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 -------------------------- 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. -------------------------- 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. -------------------------- 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. -------------------------- 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. -------------------------- 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. -------------------------- 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. -------------------------- 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. -------------------------- 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.