Libertarian Party
https://www.libertarians.org.au/
* Previously the Liberal Democrats, but they failed to hold onto that name
since the AEC took issue with them trying to use a name that was easily
confused with the Liberal party. It only took 20 years for them to notice!
* The new name is really more suitable since they are libertarians. It's a
party that wants to let you do what the hell you want, which does tend to
appeal to me.
* Gah, I need to download a glossy 10MB PDF just to read their policies! What
about my freedom to use a cheap internet service?
* They want the government out of our business, literally. Slash business tax,
slash regulation, sell the remaining government-owned enterprises.
* Freedom of currency. They want to limit the RBA's power to try and control
the economy, while officially recognising other currencies like gold and
Bitcoin. I'm not really sure how they're not recognised now, but the spirit
is that currency should generally be detached from goverment control.
* No bans or subsidies for energy. They don't care how it's made, so long as
it's the way the market likes it. Interestingly they do want to stop building
renewables projects on public land, but hey I'm sure they'll have sold most
of that land before long anyway.
* They ironically do want the government to have a louder say on gender, turning
around recent accomodations for trans-gender people. I'm with them on most of
this, yet I feel like a true libertarian should be all for letting people
work this out on their own rather than reinforcing laws around gender.
* They want to limit immigration by hiking up the cost of entry, intended to
help get ahead of public costs in accomodating a growing population while
also slowing that growth. This might be good, but would probably make
older people the dominate immigrant demographic which might have negative
economic effects.
* Want the right to free speech in the constitution, and repealing laws that
allow prosecution of racially offensive speech or blocking content deemed
misinformation. I'm with them on the latter points. Though I don't agree
that the ABC and SBS harm free speech just by their existance.
* Big on personal privacy, including online and opposing new laws on ID
verification for social media. I'm all for this, though they're another
party suggesting there's more of a threat to being able to pay with cash
than I'm aware of.
* Want to get out of all the foreign treaties and organisations that they can
find, and focus on national issues especially with defence. No involvement
in foreign wars.
The're libertarians who are also fighting a little inner voice of social
conservatism. They're most radical in their full-blown pursuit of free-market
economics, where they go too far for me. They're somewhat thin on specifics
in all areas, and they certainly have a faith-based approach to economics.
Maybe more in tune with me on some social issues, but they cut a
surprisingly narrow path on those, not even mentioning gun ownership.
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