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TNL (The New Liberals)
May. 9th, 2022 01:31 amTNL (The New Liberals)
Website: https://tnl.net.au/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TNL_Australia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tnloz/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tnlaustralia/
TNL are a new party for the 2022 election formed by Victor Kline. They describe themselves as a party of change and an alternative to corporate corrupt politicans. In fact they’re essentially a centrist party trying to achieve the positioning and momentum that have been taken by various Teal Independents this election. They are also registered with the colour teal, leading to not a little confusion and hilarity in branding.
They initially registered under the name “The New Liberals” as a protest against what they saw as the Liberal Party not holding liberal values. This is a tedious old debate, in my mind, and ended up bringing yet another round of arguments over whether the party wanted to use the word “Liberal” disingenuously to pick up confused voters on the Senate ballot. I won’t relitigate the entire debate here, but since ‘liberals for forests’ in 2002, the tactic has been used with greater and lesser extent and intent to harvest votes, with the pinnacle of success being David Leyonhjelm’s 2013 Senate seat for the Liberal Democrats after drawing column A in NSW.
Amusingly, TNL are convinced that the new party name rules are targeted specifically at their own party, rather than an agreement between the Liberals and Labor that the DLP and Lib Dems (among others) have caused voting issues enough times off the back of using conflicting names and had finally got everyone to agree to remove the loophole.
Victor Kline has become mildly famous in auspol circles for spouting off absolute nonsense about his party’s election chances, including an infamous tweet predicting that the 2028 federal election would have TNL as the party of government and the Greens as the party of opposition.
Party Analysis
TNL’s thing is basically the suite of socially liberal policies circulating around all the centrist and centre left parties at present. They’re for climate action, want a Federal ICAC (with teeth), a jobs guarantee, and tax reform.
In terms of the collective climate policies, TNL want net-zero by 2030. They also are using a LOT of war imagery in respect of how they want to tackle climate change. They want no new coal or gas mining, local renewable energy grids with batteries, 100% electric rail, geothermal energy (interestingly this is the first time I’ve heard geothermal spruiked in a while. It was all the rage a decade or two back), more aerial water bombers (I presume they mean buy our own sky cranes, as a lot of the smaller fleet are already ours. We mostly loan the big stuff from California). They want all new vehicles from 2030 to be EVs, a wider charging network, stamp duty exemptions for EVs and ICE car buybacks, and the federal fleet cars to be converted as soon as possible. They want to ban live exports, protect native species, increase trees, protect koala habitat, etc. Honestly after reading so many centre socially liberal platforms, there’s nothing particularly new here. Net-zero dates are the major difference between the various platforms, and 2030 is one of the shorter timelines.
TNL want a retrospective ICAC with teeth (TM). In fact, they want it to have powers even beyond the NSW ICAC’s wildest dreams, being a full court process with a judge and jury trial, rather than a set of recommendations to be passed on to the DPP for prosecution. In my view this is far more excessive than is necessary; an advisory commission on investigating corruption is significantly different to a body that has the ability to prosecute. Also in responsibility for politicians policies, TNL want them all to take a 20% paycut and reduced super, and also adopt the entire Jenkins report suggestions into a Parliamentary Code of Conduct. Oh and term limits of a max of 12 years for all politicians. I’m boggled by this, as 12 years severely closes the generational memory pass on for politicians. I’m not against making sure there is generational change among politicians! I just think 12 years is probably too short a max length, especially to allow your PM and ministry to have relevant experience.
They also want real time donation disclosure and oh my god a complete ban on “major political advertising” during election campaigns. “We would prohibit mass media advertising via radio, tv, print and online advertising, social media, postal advertising, robot or personal phone calls, paying endorsers and influencers and any form of billboard advertising” and only allow flyers, doorknocking and other in-person campaigning (along with websites). Look. This is ridiculous. I am not opposed to stronger rules about what is allowed in political advertising, but this would be even more counterproductive. Essentially this proposal would reduce any party awareness among the general community down to current parliamentary parties, and make it almost impossible for anyone to communicate their election platform in more than one or two slogans and platitudes. Low information voters would have even less information. No.
