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.
