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b_auspolSustainable Australia - Universal Basic Income
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VoteSustainable
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/votesustainable/
(My review for the 2021 WA Election. My review for the 2022 Federal Election)
Sustainable Australia are one of the most cynical parties on the general centre of Australian politics, committed to including daft statements about whatever is their current issue du jour in their party name. This election they’ve picked Universal Basic Income as their hobbyhorse policy (last election it was Stop Overdevelopment/Corruption). I’ve previously described them as NIMBY climate worriers and the appellation still seems apropos.
Party Analysis
How much do you want to hear about corruption in politics and how Australia’s problems could be fixed if we decreased migration? Because oh boy does Sus Aus have a lot to say about both. Among other issues, Sus Aus claim that they are the only party that puts the environment first: yes even including the Greens in this.
They have approximately a thousand policies as always, so I have mostly skimmed them.
They have policies about reducing retirement age to 65 and better aged care facilities, and while I know this policy is at the top of their list alphabetically, it also feels like their lead policy due to their aging supporter demographic. They believe that it is a myth that people aging puts more of a burden on the healthcare system, which I’m not convinced by.
They’re supporters of better arts funding, more money for biodiversity and the environment, stronger climate change legislation, banning new coal mining and transitioning to a renewable grid, putting dental into Medicare, free university and TAFE, better problem gambling regulation, abolish capital gains tax discounts and negative gearing on property, more money for public transport, and better water conservation. As far as all of this goes, they’re a pretty standard set of centre left policies.
Oh they also want a jobs guarantee and to reinstate the Commonwealth Employment Service, because the people writing policy for the party are boomer aged and above.
Then we get to their preferred angles of crankery.
In terms of taxation, Sus Aus want to implement a Universal Basic Income of $40k per year, and raise the tax free threshold to $26k. They want to pay for this via higher company tax rates, effectively, particular from multinationals offshoring profits. Oh and they want optional superannuation (presumably using the UBI as a replacement pension).
The party are also extremely, extremely NIMBY. They want to devolve all planning approvals possible to the local community, they think increasing density is ‘over-development’, but because they also don’t want greenfields developments they instead call for no immigration instead. They explain in a lot of words why it’s mean to say they’re anti-immigration and they’re just calling for ‘sensible’ immigration levels, but as always whenever a political party uses the word ‘sensible’ or ‘common sense’ they actually mean the opposite. They indulge in a conspiracy that the only people in Australia who actually want immigration is big business, for shady reasons. I’m not actually going to get into all their conspiracies about over population, but the obsession with the topic makes the party sound like cranks constantly.
Is this party trying to kill me?
The party wants lower birth rates internationally and fewer people coming to Australia, but it’s not trying to kill anyone already alive.
Is this party trying to harm me?
They’re trying to harm my dreams of affordable inner city dense housing.
Conclusion:
Sustainable Australia is one of those parties that sounds reasonable until you get them onto their special interest topic, and suddenly you feel like you need to back away slowly. It always feels like a case of “our shirts saying we’re not anti-immigration NIMBYs, we just want fewer people have people asking a lot of questions already answered by our t-shirts”. They also always sound really old and focused on the concerns of people who are reaching retirement age, which matches the involvement of Dick Smith in the party and the modern relevance of both.
Do I think they have a number of reasonable policies? Sure, but I can also get those policies from parties who are far less reactionary and anti-immigration.