There’s a proposal for a Job Guarantee Scheme which is for full time employment for everyone who wants it, facilitated by the government. These always feel a bit utopian to me (what if jobs in your skill set aren’t around? Or in your area?), but offering real jobs not work for the dole is a good start.
TNL also want better treatment of “aged citizens” both in aged care and outside it, to make it “the best in the world”. No details on how or the costs of this, however. There is also a “wisdom retention” policy, which is a Council of Elders for OLD PEOPLE, a “body of living national treasures that will help guide government policy”. I’m going to sigh with frustration here – this is not a constituency as unheard as the Voice to Parliament would be, and I really have no interest to pushing for this ahead of Uluru progress.
The refugee policy is an end to mandatory detention and offshore detention, but also still is a “stop the boats” policy. TNL also suggest more refugees in the country on farms “to revive dying towns”. I’m unsure on the percentage of refugees who are trained farmers, but I cannot imagine it is as high as TNL seem to believe – quite often it is highly trained individuals who need their qualifications (whether professional or trade) recognised. There’s also a proposal for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help investigate and repair some of the damage our policies have caused, which is a policy I’d like to see but doubt would happen.
In terms of big Constitution policies, TNL want a Bill of Rights, a Republic, Indigenous Recognition in the Constitution, and lowering the voting age to 16. They want full adoption of Uluru Statement from the Heart and treaty negotiations with every nation (yes all 500+, for ‘fairness’).
In other First Nations policies they want Raise the Age, get rid of Indue cards, improve prison rates, more work on Deaths in Custody, more input on mining leases, and the policy I always find SO paternal, “arrange more employment in environment and flora and fauna for First Nations people in their community! Use their traditional knowledge!” Look, if there are reasons for ranger jobs in an area, sure, and yes we should be relying more on traditional knowledge for things like burns and regeneration, but those are NOT the only jobs needed or wanted by First Nations people. It’s super condescending to keep pigeonholing them in the jobs you want to offer in these policies (especially when what I see a lot of call in the news for is more education and healthcare on country, with associated jobs).
In terms of healthcare, there is more support for the NDIS and better service delivery of the program, higher Medicare rebates for GP visits, more early intervention and screening healthcare, more funding for mental health on Medicare, and funding for “obesity related diseases”. Pretty standard. Also they would like to future-proof for future pandemics.
Support for the ABC (SBS not mentioned) and more funding for a local arts industry. Also there’s a media policy that looks like the “break up Murdoch” stuff spelled out, and strongly dislikes think tanks and research institutes for being too partisan.
TNL are into Modern Monetary Theory, which I am familiar with but could not explain to you. Basically they want us to spend more money as we can always print more. They also want a new government owned bank. Taxation is about taxing multinationals and large businesses more money, with no more specifics than that, on the basis that the scale of money that could be recovered there exceeds any quibbling over other tax rates.
Centrelink pay rates are to be doubled (so this would be $88 a day I think), along with providing carers a living wage. Also no sequestered payment cards like Indue.
In terms of education policies, they want to decrease funding for private schools, want to put heavier restrictions over how education funds can be spent (and want them spent in the same year, a policy every public service agency is howling how awful it is right now), increase to teacher’s salaries, more funding for preschool, your first uni degree to be free, and more money for university research.
Foreign affairs and aid policies are a lot of motherhood statements, really, but focused around “we are part of the Asian region”. They work really hard not to take a position on China. They also want us to spend a lot more on foreign aid (funded by taxing multinationals), particularly in our region. Also in terms of defence, we should rely less on the US and form a defence pact with Indonesia (TNL are oddly into working with Indonesia, it’s been called out in a number of policies). They also want better navy acquisitions as our first line of defence (small subs and air support). Finally, they want parliament to hold the power to declare war, not the prime minister (look I see the symbolic nature of this, but I have to say I always doubt that this change will alter anything, and has the downside of needing to call back both houses if you need to make a call quickly).
