to communities, we have a structure that doesn’t have a top down right, there’s it is not a situation like One Nation”.

The new Community Strong Australia party MPs insist Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes à Court, who helped to bankroll the successful rise of the teals in 2019, is not financially supporting the new movement.

Appearing at a CEDA Conference on Thursday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese claimed the new political party was being formed as a response to his government’s recent changes to electoral laws.

“We had significant reform through the parliament last time about capping donations. I think it’s rather a bit strange that that seems to be the motivation for people who are independents to form a political party,” Mr Albanese said.

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Pat Gorman has gone further, questioning the structure of the new party formed by the teals and claiming its constitution raises integrity concerns.

“It makes very clear the only people who have control of the party are the two parliamentary members in the member for Warringah and the member for Wentworth,” Mr Gorman told The Nightly.

“Now that means there’s no say for the community movement that elected them, no say for the members, and no checks and balances on them either.”

“It’s a curious emergence of a new party, where you’ve got this new party that’s only got two members. They’ve really seriously struggled on recruitment”.

Western Australian teal MP Kate Chaney, who represents the former Liberal held seat of Curtin, has confirmed she will not be joining her fellow crossbench independents in the new Community Strong party for now.

“I’m pretty comfortable that I can continue to make a contribution in this way, of course it’s an evolving space, and you know, I’ll continue to look at what I think is the best way to contribute,” Ms Chaney told The Nightly.

Meanwhile, Liberal frontbencher Tim Wilson, who lost his seat to teal Zoe Daniel in the 2022 election said he was “not the least bit concerned” about a party he could not remember the name of.

“There’s plenty of people in Canberra, in lots of parties, that don’t really stand for anything,” Wilson told journalists.

“It seems to me that whatever this party is called, it’s just front-running for the Labor Party,” the shadow treasurer said claiming “nobody seems to be able to state what they believe in, except for themselves”.

Ms Steggall brushed off the comments saying: “I think Tim Wilson probably has bigger things to worry about … what does he stand for? He’s often bandied around as a moderate. There’s nothing moderate about his voting pattern or what he stood for.”