STATE ELECTION 2022 PT.1
Six months since the federal election and I'm back to doing this
again. I still feel like a mug putting all this effort into
democracy when it's guaranteed to only make me more frustrated with
the eventual outcome, but at least I feel less of a mug than all
the crazy people who actually go out and join a micro-party in the
expectation of helping to make a change.
This has made me pretty bitter already apparantly. Anyhow whereas
with the federal election I was almost equally repulsed by both
the major parties, the current state Labour government in Victoria
is a party that I've come to loath exceptionally. I can't fathom
how they got re-elected last time, let alone how they might still
now after all the incompetence that they've shown during the
pandemic, and the constant stream of scandals about the misuse of
public funds for political purposes.
But this isn't about them, or the Liberal party. Again my purpose
here is to look into all the micro parties that you never normally
hear about, study their policies, and maybe even find some that
aren't certifiably crazy.
Of course many also ran in the federal election, and probably
haven't changed much in only six months, so I'll mostly focus on
the ones that I didn't have time to cover before. Still ideally
I'd look at all of them again from the state-policy perspective
rather than a federal one.
So I invite you to join me on my ride through this rollercoaster
of political fantasies. Again I've started too late, not able to
summon the willpower for this until the last week before election
day (Sat. 26th of November). But I'll see how far I get.
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2022 State Election:
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Victorian Socialists
https://www.victoriansocialists.org.au/
* Though a fairly new party (started in 2018), their economic views are
tradionally socialist. Very heavy on public ownership of all major utilities,
as well as things like a state bank "that puts people before profit".
* They unashamedly label capitalism as the enemy, and want to tax the hell
out of the richest companies and individuals.
* Outside of economics, they seem to broadly take a far left stance on ethical
issues. They're very into equallity, animal welfare, and even legalisation
of drugs.
* Zero-carbon economy by 2035, helped principally by the state taking ownership
of many big polluting industries. They don't like nuclear, but big on wind
and solar as well as electric vehicles.
They're fairly true to their name, combining socialist economic policies with
popular far left attitudes. They're so far left that the way they talk about
the Victorian Labor party makes it sound right-wing. One might think that Labor
adopting the policy to reintroduce a state-owned electricity company would be
winning over this side of the electorate, but those at the heart of this party
have clearly long since lost faith in Labor, and of course capitalism itself.
However I find the overtone of "socialism saves everything" unconvincing, and
the far left ethical policies aren't to my taste either.
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Shooters, Fishers & Farmers Party
https://www.vicshootersfishersandfarmers.org.au/
* Generally rural focused and right wing. The victorian party seems to be making
a solid effort to represent their three stated interests equally in policies.
* It sounds like they're now united against the animal rights policies of the
far left parties, in all the ways you'd expect based on the name.
* I'm keen on their policies around focusing local government scope to "rates,
roads and rubbish". Improving roads is also something they're taking on as
themselves, which I approve of. Not much specific info on that though.
* Not keen on the influence of the "green movement" in the energy industry,
and apparantly not very fussed about climate change. They seem to aim for
relying on gas and clean coal during a gradual transition to nuclear.
* Pro-firearms, of course.
I like their rural focus, though their policies aren't that well rounded and
a bit too right wing for me. There's a fair bit of combative sentiment against
the left wing parties which oppose them on ethical issues, and I'm with them on
many of these but would appreciate a less confrontational attitude.
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Health Australia Party
https://www.healthaustraliaparty.com.au/
* The name sounds like they're digging at frustrations around the state of the
health services, but they've actually expanded 'health' to cover 'healthy'
people, economy, environment, democracy, and society.
* besides "healthy people" most of their policies on other types of health take
the middle ground and have only a few more radical flares. They do aim to
set up a national community bank, as one more radical move.
* On the "healthy people" topic they actually go down the alternative medicine
path. They basically want herbal medicines to be given equal footing with
drugs, including supporting anti-vaccination.
* They're against water floridation.
* They support legalising medicinal (and maybe also not-so-medicinal)
cannabis.
* They're into the 5G conspiracy theories and have a list of policies
about stricter regulation of RF radiation which don't sound helpful to me.
* They're similary scared of pesticides, though I'm not convinced that their
plans for transitioning away from them are very sound.
* They want to end Australia's military presence overseas except in peace
keeping missions, but also to set up a "swiss-style" optional system of
national service for men and women under 21. The aim seems to be as much
about giving unemployed young people more options as it is about defence,
which seems nice but may cost a lot.
* They're into the health of animals as well, and want to set up an independent
office of animal welfare. It's not my sort of thing.
* Many of those are more like federal policies, but they didn't run in the
federal election!? It turns out they were another victim of the AEC's
member number requirements, so I guess they've just kept all the
national policies in for the hell of it:
https://www.healthaustraliaparty.com.au/federal-election-2022/
On the health stuff they're a bit fringe, and clearly playing to the anti-vaccer
crowd. On other matters they're determined to say something, but don't really
have much to say, except on a few specific points where someone seems to have
had a brainwave. Best to leave them alone, to munch on their homeopathic hobble
beans or whatever such nonsense they're into.
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Family First
https://familyfirstparty.org.au/
* Well they were always Christian, and now their born again to boot. After
disappearing before the last election, with their chairman apprarantly
taking over the Country Alliance, and not for the better in my opinion, now
they've formed again. Not that you'd know this from their website, where
it all looks like, err, happy families.
* They've always mainly represented issues with a religious conservative bent,
but by now they seem to be thoroughly pissed off at gay rights stuff in
particular.
* To some degree I agree that at lot of this 'diversity' stuff has gone down
a self-serving radit hole at this point, but at the same time I'm only really
sick of hearing about it. I don't care to enforce the will of 'God' on what
people get up to in private.
* They're not much fussed about climate change, they just want cheap power
by burning whatever it takes.
* General christian values stuff: They don't like gambling, prostitution,
abortion, euthanasia, and illegal drugs. A pretty stuffy bunch, basically.
* They do value a small government, which has its attraction to me.
All this equality stuff in the media is starting to grate on me, and I'm sure my
childhood was confusing enough without people leaving me to question my own
gender, but it's not enough for me to throw in with these religious
conservatives. As someone who leans vaguely center-right, they represent an
ethical right-wing that I'm trying to lean away from at the same time.
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Freedom Party
https://freedomparty.net.au/
* A new party, which seems to have been formed by anti-lockdown loud mouths
who hate Daniel Andrews. I'm with them on the Dan Andrews front, but not
so much just for the lockdowns in particular.
* They're subtly against renewable energy, saying they'll "end subsidies to
inefficient energy industries" while they'll "Halt closing down of
Victoria's power stations".
* They want to boost investment in regional Victoria through tax incentives,
which is nice. But I prefer reducing population as a solution to Melbourne's
unsustainable growth rather than spreading the problem around the state.
* They want more lenient firearms laws, and have a lot of specific policies
on this. Not a free-for-all though, much of it has some merit.
* I do like their approach of using third party audits to investigate government
departments "deemed to be outside of approved spending targets and limits".
* They're into "holistic and complementary medicines", which sounds like
something for the anti-vaccers amongst the anti-lockdown crowd.
They're here for the Dan Andrews haters who don't like the Liberal party either.
I'm in that camp, but without enough of a right-wing bent to find myself at
home with this party. Their confrontational approach also isn't to my taste.
