Tag: policies (Page 3 of 3)

Politics: Policy Party 2010 – The Australian Greens

August 8, 2010 / Catherine / 8 Comments

… and we’re up to The Australian Greens!

Full disclosure, here: I had already decided to hand out how to vote cards and possibly scrutineer for the Greens before reading their current policies (on the grounds that it is possible that there might be a smaller party that I prefer, but if so, they won’t be bothering with Wills, which is a very safe Labor seat). Having read their policies, I have not changed my mind. Senate preferences in Victoria flow to the Democrats, the Sex Party, the Radical Independents, the Secular Party, the people from Crikey.com, the Socialist Alliance (not the communists), and then to Labor. Which, of course, is where their preferences will end up, because none of the other parties before Labor are likely to get more votes than the Greens, and indeed, the preferences pretty much serve solely to demonstrate that they are Family First’s worst nightmare. Though the bottom of the ticket is reserved for the Citizens’ Electoral Council, the Climate Change Sceptics, and One Nation, with Family First occupying a positively friendly slots 50-54 out of 60. Incidentally, this pattern seems to have been followed more or less across all the other states, often with Labor placed directly above Liberal, just to show how dissimilar they find the two parties…

Politics: Federal Election – Meet Family First

August 3, 2010 / Catherine / 0 Comments

So, we’ve had our (rather alarming) jump to the left – now let’s try a step to the right. Quite a few steps to the right, in fact, because group C on the Victorian ballot paper is about as close to the Christian Right as Australian politics gets while still being marginally electable – Family First.

Here’s what they have to say about themselves:

We believe Australia should be the best country in the world to raise a family.
* We are passionate about families and small businesses; two groups which do not have a strong voice in Parliament.
* We will promote family values and campaigns on the issues that really matter to families and small businesses. Issues like:
– Improving job security and workplace conditions
– Reducing unacceptably high petrol and grocery prices
– Helping Australians afford their own home
* We will lobby for sensible solutions to improve legislation and get the best outcomes for families and small businesses.

Politics: Federal Election – Meet the Independent Radicals

August 3, 2010 / Catherine / 1 Comment

Moving along in my donkey-vote, we come to Group B on Victoria’s Senate voting form, which is the ticket of ‘Independent Radicals’ Joseph Toscano, Jenny Warfe and Andrew Sadauskas. As none of them are affiliated with a registered political party, there is no political website for them as a group, but their Senate Voting ticket, which preferences the Greens, the Socialist Alliance (not to be confused with the Socialist Equality Party) and the Secular Party of Australia, suggests that this lot can be found on the not-too-insane borders of the left wing.

But who are these people really? Your intrepid reporter delved into the bowels of Google in order to find out…

Continue reading

Politics: Federal Election – Meet the Socialist Equality Party!

August 2, 2010 / Catherine / 4 Comments

One of the more enjoyable parts of election day for me is filling in my Upper House ballot paper. For those unfamiliar with the way Australia’s electoral system works, in the Lower House you vote for the one person who will be representing your area – which is usually several suburbs wide – and this is done simply by preferential voting; in the Upper House, you are voting for the five people who will represent the entire state you live in, which is much more complicated and is done by proportional representation (which I am not going to explain this time, unless someone really wants to know). The Upper House is therefore the place you are most likely to find representatives of smaller parties such as the Greens, the Democrats, or, heaven help us, Family First or One Nation, which means you get to decide exactly which nasty, mean-spirited little party deserves to be ranked dead last, and which tiny little party that you know perfectly well doesn’t have a hope in hell but you love anyway gets to go first..

The Upper House, or Senate, ballot paper tends to have a very large number of candidates – I think we have 60 in Victoria this year, and we sometimes have a hundred or more – and a fair number of political parties, too, most of which we have never heard of in our lives (which is where this series of posts comes in, but more of this later). Because most people sadly do not rejoice in numbering their entire ballot paper from 1-60, you can choose just to vote your party’s ticket, by selecting your preferred party’s box above the line. Your preferences then go wherever your party of choice decides to direct them, which is how Victoria got a Family First Senator in 2004, thank you so much The Australian Labor Party.

Anyway, since I do not, in fact, vote below the line solely to annoy the people counting the votes, I feel it behoves me to actually find out exactly what each party stands for, so that I can exercise my democratic rights in a well-educated, if slightly over-obsessive, fashion. To this end, I will be visiting the websites of as many different parties as have them over the next few weeks, reading their policies and their Senate Group Voting Tickets (often a very good way to find out what a party really stands for), and reporting back here. But, since one has to start somewhere, I am going to analyse the parties in donkey vote order, going from left to right on the Victorian Senate Form. Which means today we start with…

The Socialist Equality Party

Politics: Vote Early and Often!

November 20, 2006 / Catherine / 0 Comments

I always vote below the line in elections. There’s something very satisfying about figuring out which political party is the most vile of all, and putting them dead last. Also, of course, if you vote above the line, your preferences are distributed according to the preferences of the party you select… which can mean they sometimes go places that you really wish they wouldn’t.

