Animal Justice Party

Animal Justice Party (AJP)
https://animaljusticeparty.org/wa/

First party up is the Animal Justice Party. At my first glance it looks like the general shape of their website hasn’t changed much since the previous federal election, which certainly makes navigating it easier.

The AJP were founded in 2009, and originally Sydney based: they currently have two members in the NSW Legislative Council and one in the Victorian Legislative Council. They are registered everywhere but Tas and the NT.

( Party Analysis )

Any Predictions?

We have one of mine!
Animal Justice Party are concerned about: rates of human to animal infection; vaccine testing on primates; culls of potential vector species for COVID-19

Vaccine testing on animals is on their policy list! But it’s not specifically as a COVID vaccine policy. This is because vaccine development managed to blitz through animal trials very fast back in March/April when everyone was scared, and we are now well into human trials.

I haven’t seen anything specifically about the felines that can catch COVID but I’m sure if I dug through people’s social media I’d turn it up. Same with my interest in their position on the mink culls.


Is this party trying to kill me?

No. AJP are very very specific about the fact they do not condone any violence, and want non-violent, non-lethal solutions to problems.


Is this party trying to harm me?

I mean, I can’t imagine that I’d do particularly well on a full time vegan diet (and I’d rather get my various vitamins and minerals from food rather than tablets if at all possible), but the AJP do not hold any policies that are trying to harm me.


Conclusion:

Look, while I’d never be offended to see an AJP member in the upper house and we share a lot of left wing values, I do not share their prioritisation of issues. Animal welfare is important, but it’s not my sole guiding light. If you are left leaning and want to centre animal issues because they can’t advocate for themselves, the AJP are probably going to largely align with you and are probably people you want to rank highly on your ballot.

Australian Christians

Australian Christians (WA)
https://australianchristians.org.au/wa-election-2021/

I think the hardest thing for me about any party that puts the word “Christians” in their name is that I immediately start reading all their election material with an eye for dogwhistles. I tend to suspect that they’re socially conservative and are using narrow definitions of terms. Now this may be unfair of me, but your average socially liberal Australian religious person has happily fitted themselves within the broader tent of an already-existing party and doesn’t need to wave the fact they are religious in the name of their party.

Of course, after turning to Wikipedia, the Australian Christians are basically a rebrand of the WA and VIC branches of the Christian Democratic Party that was founded in 2011. I assume they wished to establish their own identity beyond Fred Nile. The Victorian branch later merged with Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives in 2017, but the WA branch apparently weren’t interested.

So that tells you all you really need to know.

However, let us be fair and investigate what policies the Australian Christians are bringing to this election. There are probably darker moments ahead in this series.

( Party Analysis )

Any Predictions?

I’m going to take the CDP prediction made by Cate and apply it here, as they are arguably the same party, policywise.

The Christian Democratic Party will address this through prayer, of course. But they also want you to know that COVID-19 was sent by God to punish Australia for not being sufficiently homophobic.

Now I cannot manage to spot anyone specifically stating that COVID-19 can be fixed by prayer. But I will note that they plan to use the power of prayer during the 2021 election to “reverse bad laws”, the list of which includes banning conversion therapy, legalising abortion and actually letting children get educated about gender and sexuality.

So you know. I think the pandemic is going well enough in WA that it’s not specifically God punishing them. So they’re going to focus that prayer power on making the government more intolerant and small-minded.
 

Is this party trying to kill me?

No. The Australian Christians don’t appear to have any policies that are actively likely to endanger my life.
 

Is this party trying to harm me?

Yes, they are. The Australian Christians are pretty clearly virulently anti-queer, given their opinions on conversion therapy and the “LGBTQI agenda in the UN”, plus they’re anti-abortion. I do not feel safe about their policies.
 

Conclusion:

Look, they’re right wing Christian social conservatives. There are certainly worse far right parties running in this election, but they are certainly stuck on their own interpretation of what Christianity says and are anxious to try and make sure the rest of the state and country have to follow it too.

I can’t say I’d ever voluntarily vote for them, but they’re not quite bottom of the ticket for me. (And yes that is a bit hypocritical of me, as Fred Nile is a perennial for Last Spot On My Ballot unless there is someone frankly more dangerous, but Fred Nile also personally introduced an amendment to a piece of legislation that makes my life and job harder, so I’m allowed to be bitter).

