FEDERAL ELECTION 2025
I haven't done very well at researching political partities for this
election, only getting a few done this year, though mostly ones
I haven't looked at closely before. It's all such a pain trying
to find time after the candidates are finally announced by the AEC.
So here's a late election-eve notes dump that probably won't help
anyone this late in the game, and as usual it's mostly parties I
don't like anyway. See my 2022 notes for others running again this
time who I expect haven't changed much:
gopher://aussies.space/1/~freet/elections
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Australia's Voice
https://australiasvoice.com.au
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%27s_Voice
* Founded by Labor party senator Fatima Payman who left Labor last
year in opposition to the Labor government's policy towards
recognition of Palestinian statehood during the war in Gaza.
* Want to increase housing availability by reducing property
investor tax breaks and thereby reduce demand in the housing
market lowering prices for first home buyers, and using the money
saved to build more public housing. Trouble is this will
also dampen private construction of new houses for the rental
market.
* They're into the idea of (re)establishing a public-owned national
bank to compete with the commercial banks. They want to run
branches from post offices. They're quite keen on
supporting regional businesses and farmers through this, though
I'm not sure how they plan to squeeze rooms for negotiating loans
into small regional post offices. They also want to stop existing
banks closing down branches without community consultation.
* They want to break up the major supermarket chains to encourage
competition. At least if they're "found guilty of price gouging,
exploiting suppliers, or anti-competitive behavior", which I
guess means if they offend again after the recent ACCC findings
against them.
* Want less pay to politicians, which they consider out of touch
with the life of many Australians.
* Various measures to give selected poor people more money. Also
victums of domestic vilonce.
* They want "Real climate action", but no real policies towards that
except calling it an emergency.
* Scrap AUKUS and build up a defence force based on our local
interests rather than those of the USA.
* For a repuclic, and "a leader elected by the people", which
implies to me US-style presidential elections. Urgh!
They swing much further left than Labor. Somewhat similar to the
Greens in social policy, but without much of an idea about
environmental issues beyond strong intentions. I doubt they're
really committed to their bigger ideas, likely to side with Labor
except on foreign policy issues from which their founder fell out
with Labor in the first place.
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Trumpet of Patriots
https://trumpetofpatriots.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpet_of_Patriots
* Their name and compaigning hint not-so-subtly at trying to
reflect the policies of Donald Trump in the USA, but the actual
history goes back a lot further. This in the new incarnation of
the Australian Federation Party from the last election, itself
a reincarnation of the Country Alliance party dating back to
2004. At the last election their new identity turned me off,
having imported lots of socially conservative policies from
Family First (who are also back again now). Now they've coupled
with Clive Palmer from the United Australia Party which isn't
running this year apparantly for administrative reasons, and seem
to have swung over to Trump/Palmer's more economically right-wing
policies.
* They want a DOGE (Department Of Government Efficiency) for
Australia, mirroring Trump, including in vagueness about how it's
going to achieve that "Efficiency". They do show past examples of
government expenses which they disagree with, and I do agree
they're stupid wastes of funds. But the biggest two are one-off
expenses that they can't change now anyway!
* They want to "cut immigration to sustainable levels" and limit
foreign ownership of houses and prime agricultural land. Within
their vagueness I'm with them there, but "prioritise migration
from nations with compatible values" takes that thought in a
different direction to where I want to go.
* Their housing solution is a 3% cap on interest rates, which
doesn't sound economically viable to me, set beside a possibly
more sensible copy of the Liberal party's plan to allow people
to use some of their superannuation funds to pay for a deposit on
a home loan. Then they talk about high-speed rail to reduce
commute times to distant suburbs. Oh boy.
* Want to scrap renewables, burn lots of coal instead, maybe nuclear
power as well but without the Net Zero emissions goal.
* Big on freedom of speach. But they're specifically opposing things
that don't exist in this country anyway, nor proposed by the major
paries so far as I'm aware, so pretty away with the fairies.
* Very isolationist, probably like Trump but with more capacity
since we don't do much in the first place except help facilitate
the USA fighting its wars. I'm not sure if the pro-Trump party
therefore means to break military ties with the USA. Would they
not want to fight a war that Trump wants to fight? Pulling out of
the WHO, UN and WEF is probably all they'd really do, and I don't
think that would be helpful.