With this in mind – and particularly after the shenanigans at the Federal Election which resulted in Family First getting up much against the wishes of most constituents – I encourage everyone to vote below the line if possible. If you can’t do so, for whatever reason, I suggest you have a look at the 2006 Group Voting Tickets for the Victorian State Election before election day, and figure out which party is distributing preferences most according to your wishes.

I don’t claim to be unbiased (I think you all know that I am, once again, handing out how to vote cards and scrutineering for the Greens) – but my primary agenda in this and any election is that people vote knowledgeably. Vote for whoever you choose – but please make sure you DO choose, and that you know who and what you are voting for. I could, I hope, be satisfied even with the scary religious parties in power, provided I thought that was what the Australian Public actually wanted (though, admittedly, I would probably choose to be satisfied with this from New Zealand, as clearly a country which truly thought this way would not be my country any more). But I have more faith in the Australian Public than that.

In order to further my ambitious political agenda of Knowledgeable Voting, I have created what I believe is a complete list of parties participating in the current election (yes, even the ones I utterly loathe), with links to their policy pages. Have a look behind the cut if you want to know more. We may only have one vote each, but it is our responsibility to use it as well as we can.

Australian Democrats: http://vic.democrats.org.au/cs/commitments.html

Australian Labor Party: http://www.vic.alp.org.au/dl/2006_vic_platform.pdf (this link is to a PDF)

Christian Democratic Party: http://www.christiandemocratic.org.au/vic/index.htm

Citizens’ Electoral Council: http://www.cecaust.com.au/main.asp?sub=info&id=cec.htm

Country Alliance: http://www.countryalliance.org.au/policies.htm

Democratic Labor Party: http://www.dlp.org.au/policies.htm

Family First: http://www.familyfirst.org.au/state.php?gid=2&inid=10

Liberal Party: http://www.vic.liberal.org.au/default.cfm?action=policies_2006

National Party: http://www.vicnats.com/policies/default.asp

People Power: http://www.peoplepower.org.au/VIC06/Policies%203.htm

Socialist Alliance: http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=190

The Australian Greens: http://www.vic.greens.org.au/about-the-greens/policy/policy-documents/

I haven’t found all the Independents yet – I’ll see how I go for time.

Politics: Healthcare, Education and Carers – A brief and irreverent review

October 24, 2006 / Catherine / 0 Comments

In the course of my job at a non-profit that provides support and advice to individuals and families with genetic conditions, I’ve been asked to do an ‘election special’ for our newsletter, involving reading and reporting on party policies in the areas of healthcare, education, carers, and other areas of interest to our members.

This is, of course, a fine idea.

Except that I really have to keep it apolitical, and I am, of course, as biased as hell.

What I’m doing is putting the name of each party, saying ‘these are the areas in which the party has policy documents, and here is where you can find the policy documents’, and then picking the area or areas in which I think our members will be most interested, and putting a little box with their statement on that subject.

Note: this post is a compilation of several, shorter, posts, written as I was reading through the various pages

Politics: ALP Policies for the 2004 Election

September 15, 2004 / Catherine / 0 Comments

I don’t know why I am suddenly quite so fascinated by Australian politics. But I seem to have decided that I must now find out everything I can about all the parties I dug up yesterday, and report back. We’ll see how long this enthusiasm lasts. In passing, I note that my friends appear to be quite a politically active mob. On quite a lot of different sides, too. Definitely a good thing. I am currently trying to arrange to do how to vote cards at the same booth where another friend is handing out cards for Labor. My evil side can’t help wondering if I can convince my democrat, liberal, socialist alternative and Scary Christian friends to hand out cards at the same booth… keep each other company, you know. Because surely it is a good thing when people on all different sides of politics can find common ground? This is, of course, a hobby horse of mine.

I also wonder why politics is meant to be such a Thing Not To Discuss. My parents didn’t even discuss it with each other, and my mother got quite upset once when I asked her how she had voted. It just Wasn’t Done. Partly, I think, because my father was a swinging voter with working class sympathies and my mother was much more conservative. But it seems to have been a wider social rule. Maybe I’m just lucky in having friends who are happy to discuss politics non-heatedly. Or maybe it’s just that everyone who knows me has by now realised that I ask out of rampant curiosity, not to pick a fight.

Anyway, if you don’t ask the people you respect who they are voting for and why, then how are you supposed to find out what the different parties have to offer people of intelligence and integrity? Or why a particular person feels represented by a particular party?

Back to the policy documents. I’m going to start with the ALP, because I went there yesterday.

Politics: Looking for Policies…

September 14, 2004 / Catherine / 0 Comments

It’s been bugging me that you can’t just go somewhere and read all the different parties’ policies.

So here’s a list of all the parties listed by the AEC, and all the websites I can find for them. If I’ve missed any, or you can fill in any blanks, please let me know.

And yes, I am feeling a trifle obsessive-compulsive today…