Tag: australian politics (Page 15 of 17)

Meet the Independents: Karthik Arasu

June 29, 2016 / Catherine / 3 Comments

The holiday is over, and I’m sitting on a plane on my way home to Melbourne*. With 22 hours of flying time ahead of me, what better time to start investigating the smorgasbord of Independents that the Victorian Senate Ballot Paper has to offer? I apologise in advance for any excess silliness in these pages – though, in all honesty, I’m pretty silly even when I’m not increasingly sleep deprived and experiencing turbulence. But with only a few days left until Sunday, I cannot afford to let sleep deprivation get in my way!

Onward, to the first candidate of this on-board political experience, Karthik Arasu.

Mr Arasu wants you to know that he is the first Indian-born independent senate candidate from Victoria, which is oddly specific now I write it out like that. I wonder how many Indian-born politicians we have at present? I suspect not a lot – none come to mind off-hand. The other thing you need to know about Mr Arasu is that he is Working Today for a Better Tomorrow. Good man.

I found this rather nice press release about him in News18 India, very much of the ‘local boy makes good’ variety, and with some interesting discussions of Australia’s electoral process (I found it interesting that they went out of their way to note that Australians do not tend to vote along ehtnic lines – I’m guessing that in India, perhaps people do?), in which we learn that Mr Arasu was born and brought up in Chennai, studied engineering there, then emigrated to Australia where he did a Masters, before becoming a business consultant and working with small self-help groups in Victoria.

I think we can safely assume that Mr Arasu is going to be fine on Immigration.

Mr Arasu’s policies are in fact Promises, and they are rather charming, and definitely full of kindness to both people and the environment. Continue reading

Meet the Small Parties – Australian Defence Veterans’ Party! (Veterans Party)

May 22, 2016 / Catherine / 8 Comments

I’ve been saving the Australian Defence Veterans’ Party for last, because they’ve had a note up on their website all week promising that they would release their full policy document today. Alas, as of 9:20pm this evening, they haven’t done so, and since I really need to spend tomorrow packing for my trip (which, aargh, I have not yet started doing!), I’m going to have to piece together what I can from the information currently available, both on their site and on their Facebook page. So please do bear in mind that this particular commentary will be less thorough than some of the others, and if this party sounds like your cup of tea, I’d encourage you to revisit their website closer to the election date.

The ADVP tells us on their front page that they are:

Protecting Australian values and the Australian way of life. In the Spirit of True Mateship.

Alas for my frivolous soul, I now have this song from Keating! The Musical on endless repeat in my brain. This is not helping…

Scrolling down a bit, we learn that their vision is:

To represent all Australians, with a special focus on the ageing community and those who have served their community or country within Australia and abroad.

Our values are Australian to the core, and include trust, loyalty, integrity, respect and mateship. Quite simply, we believe that should treat everyone as you would treat one of your mates.

We’re here for Australia’s protectors and defenders, for Australia’s farmers and teachers, for emergency responders, Defence members and police. We’re here for all Australians.

(on the matey matey matey matey mate-ship!)

I’m sorry. I know it probably makes me un-Australian, but I do wish we could retire the word ‘mateship’.

Meet the Small Parties – Australian Progressives

May 21, 2016 / Catherine / 11 Comments

On first glance, the Australian Progressives look like a party after my own heart. Their front page, which looks a little bit like the cover of a science fiction novel, and is brought to you by the Letter E, which stands for:

Ethics. Empathy. Equality, Evidence. Engagement. Empowerment.

Please note the use of full stops, because you are not going to get nearly as many of these on the policy page. These are their party values, of which more later.

The Australian Progressives believe in the advancement of an empathetic society – one in which all citizens of this country can reach their full potential and find fulfilment in their lives within a thriving environment. We want to be a government with the guts to advance society through laws, services and infrastructure, rather than gambling on the off-chance that “the free market” will look after everyone and everything. Government and communities should work together to develop creative, passionate and driven individuals who can improve the world around them, embracing education, technology, science, culture and global leadership.

These are good goals, in my view, and this is another party that is aiming to be a party of government, not a single-issue microparty.

Let’s see how they plan to achieve them.