* Interestingly they're doing a reverse-Trump on tariffs. Trump uses
that term for what's also known as import duty, while this party
proposes introducing export duty on iron ore, called
a "licence fee": "To reduce debt, the Trumpet of Patriots will
place 15% licence fee on all iron ore exports from Australia".
It's nice to see they're not just copy/pasting from Trump's play
book, but is our iron ore really so cheap that a 15% tax wouldn't
make China buy elsewhere? Even if their trade war with the USA
increases China's cost buying iron ore from there, they've still
got many alternatives. The idea might be that the Chinese would
buy steel made in Australia instead, but that's not really
practical. I can see the sense in Trump's tariffs, whether they
work or not, but this is just detached from any economic reality.
* They propose lower taxes for business, and to reduce regulations,
so manufacturing industries will return. Too vague to mean much.
I don't know what Trump's official election policies were like, but these seem
even more off the wall than what he's been doing in the USA. I agree with some
of their aspirations, but little of their policy has any detail, and when they
do come up with some sort of plan it's complete nonsense. At least they seem to
have squashed down the christian conservative and anti-vaxxer stuff from the
Australian Federation Party last election, but media coverage elsewhere suggests
that's still under the surface and really Trump-style bluster is all they're
offering on their website.
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Fusion: Science, Pirate, Secular, Climate Emergency
https://www.fusionparty.org.au/
* The fusion of parties too small to run on their own since the AEC changed
the minimum membership requirement last election (which really pisses me
off). Apparantly they've taken in Australian Progressives and Democracy First
candidates since last time, though those aren't listed as member parties on
their website. Kammy Cordner-Hunt is listed as a Democracy First candidate
on their website:
https://democracyfirst.org.au/vic/
But they're listed for Vote Planet on the FUSION website:
https://www.fusionparty.org.au/kammy_cordnerhunt_vic
The other Victorian senate candidate in/for FUSION is a Pirate party member:
https://www.fusionparty.org.au/simon_gnieslaw_vic
But he talks more about being Jewish than about digital liberties.
* The only change to their policy titles since 2022 is that "Climate Emergency"
has been changed to "Climate Rescue". Here they've expanded on their
environment policy turning it into a list of about every emissions-cutting
scheme you've ever heard of, with high-speed rail thrown in for good measure.
* Few other changes except additions to their social policies for "Recognition
of Australia's First Nations" and "LGBTIQA+ Rights", which I don't much care
for, though they're not that radical on the former at least. Still want to
introduce a Universal Basic Income of at least $500 per week, now with a
link that depressingly shows I'm well under the Henderson Poverty Line
since that's more than I usually make...
* Now a little more forceful on opposing government support for religion,
they now want to "Remove charity status of promotion of religion". Even
though I'm with them on separating church and state, I'm not sure if
that's overreaching a bit. Sure the charity status can be abused, but
taxing honest religious organisations could be rather unfair on their
followers.
* Not much seems to have changed otherwise, so see my datailed notes on them
from the 2022 federal election.
Of the founding Fusion parties the Science Party and the Pirate Party were
the ones I specifically quite liked. It looks like specifically these are the
ones who have become less active now, leaving it as more like a stand-in for
the Greens, for people who have some problem with the Greens. This is quite
frustrating, and it's unclear how motivated they are towards the older policies.
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Pauline Hanson's One Nation
https://www.onenation.org.au/
* Many similar policies to Trumpet of Patriots, Clive Palmer even wanted them
to merge, but this party's dubious idol is their own Pauline Hanson, not
Donald Trump. They go into more detail than ToP and have a few more
policies besides.
* Without claiming to copy Trump, they have a far more detailed plan for how
to "slash government waste" than ToP's DOGE down under policy. More
infrastructure spending, fewer social and climate services. They claim to
save $90 billion with this plan, but the savings figures shown only add up
to $59.5 billion. It's still all more adgenda-serving than practical.