Daylight Saving Party

Daylight Saving Party
http://daylightsavingswa.com.au/

NB: at present the website domain is inaccessible

Awwww, it’s our first single issue microparty.

Wikipedia informs me that the party was founded in 2016 and is basically unrelated to the previous party of the same name. This is their second WA state election.

( Party analysis )

Any Predictions?

No.


Is this party trying to kill me?

No.


Is this party trying to harm me?

Only if you consider the harm of excessive eye rolling. The Daylight Saving Party don’t have any harmful policies. That’s largely because they only have a single policy.


Conclusion:

Do not vote for this party. Just don’t. They have only one policy and they’re currently trying to manipulate the system blatantly.

Plus I think they’re idiots considering Mark McGowan is likely to romp straight back into government, but they are trying to pick up the Liberal vote, when we potentially will have FOUR SEPARATE PARTIES using the word “Liberal” in their name on the ballot.

Come off it.

I think you should probably still preference them ahead of any party that fails the “are you trying to kill/harm me” test, but don’t reward this bad behaviour.

Great Australian Party

Great Australian Party (GAP)
https://www.greataustralianparty.com.au/
 

Okay, time to take a preemptive shower.

A quick look at the history of the party: GAP was formed by Rod Culleton in April 2019 to contest the Australian federal election. If you don’t remember why these words send a shiver up your spine, Culleton is one of the many political figures who got caught up in the Great Disqualification Games of the 45th parliament, though in his case he got booted for being a bankrupt, not for dual citizenship. In the short time Culleton WAS in the Senate, he managed to resign from One Nation to sit as an independent, because of course he did. Unhappy about being ruled ineligible, Culleton appealed the decision. Then appealed again. When the High Court told him (politely) to give it up, he threatened to appeal it to the Privy Council to overrule the High Court and get his seat back. For those of you who aren’t as familiar with the various appeal options in the Australian legal system, that option ceased in 1988. The High Court is the final arbiter. I don’t recall hearing if he actually managed to lodge anything with the Privy Council, but if he did I’m sure it’s a delight to read. He’s been referring to himself as “Senator in Exile” since his exclusion, which was a CHOICE.

The Great Australian Party is Culleton’s personal microparty, featuring the many ideas of his that are too radical and unpalatable to be One Nation policies. These include the fact that he’s a sovereign citizen. Let that sit with you for a minute.

( Party Analysis )

Any Predictions?

Oh boy do we ever!

The Great Australian Party is convinced COVID-19 is a plot to get them to pay taxes. They prepare several sov-cit documents for the government that still require Australian hospitals to treat them, but only by citizen medical practitioners. It’s the dirty foreigners fault.

You cannot get COVID-19 if you are exposed to the virus in an admiralty court.

I mean, you can only put the ALL CAPS Strawman into quarantine anyway, not the flesh and blood human being...

They will also appeal to the Queen’s Privy Council if anyone tries to make them go into quarantine.

The paper personhood enforced by the government might have COVID-19 and be ordered into self quarantine, but I, a free and natural man, have rights under the Magna Carta to do whatever I want and am perfectly healthy.

Now GAP is smart enough to only post about this on social media, not their website, but please, please don’t bother looking at the comments on their facebook page. I saw plenty of sovereign citizen nuttiness, though at present it’s mostly focused on COVID-19 not existing and vaccines not being necessary.


Is this party trying to kill me?

Yes. Their gun policies do not make me feel safe at all. They are advocating for handguns to be available for the general public to carry and for stores of firearms in cities. Also they don’t believe in a disease that has, to date, killed over 2 million humans in the past year.


Is this party trying to harm me?

Just the desire for more guns and vaccine refusal harms me.


Conclusion:

There are a small handful of things that are interesting about GAP. You can see where their members and hypothetical voters are: older farmers who want the basics of life run by the government but are suspicious of regulation outside of what they know. They certainly believe in Australian government ownership of (some) infrastructure and utilities such as banks and telecommunications, and have a comprehensive set of policies on animal welfare and primary industries.

Unfortunately they are let down by being absolute sov-cit conspiracy weirdoes obsessed with the idea that Australian laws are not being made legitimately and a fundamental mistrust of our judicial system, to the point they want parliament to be able to overturn anything the judiciary does. Of course they don’t particularly trust parliament either and want people’s referendums on issues that are currently cabinet decisions. They don’t believe in COVID. And they like guns far, far too much.