Law and justice policies look like they’ve been written by lawyers (shocking given Victor Kline, I know). TNL specifically call out reforming immigration and family law systems to reach solutions faster. This includes a 50/50 community property split in all divorces to decrease litigation (I can see some downsides on this and I can CERTAINLY see it being unpopular). They also want better funding for legal aid.
In water policies they want more flow through the Murray-Darling system, more water conservation, phasing out water-intensive crops, and the end of trading in water licences.
Finally we have a couple of rather petty culture war issues.
The Australia Day policy is “move it to 1 January” (this is a terrible suggestion given it is already a public holiday and half the country is hung over/sleeping in) and introduce a Reconciliation Day holiday in May nationally for the 1967 referendum. Here’s a suggestion – let’s delay this until the NEXT round of referendums and choose a date together.
There’s a policy proposing we change the national anthem, and I’m sorry to inform you that TNL decided to take the worst of all options and retain the tune but change the lyrics. The lyrics they’re proposing feel patronising, like they’d date in about 30 seconds and realistically already feel dated. If you care, it’s the Judith Durham rewrite.
Is this party trying to kill me?
No, TNL don’t have any deadly policies in their platform.
Is this party trying to harm me?
Only in terms of how hard I roll my eyes. TNL personalities spend a lot of time clowning on social media. Their actual policies didn’t appear to have any unexploded bombs.
Conclusion:
Look, this is a pretty standard socially liberal centrist policy set that is quite uneven in detail. There’s not a huge lot in here to pick out compared to the pack – probably the main thing is the MOST powerful ICAC policy I’ve seen, that is extensive enough that I do feel it’s into overreach. The old people voice to parliament made me chuckle as well. They also are prosecuting a handful of culture war policies over the national anthem and Australia Day, but neither of their suggestions are ones that I’ve seen wide acceptance or liking for. Finally, TNL have the most bizarrely broad “no election advertising” policy of the whole campaign. I really don’t feel it would work out the way they expect and would likely entrench major parties.
My biggest issue is the personalities involved with the party. Victor Kline in particular seems to enjoy being a Twitter personality and getting into ridiculous fights in the comments. There are other parties who spend less of their time centring parliamentary decisions as specific attacks of their party personally.
Website: https://tnl.net.au/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TNL_Australia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tnloz/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tnlaustralia/
TNL are a new party for the 2022 election formed by Victor Kline. They describe themselves as a party of change and an alternative to corporate corrupt politicans. In fact they’re essentially a centrist party trying to achieve the positioning and momentum that have been taken by various Teal Independents this election. They are also registered with the colour teal, leading to not a little confusion and hilarity in branding.
They initially registered under the name “The New Liberals” as a protest against what they saw as the Liberal Party not holding liberal values. This is a tedious old debate, in my mind, and ended up bringing yet another round of arguments over whether the party wanted to use the word “Liberal” disingenuously to pick up confused voters on the Senate ballot. I won’t relitigate the entire debate here, but since ‘liberals for forests’ in 2002, the tactic has been used with greater and lesser extent and intent to harvest votes, with the pinnacle of success being David Leyonhjelm’s 2013 Senate seat for the Liberal Democrats after drawing column A in NSW.
Amusingly, TNL are convinced that the new party name rules are targeted specifically at their own party, rather than an agreement between the Liberals and Labor that the DLP and Lib Dems (among others) have caused voting issues enough times off the back of using conflicting names and had finally got everyone to agree to remove the loophole.
Victor Kline has become mildly famous in auspol circles for spouting off absolute nonsense about his party’s election chances, including an infamous tweet predicting that the 2028 federal election would have TNL as the party of government and the Greens as the party of opposition.
Party Analysis
TNL’s thing is basically the suite of socially liberal policies circulating around all the centrist and centre left parties at present. They’re for climate action, want a Federal ICAC (with teeth), a jobs guarantee, and tax reform.