Meet the Small Parties – Australian Liberty Alliance

May 21, 2016 / Catherine / 3 Comments

And once again we are veering across to the right wing of politics, with the Australian Liberty Alliance, who have kindly put this statement up front and centre so we can see what they stand for.

Our Australia stands for individual liberty, small government, Western values, social fairness and an integrated multi-ethnic society. Our Australia has no place for big government, racism, moral relativism, divisive multiculturalism or tolerance for the intolerant. Migrants do not dream of a new life in Australia because we are a Socialist, Islamic or tribal society. Migrants come for the freedom, justice and prosperity only Western civilisation creates.

You know, that’s actually a pretty decent mission statement. I don’t agree with very much of it, but they have done a first class job of stating right there on their front page what they stand for, and everything else you will read is going to follow from that. And at first glance, they don’t appear to be attempting to halt all immigration and kick out everyone who wasn’t born here, so already they are doing better than the Australia First Party in my book. They evidently don’t like Muslims, but on the other hand, they do not seem to be white supremacists, so… yay? (I will note, though, that their candidates are all white. And if you are in New South Wales, you can even vote for Angry Anderson!)

They are also disappointingly non-hilarious in their headlines. I’m trying to decide whether I prefer my scary right wing parties to be well-spoken or clearly unhinged. I think the latter – the former are far more likely to achieve their goals…

Let’s see how this translates to policy…

Meet the Small Parties – Health Australia Party

May 19, 2016 / Catherine / 7 Comments

Let us now return to where the grass is greener, the farmers markets are brighter, the wind farms more appealing, people chat merrily over coffee cups and sunlight beams inspiringly through the tall trees in the forest – it’s the Health Australia Party. Don’t we all feel better just looking at that slideshow of inspiring pictures? Of course we do! And that is just one way in which the Health Australia is ‘a healthy choice’ and ‘for all Australians’. I am feeling loved and embraced already. There is a decidedly crunchy granola feeling about this website.

The Health Australia Party (HAP) is a true centre party committed to promoting open and transparent Government decision making, balance and honesty of information, and stimulating individual freedom of choice and thought – to ensure we have a genuinely Healthy Australia.

Only if Australians can come together, rather than fragment, will the ongoing health, affluence and lifestyle of our country be assured. So the HAP is creating a new paradigm:

A middle ground where Australians can come together, seek consensus and share values and aspirations.
A new political space based on grass roots consultation, transparency and relevance that aims to improve the health of the Nation starting with the health of individual citizens, through to local councils, to state and territory governments, and finally to the national government and to international alliances.

They sound lovely. They have five fundamentals – Healthy People, Healthy Economy, Healthy Environment, Healthy Democracy, Healthy Society. I can get behind this.

Until…

Quality medicine for all people, with access to the best of proven natural and pharmaceutical medicine. Remove the influence of multinational pharmaceutical companies. Affordable medicine – using evidence from unbiased real-world clinical studies and targeted spending. Reform the health bureaucracy. Apply research funds wisely.

Build a health-creation system, not a disease-management system.

The bolds are mine, because I took one look at them, and my heart sank. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have an anti-vaccination party on my hands, and this post just got either a lot longer or a lot shorter, because I suspect you’ve made up your mind about them one way or the other just from that sentence.

(Oh, let’s face it. You know me by now. Shorter is not the direction this will take…)

Meet the Small Parties – The Mature Australia Party

May 19, 2016 / Catherine / 2 Comments

The Mature Australia Party is many things! According to their header they are “Your voice for change”, “Honesty, Truth and Respect”, “The catalyst for the changes YOU want”, “The VOICE for the PEOPLE”, “The Party of the People”, and, a little disturbingly, “Never be ALONE again”.

They hammer this home in their banner, rephrasing most of these core messages, and adding in large, friendly letters the words “You will never be alone”.

No, you will never be alone. Not at all. Not even sometimes. They see you when you are sleeping, and they know when you’re awake. No matter what you do, no matter where you try to hide, YOU WILL NEVER BE ALONE.

So far, this party has unexpected horror movie potential, especially when you add headlines like “Budget – Devil’s in the Details” and “It’s the ‘smell’ of pork!”. This last one would be even better if they put the inverted commas around the ‘pork’, because I am totally speculating on their interest in Long Pork now.