Do not vote for this party. I would suggest they are among the most dangerous people running for the WA election this year – not only are they far right in their policies, their policies don’t make sense and they promote dangerous conspiracies. Straight to the bottom of the ticket.

 

Health Australia Party

Health Australia Party (HAP)
https://www.healthaustraliaparty.com.au/

It’s important to know that the Health Australia Party was originally formed as the Natural Medicine Party in 2013, then switched its name to HAP in 2015, likely on the realisation that a party calling itself ‘Natural Medicine’ is rather unlikely to convince many people to vote for them. They have never managed to win seats anywhere. The wikipedia page mentions the fact they’ve been accused of being anti-vaccine, into alternative medicine and conspiracy theories in the first few paragraphs, which is always a nice warning sign.
 

( Party Analysis )

Any Predictions?


Cate said “The Health Australia Party have a homeopathic vaccination that is already available.”

I did not see a homeopathic vaccination. However, the Health Australia Party are extremely suspicious of the vaccines that WILL be available for COVID.


Is this party trying to kill me?

No, but they are trying to kill babies. I thought that this was going to be a no, but then I saw the baby homeopathy kit and I lost it.


Is this party trying to harm me?

Yes. Health Australia Party does not particularly want to support actual tested medical care and medicine, and would rather focus on natural medicine. They also are anti-vaccine, despite their protests that they are just concerned about kids getting too many, too fast – they are encouraging people to register their concerns about the COVID vaccines and possibly not take it. They are advocating policies that will endanger people.


Conclusion:

The Health Australia Party are pretty standard left wing social and economic progressives who unfortunately have a giant blindspot known as being completely obsessed with natural medicine. This infects some of their policies to the point that they are running a conspiracy.

While HAP take the time to try and say they are only suspicious of conventional medicine trying to maximise profits, they don't actually hate medicine or vaccinations, their social media shows this is not necessarily the case. I'm not saying that there isn't room to do better on their concerns - I just think they've fallen completely into the deep end of the pool over this.

They are very into natural and complementary medicine. They are very into organic and biodynamic farming. If this conflicts with your views, I'd certainly rank them in a middling manner on the ballot. Vaccine crankery is more dangerous than usual this year.
 

LEGALISE CANNABIS WESTERN AUSTRALIA PARTY

LEGALISE CANNABIS WESTERN AUSTRALIA PARTY

https://lcwaparty.org.au


I just checked – this is not HEMP, but a separate party. I did manage to track down their website via HEMP though – very kind of them to let the party advertise. It apparently formed in September 2020, so they are very new indeed, but the QLD branch already contested the QLD election
 

( Party Analysis )

Any Predictions?

Yes, we do! Well, we did for HEMP, and I’m going to use them here anyway.

HEMP are concerned with... god do I actually have to spell it out? HEMP think marijuana can’t hurt if you’ve got an infection, don’t judge us for smoking, man.

Every member of the HEMP Party this afternoon: sharing content on Facebook that claims weed cures COVID-19.

While I can see all sorts of health claims, mostly about chronic pain, I have not yet seen one about COVID. I think they’re so focused on getting the party registered that they don’t have time to make jokes like this 12 months into a pandemic.


Is this party trying to kill me?

No. Legalise Cannabis just want legal cannabis, and as they are very fond of saying, “nobody has ever died from taking marijuana”.


Is this party trying to harm me?

No. I mean I don’t want to be close to anyone smoking, as my lungs hate it, but I also don’t want to be near people smoking cigarettes, dusty days, bushfire smoke clouds, pollen, Glen20 or other things that irritate my lungs. These people have no ill will towards me.


Conclusion:

I have to say, this appears to be a pro-cannabis party having an outbreak of good sense, by following the advice they’ve been given and targeting the level of government that can actually make the reforms they want. Their goals are small and well articulated, and there’s a lot less nonsense than you generally see with claims of how cannabis can cure all the world’s ills.

They are still a microparty however, and have given no indication of how they would plan to vote on the 99.99% of parliamentary issues that do not revolve around legalising cannabis, so you’re on your own there about what they would actually be doing in parliament if they got a seat.

If you think that decriminalisation, at minimum, is something that is helpful, I’d suggest they fall in the harmless category and could go reasonably high on your ballot. I’d certainly prefer to see someone in the LC holding the balance of power who has a broader articulated set of policies, but realistically they are just here to make noise on the ballot and advocate for their single issue.