In terms of the collective climate policies, TNL want net-zero by 2030. They also are using a LOT of war imagery in respect of how they want to tackle climate change. They want no new coal or gas mining, local renewable energy grids with batteries, 100% electric rail, geothermal energy (interestingly this is the first time I’ve heard geothermal spruiked in a while. It was all the rage a decade or two back), more aerial water bombers (I presume they mean buy our own sky cranes, as a lot of the smaller fleet are already ours. We mostly loan the big stuff from California). They want all new vehicles from 2030 to be EVs, a wider charging network, stamp duty exemptions for EVs and ICE car buybacks, and the federal fleet cars to be converted as soon as possible. They want to ban live exports, protect native species, increase trees, protect koala habitat, etc. Honestly after reading so many centre socially liberal platforms, there’s nothing particularly new here. Net-zero dates are the major difference between the various platforms, and 2030 is one of the shorter timelines.
TNL want a retrospective ICAC with teeth (TM). In fact, they want it to have powers even beyond the NSW ICAC’s wildest dreams, being a full court process with a judge and jury trial, rather than a set of recommendations to be passed on to the DPP for prosecution. In my view this is far more excessive than is necessary; an advisory commission on investigating corruption is significantly different to a body that has the ability to prosecute. Also in responsibility for politicians policies, TNL want them all to take a 20% paycut and reduced super, and also adopt the entire Jenkins report suggestions into a Parliamentary Code of Conduct. Oh and term limits of a max of 12 years for all politicians. I’m boggled by this, as 12 years severely closes the generational memory pass on for politicians. I’m not against making sure there is generational change among politicians! I just think 12 years is probably too short a max length, especially to allow your PM and ministry to have relevant experience.
They also want real time donation disclosure and oh my god a complete ban on “major political advertising” during election campaigns. “We would prohibit mass media advertising via radio, tv, print and online advertising, social media, postal advertising, robot or personal phone calls, paying endorsers and influencers and any form of billboard advertising” and only allow flyers, doorknocking and other in-person campaigning (along with websites). Look. This is ridiculous. I am not opposed to stronger rules about what is allowed in political advertising, but this would be even more counterproductive. Essentially this proposal would reduce any party awareness among the general community down to current parliamentary parties, and make it almost impossible for anyone to communicate their election platform in more than one or two slogans and platitudes. Low information voters would have even less information. No.
There’s a proposal for a Job Guarantee Scheme which is for full time employment for everyone who wants it, facilitated by the government. These always feel a bit utopian to me (what if jobs in your skill set aren’t around? Or in your area?), but offering real jobs not work for the dole is a good start.
TNL also want better treatment of “aged citizens” both in aged care and outside it, to make it “the best in the world”. No details on how or the costs of this, however. There is also a “wisdom retention” policy, which is a Council of Elders for OLD PEOPLE, a “body of living national treasures that will help guide government policy”. I’m going to sigh with frustration here – this is not a constituency as unheard as the Voice to Parliament would be, and I really have no interest to pushing for this ahead of Uluru progress.
The refugee policy is an end to mandatory detention and offshore detention, but also still is a “stop the boats” policy. TNL also suggest more refugees in the country on farms “to revive dying towns”. I’m unsure on the percentage of refugees who are trained farmers, but I cannot imagine it is as high as TNL seem to believe – quite often it is highly trained individuals who need their qualifications (whether professional or trade) recognised. There’s also a proposal for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help investigate and repair some of the damage our policies have caused, which is a policy I’d like to see but doubt would happen.
In terms of big Constitution policies, TNL want a Bill of Rights, a Republic, Indigenous Recognition in the Constitution, and lowering the voting age to 16. They want full adoption of Uluru Statement from the Heart and treaty negotiations with every nation (yes all 500+, for ‘fairness’).
In other First Nations policies they want Raise the Age, get rid of Indue cards, improve prison rates, more work on Deaths in Custody, more input on mining leases, and the policy I always find SO paternal, “arrange more employment in environment and flora and fauna for First Nations people in their community! Use their traditional knowledge!” Look, if there are reasons for ranger jobs in an area, sure, and yes we should be relying more on traditional knowledge for things like burns and regeneration, but those are NOT the only jobs needed or wanted by First Nations people. It’s super condescending to keep pigeonholing them in the jobs you want to offer in these policies (especially when what I see a lot of call in the news for is more education and healthcare on country, with associated jobs).