You will be glad to learn that, accidentally creepy slogans notwithstanding, the MAP does not appear to support cannibalism. (Of course, they don’t actually have a policy against cannibalism…) (OK, I’ll stop being silly now.) In fact, they were founded in 2014 as the Mature AGE Party for similar reasons to the Seniors United Party – a desire to reform home owner conditions in private residential parks and over 50s villages. It evolved from there, and now wants to be ‘a catalyst and a spearhead for major changes.

Specifically, the core principles of the Mature Australia Party are equity before the law (one law for all.), no discrimination for or against anyone (on wide-ranging grounds), more open and public accountability by government to the people, and more direct say for the people at all levels of government.

The party’s loyal following today includes members aged from 18 to 80, who come from many different backgrounds, and its policies cover all of these demographics.

However, the Party does not shirk its very special and specific commitment to the interests of the “over 50s” on whose shoulders, contributions, and efforts the party was launched and has grown. The Mature Australia Party does not owe any allegiance to any organisation or corporate body – only its members, and the 18 to 80+ electors and other Australians it seeks to represent.

They feel that Australia was built on “multi-culturalism, hard yakka, supreme tolerance, and compassion for those in need”, and want to keep these qualities as part of Australia’s identity. They also have this thing where MAP also stands for Maturity, Attitude and Perseverence.

(I think this post has already established that I while I probably have the last two of those qualities, the first still eludes me.)

The MAP are a bit cross about the money spent during the financial crisis on school halls, housing insulation and Rudd money, but on the other hand feel that if we can spend $42 billion on this sort of thing, then surely we can and should spend this much on solving Australia’s water supply problems and building better infrastructure generally. And they want a peaceful revolution. I agree that this is the best sort of revolution to have, so I’m on board for now.

Let’s have a look at these policies, then.

Meet the Small Parties: 21st Century Australia Party

May 17, 2016 / Catherine / 5 Comments

Welcome to the 21st Century Australia Party, which bills itself as the Party of the Future. Their banner has a picture of Australia with the flag superimposed on it and colourful call outs saying “Financial planning commissions banned”, “Banish mining tax”, “Establish a sovereign wealth fund”, “Remove Stamp Duty” and “Provide Australia with a value for money National Broadband Network”, and they tell us they are “Bringing Australia’s education and political systems into the 21st century”.

Also, you can enter your email to ‘access free magazines, books and political resources, including our policy document’, which has to be the classiest way of saying ‘click here and we will spam you for eternity’ that I have ever seen.

Apparently, this year I am a curmudgeon about websites, so I’m just going to say now that this is a very busy one.

The party’s founder is Jamie McIntyre, and he is very eager to tell you about himself. Here’s a little bit about him:

It was almost 20 years ago that Jamie found himself in an unenviable position. He was completely broke, in debt to the tune of $150,000, had no job prospects and was sleeping on a friend’s couch.

Jamie grew up on a farm in rural New South Wales, Australia and from an early age had dreams of being successful, however he soon discovered that no part of his education had actually taught him the skills he needed to succeed.

15 years ago Jamie McIntyre decided the world needed a modern day ’21st Century’ education to replace the outdated 19th Century education system. A “21st Century” education that was better than school or university and taught by those with a PhD in Results, not just theory. An Education – For Life!

Only 5 years from being almost bankrupt, he had succeeded – Jamie had become a self-made millionaire.

It’s the great American dream! Jamie is an entrepreneur, the founder of 21st Century News, and Think and Grow Rich Inc and is also a ‘success coach’ and ‘the author of numerous globally applauded publications such as the best-selling books ‘What I Didn’t Learn At School But Wish I Had’ and “Think & Grow Rich For The 21st Century” and is the founder of 21st Century TV, which provides a “21st Century” education and entertainment to over 500,000 subscribers worldwide.’

Wow. This is reminding me very much of Landmark, I have to say – one part self-improvement, nine parts cult. But perhaps I am being unfair…

… OK I’m going to be unfair for just a little bit longer, because he has a testimonials page, and a photos page, and this really is feeling more like a sales pitch for a product that I don’t trust one bit than a political party.

To be fair, that’s a pretty good description of politics in general.