* Want a referendum to add "constitutional protection of free speech". Which
I do quite like, though Hanson's probably likely to pursue it in an
excessively one-sided way. I'm not really sure it's worth the trouble of a
constitutional change just so that can be erroded like it is overseas
anyway though.
* Cheaper houses by making building materials used for building homes
GST exempt for five years, and reduced regulation. The GST break probably
won't make much of an impact where supply of material, workforce, or land
is constrained. Big property developers seem expert at dodging the more
important regulations around quality-of-work inspections and planning
already, though I'd like to see individuals given an equal playing field
there. I don't think this is a solution.
* They're following the Liberal party with sticking to fossil fuel power
generation with the aim of transitioning to nuclear energy. They somehow
"aim to slash electricity bills by 20% immediately". Same on cutting fuel
excise for a year. Not really much detail on their cost-of-living policies
except where they're copying the Libs. At least they're not afraid of saying
they want to tackle Medicare fraud, which I think should be given more
attention. But just by adding a photo ID and "ensuring Medicare is properly
resourced to investigate and prevent fraudulent claims" which is a bit vague.
* They rather boldly admit "We know that the majority of people believe in
man-made global warming caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases"
before going on to deny global warming in a lengthy rant. I guess this is a
party that _wants_ to speak for the minority and not the majority then? An
odd aspiration in a democracy.
* Want to prevent foreign ownership of farming land and water rights, as well
as anything essential or scarce, currently including houses.
* Heavy on cutting immigration, which is good, but of course slanted towards
racial bias. This policy is tagged "Priority 3" along with, umm, nothing
else. I guess sorting their priorities out proved too difficult.
* Anti-abortion, although they want to tighten the restrictions rather than
ban it. I'm still not with them on this.
They're trying harder than ToP to turn their right-wing ideology into
policy, but it still all reads a bit shallow. Practically speaking they're
inclined to follow the Liberal party on economic policy (while probably saying
a lot that the Libs themselves only dare to imply), but quickly swing
further out to the right whenever they get a whiff of a social policy.
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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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HEART Party
https://heartparty.com.au/
* Previously "Informed Medical Options Party & Involuntary Medication
Objectors (Vaccination/Fluoride) Party", which tells you a lot.
* Unsurprisingly they're mainly concerned with promoting natural alternative
medicines and eliminating any chemicals imposed on the public such as adding
fluoride to water supplies. Nothing I'm much interested in.
* Halfway into eco-friendly stuff such as renewable energy and regenerative
farming, while generally opposing the environmental effects of renewable or
non-renewable energy.
* Presumably skeptical about the greenhouse effect, given this:
Calling for the consideration of all academic perspectives when evaluating
the definition, causes and solutions to the subject of 'climate change'.
* Lots and lots of anti-vax stuff.
* Vague right-wing economic policies about supporting business with reduced tax
and regulation, and smaller government.
A single-issue party for vaccine conspiracy theorists, which falls back on
copying other far-right parties when it comes to other issues. The only
interesting thing is their environmental policy where fear of chemicals seems
to have won out over typical coal/gas-loving right-wing policy, but they're
clearly pretty torn on this.
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Gerard Rennick People First Party
https://peoplefirstparty.au/
* Headed by a Liberal party senator who left the party last year. An accountant
witha farming background, from Queensland.
* Advocate for small government by consolidating departments, and reduced
spending on benefits to beaurocrats and politicians. Also dropping any
multicultural or climate change departments and subsidies on renewables.
They're more detailed on this than some, but still pretty vague and
aspirational.
* Make superannuation voluntary, which I approve of in principle since I like
to think most people aren't too stupid to manage their own money. But still
I struggle to believe that the cost of paying pensions wouldn't increase
with voluntary superannuation.
* After their policies on shrinking government departments, it turns out they
want a government-owned bank (re)established. As usual for keeping physical
branches open and providing better deals on home loans. Also insurance, which
would be a big spend now since climate change is making many houses
uneconomical to insure for reasonable fees. Plus they want to do health
insurance which is in its own death spiral of increasing fees and
correspondingly decrasing subscribers. Arguably these are good reasons for
the government to step in, but this is an indirect approach to the core
problems which can only help by throwing in lots of public money.