In terms of healthcare, there is more support for the NDIS and better service delivery of the program, higher Medicare rebates for GP visits, more early intervention and screening healthcare, more funding for mental health on Medicare, and funding for “obesity related diseases”. Pretty standard. Also they would like to future-proof for future pandemics.
Support for the ABC (SBS not mentioned) and more funding for a local arts industry. Also there’s a media policy that looks like the “break up Murdoch” stuff spelled out, and strongly dislikes think tanks and research institutes for being too partisan.
TNL are into Modern Monetary Theory, which I am familiar with but could not explain to you. Basically they want us to spend more money as we can always print more. They also want a new government owned bank. Taxation is about taxing multinationals and large businesses more money, with no more specifics than that, on the basis that the scale of money that could be recovered there exceeds any quibbling over other tax rates.
Centrelink pay rates are to be doubled (so this would be $88 a day I think), along with providing carers a living wage. Also no sequestered payment cards like Indue.
In terms of education policies, they want to decrease funding for private schools, want to put heavier restrictions over how education funds can be spent (and want them spent in the same year, a policy every public service agency is howling how awful it is right now), increase to teacher’s salaries, more funding for preschool, your first uni degree to be free, and more money for university research.
Foreign affairs and aid policies are a lot of motherhood statements, really, but focused around “we are part of the Asian region”. They work really hard not to take a position on China. They also want us to spend a lot more on foreign aid (funded by taxing multinationals), particularly in our region. Also in terms of defence, we should rely less on the US and form a defence pact with Indonesia (TNL are oddly into working with Indonesia, it’s been called out in a number of policies). They also want better navy acquisitions as our first line of defence (small subs and air support). Finally, they want parliament to hold the power to declare war, not the prime minister (look I see the symbolic nature of this, but I have to say I always doubt that this change will alter anything, and has the downside of needing to call back both houses if you need to make a call quickly).
Law and justice policies look like they’ve been written by lawyers (shocking given Victor Kline, I know). TNL specifically call out reforming immigration and family law systems to reach solutions faster. This includes a 50/50 community property split in all divorces to decrease litigation (I can see some downsides on this and I can CERTAINLY see it being unpopular). They also want better funding for legal aid.
In water policies they want more flow through the Murray-Darling system, more water conservation, phasing out water-intensive crops, and the end of trading in water licences.
Finally we have a couple of rather petty culture war issues.
The Australia Day policy is “move it to 1 January” (this is a terrible suggestion given it is already a public holiday and half the country is hung over/sleeping in) and introduce a Reconciliation Day holiday in May nationally for the 1967 referendum. Here’s a suggestion – let’s delay this until the NEXT round of referendums and choose a date together.
There’s a policy proposing we change the national anthem, and I’m sorry to inform you that TNL decided to take the worst of all options and retain the tune but change the lyrics. The lyrics they’re proposing feel patronising, like they’d date in about 30 seconds and realistically already feel dated. If you care, it’s the Judith Durham rewrite.
Is this party trying to kill me?
No, TNL don’t have any deadly policies in their platform.
Is this party trying to harm me?
Only in terms of how hard I roll my eyes. TNL personalities spend a lot of time clowning on social media. Their actual policies didn’t appear to have any unexploded bombs.
Conclusion:
Look, this is a pretty standard socially liberal centrist policy set that is quite uneven in detail. There’s not a huge lot in here to pick out compared to the pack – probably the main thing is the MOST powerful ICAC policy I’ve seen, that is extensive enough that I do feel it’s into overreach. The old people voice to parliament made me chuckle as well. They also are prosecuting a handful of culture war policies over the national anthem and Australia Day, but neither of their suggestions are ones that I’ve seen wide acceptance or liking for. Finally, TNL have the most bizarrely broad “no election advertising” policy of the whole campaign. I really don’t feel it would work out the way they expect and would likely entrench major parties.
My biggest issue is the personalities involved with the party. Victor Kline in particular seems to enjoy being a Twitter personality and getting into ridiculous fights in the comments. There are other parties who spend less of their time centring parliamentary decisions as specific attacks of their party personally.