But let’s stop the mockery and actually see what sort of policies young Jamie has to offer us, because it turns out that he has 25 ways to improve Australia, and I’m going to be here all night…
Continue reading

Meet the Small Parties – The Australian Antipaedophile Party

May 17, 2016 / Catherine / 4 Comments

It probably makes me a terrible person, but I cannot look at the name of this party without being irresistibly reminded of Tom Lehrer’s introduction to his song about the Folk Song Army: “It takes a certain amount of courage to get up in a coffee-house or a college auditorium and come out in favor of the things that everybody else in the audience is against like peace and justice and brotherhood and so on”.

Fortunately, I feel reasonably certain that most Australians feel comfortable uniting against paedophilia, and I think we can all be glad that there isn’t a song about this. Unless you count this one. Which is awesome.

So, The Australian Antipaedophile Party. Can we guess what their policies might be about?

(I’ll stop being frivolous in a moment, but I do need to take one more moment to comment on the fact that this is another somewhat poorly-designed website – it took me a while to realise that it wasn’t, in fact, broken, because when you click on the links to ‘Mission Statement’ or ‘Aims’, everything new loads underneath all the information on the front page, including the donate button and facebook button. You have to scroll past a whole screen worth of stuff to get to the new bits. This is not a good way to get people to read your your information.)

Here’s a little bit about them:

Our mission is to change the approaches to child protection for children in Australia in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child through cultural, political, procedural and legislative reform. We seek to respond to and prevent child sexual abuse through raising educational and cultural public awareness and demanding accountability, and the effective and just management of child sexual abuse including influencing the legal processes so that justice is not only done, but is seen to be done, for the safety and wellbeing of all Australian children.

Meet the Small Parties – Non Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting)

May 17, 2016 / Catherine / 4 Comments

The Non Custodial Parents Party is not, in fact, a particularly new party, but so far they have had the good manners to stay off my ballot paper and thus off my radar. This year… well, they do have one candidate in Gippsland and they are talking about running in every state, so I’d better take a look at them. I’m going to say up-front that I’m not looking forward to doing this, because they have a whiff of Men’s Rights about them, and they are, at best, apparently oblivious to family violence and the sort of power dynamics that can make it both difficult and dangerous to expect families to work out custody arrangements between themselves.

Their tag-line is “…because children need both parents” and they introduce themselves as follows:

The party’s membership mainly consists of divorced and separated parents, their spouses and partners, grandparents, relatives, friends and anyone else who believes that children have a right to be cared for by both their parents.

Everyone is very welcome to join the Party – this is regardless of your marital or relationship status and regardless if you are have a different or same sex background. No questions are asked in that regard.

All parents, spouses, partners grandparents, relatives, friends and any interested persons are encouraged to join our political party. We are the only political party that specifically supports family law and child support issues.

I’m mildly amused by ‘no questions are asked in that regard’ with reference to same sex relationships.

Their aims are as follows:

The Aim of the Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting) is to:

a. Minimise government interference in decisions that affect separated families.

and to

b. Maximise the initiative of individual parents to make those decisions.

The parents and the guardians of their children are the best people to determine what is the right thing to do for their children – not someone from either the Government or the Family Court.

Meet the Small Parties – John Madigan’s Manufacturing and Farming Party

May 16, 2016 / Catherine / 3 Comments

Continuing our theme of high profile independents who recently started their own parties, it’s time to investigate John Madigan’s Manufacturing and Farming Party! John Madigan was originally elected as a member of the Democratic Labour Party, who, for those of you who have just tuned in, is the super-Catholic/anti-communist branch of the Australian Labor Party. He quit the party in 2014, blaming a ‘cancer of political intrigue’, while the DLP angrily demanded he give back his seat and pointed to the extraordinarily high staff turnover and levels of stress leave in his office.

Having served as an independent, Madigan has now founded his own party, which is all about “Practical politics, putting people first”.

We believe it’s time that Australia acknowledges our farmers and our manufacturers as the foundation of our economy. Without our farmers and manufacturers and workers, no other economic activity is possible. This is a party to unite all Australians behind that which has and will continue to make this country great. This is a party to encourage debate about manufacturing and farming, and to encourage better support for these two vital sectors of our economy. Additionally we stand for honesty in politics – and a fair go. People matter. Communities matter. The question is not can we afford to buy Australian-made, but can we afford not to?