* Quite technical economic policies headlined by tax cuts for low-middle
income families. Also simplifying taxation in various ways. They want to
tax share trading to increase stability and offset abolishing payroll tax.
Except for removing tax exemptions for indigionous groups and foreigners,
most of it's about reducing tax on low-mid income individuals and businesses.
* They want to adopt funding infrastructure development (except renewable
energy infrastructure) through government bonds issued by a national
"Infrastructure Bank". Their theory is that this will enable the RBA to
use this as a method for managing monetary policy, but surely at some
increased risk to the success of major infrastructure projects. I really
don't know how well this could work in practice, and they're not doing
much to convince me it would.
* Their also worried that the Bank of England isn't storing Australia's
gold reserve safely and want it kept over here. This is all new to me, and
the depth of the practical and economic issues is far more than their single
paragraph can overcome to enlighten me on the issue. This is really 'deep'
stuff for a micro party though.
* "Ban Foreign Ownership of Infrastructure, Farmland and Housing". Pretty
strong. Also want to ban short selling in the stock market, and various
other tweaks there especially increased public control over superannuation
funds.
* They hate renewables and want to drop the net zero emissions target.
Hydroelectric power apparantly doesn't count as renewables to them though,
they still like it.
* Another one that wants a referendum to add freedom of speech to the
constitution. I still say it's a wrong and wasteful approach to the problem.
They say "Recent events have seen governments curtail the right of
Australians to express their views, even going so far as collaborating
with foreign actors." where I'm not sure if they mean during the the
pandemic or something else.
* They want to "Cut & Cap Immigration" but with industry-supporting
exemptions to their stated ideal of zero immigration. Also deportinging
illegal immigrants and immigrants convicted of a violent crime. It's
laid out a bit too aggressively, but I like the general principle, and
I am fond of no welfare benefits for 10 years to foreign-born citizens.
* Want to cut down on new native title claims by aboriginal groups, and remove
all the Welcome to Country stuff (presumably just in government).
* They want to break up media ownership: "Media companies will be restricted
to owning only two of the three major mediums for communication TV, Radio
and Newspapers". They're sort of missing the point that ownership of those
is consolidating because consumers are moving online instead. Yet they're
not even counting the internet as a major medium for communication?
* Curiously I found no policies about national defence.
Well as a party formed around a break-away senator from one of the major
parties, the policies here are exceptionally detailed overall. But clearly
that's mainly within Gerard Rennick's field as an accountant. He also seems
to have written the economic policy such that you really need an accountancy
degree to unpack it. Overall it reads to me like he's much bigger on tax cuts
than on spending cuts, so I suspect it's a uniquely complicated model for a
commonly unworkable proposal from these micro parties. Still, he's blinded me
with enough economic jargon that I can't be sure. Away from economics his social
policies are commonly right-wing, probably reflecting the more right-wing
climate-change-denying faction of the Liberal party he left. While put off by
that aspect, the superannuation changes are somewhat attractive to me (albeit
as someone who's never had any superannuation income), and their particularly
extreme immigration policy is at least closer to my ideal that the open
floodgates of the major parties.
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Sustainable Australia
https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/
* The one big change they've made since 2022 is that they now support a
Universal Basic Income. Like Fusion it's at $500/week, which is wealth
I've rarely ever known, but apparantly I'm living is desperate poverty.
Unlike Fusion, they link to a long page explaining their reasoning behind
adopting this policy and how they want to tacke the challenge of funding
it:
https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/a_universal_basic_income_for_australians
I'd be satisfied with a much lower starting figure and an intention to work
up to a 'livable' income, but anyway it's something I like and excellent to
see a party that has some plan for implementing it rather than just jotting
it onto a vague wish list. I'm not so sure about their idea that a UBI would
give the government a chance to improve environmental management just becuase
they wouldn't have to spend so much time working on targeted assistance and
welfare schemes. But those are most of what the major parties are talking
about at this election, so maybe they do have a point about it all being a
huge distraction.
Besides UBI, their policies seem to have hardly changed since 2022, so I think
everything I wrote about them then still applies, and I still like them a lot.
