Summary
| Website: | https://dlp.org.au/ |
| Facebook: | https://www.facebook.com/democraticlabourDLP/ |
| Slogans: |
Putting YOU back into Labour. Labour – the way it should be. |
| Themes: | The Labor Party for Catholics. Quite decent on workers, people with disabilities and refugees. Terrible on LGBTQIA+ people and not great on women, either. |
| Electorate: |
Upper House: NSW, QLD, VIC Lower House: Aston, Ballarat, Blair, Capricornia, Casey, Chisolm, Deakin, Dunkley, Menzies |
| Preferences: | I can only find How to Vote Cards for Victoria, where they favour the Australian Conservatives, the Christian Democrats, Rise Up Australia, United Australia and the Liberal Party. So all the parties professing Christianity, and then the Coalition and the Coalition’s not-so-secret partner. |
| Previous reviews |
Policies & Commentary
I reviewed the DLP back in November for the Victorian State Election, so once again, this will just be a quick update, where I look at what the DLP has been posting as press releases or on their blog since then.
There are a handful of items of interest.
- The DLP made a statement on the Medevac Bill, which they seem to view as doomed to failure: ‘the truth is that almost everything parliament has done about the asylum seekers in the last 10 years has been politicised and turned into a rort of one kind or another, including what is transpiring with Independent Federal MP Phelps’ medevac legislation.’ They feel that bringing 300 refugees here for treatment would hardly be burdensome, but their main message is that we shouldn’t be paying dodgy international security companies for this, since they profit from making offshore processing continue for as long as possible.
- The DLP also made a statement on the refusal of permanent residency to the Wangchuk family. Their residency was refused because their son is deaf, and would be ‘a burden on the taxpayer’. The DLP is disgusted about this and about the message it sends to (and about) disabled people in Australia. And while we’re at it, we also need to do better on how we treat homeless people, elderly people and people struggling with addiction.
- They launched their 2019 policy platform, which I’m not going to review in detail, because it’s not that different to what they took to the Victorian State Election.
- They put out a press release on their futuristic plans for NSW, which included Railways to the Future (sadly, no magnetic levitation is involved), Roadways for the Future, Waterways for the Future, and Airways to the Future. Essentially, they want to make it easier for regional Australians to get around, and they want a Federal Royal Commission into the Murray Darling.
- They launched a policy to change the income tax system to allow couples to choose whether to be assessed as individuals, or whether to split their income between both to lessen their tax bill. This is essentially to reward families with stay-at-home parents (who I note are referred to as ‘work-at-home’ parents, a nice acknowledgment of women’s labour).
This is really the DLP at its best – standing up for refugees and the disabled, and trying to help young families and regional Australians. And it’s good to be reminded, that the DLP does have some decent policies in there. Provided you aren’t LGBTQIA, or in need of an abortion or equality in the workplace. Basically, they are still good Catholics who care about workers. And that comes with some pretty massive issues, but they do at least have some sort of moral centre and logical consistency.
Eurovision Theme Song as determined by me, very objectively
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DPAb9-Stmo]
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