Australian Democrats

[b_auspol]

Australian Democrats

Website: https://www.democrats.org.au/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AustDems

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/australiandemocrats/

 

Keeping the Bastards Honest (TM). The Australian Democrats were founded in 1977, though the last federal election where they won any senate seats is 2001. By 2016 the party was deregistered, though two rival factions attempted re-registration subsequently.

The current party achieved registration with the assistance of CountryMinded, one of many “the Nationals have abandoned the true way of the Country Party” microparties that pop up every election cycle.

 

Party Analysis

The Democrats still write election policy platforms like they are a minor party with actual electoral chances. This means they have approximately five million policies, which I will group generally.

The Democrats have a lot, a LOT of policies around accountability, which makes sense for their original slogan. Highlights this time include a National Integrity System (cmon just say ICAC like every other party does) which includes an ICAC, a new ombudsman, a Whistleblower Protection Agency, some new Commissioners, and a whole independent system for it all. Basically, they would like a lot more independent structures to complain to and review situations around the behaviour of politicians, spending, advertising, donations, rorts, keeping secrets – in fact, all the stuff that your average auspol weirdo loves to scream about in the poor AEC’s mentions and then get angry when the AEC explain they have no method of enforcement over it. The good parts of this are that yes, there is definitely appetite for an independent federal investigative body to keep an eye on the government. I quite like the idea of stronger whistleblower protections enshrined within this body, because those are needed.

The Democrats want improvements to Aged Care, including better funding, better care, higher minimums on care staff, better pay for carers, more HomeCare support – essentially just more. Spend lots more money on aged care. A cynical part of me feels that this focus may be from the policy writers interacting more with the system due to aged parents and the coming time. It’s all positive “do more” proposals, but of course there is no real discussion of the cost for this and how it would be paid for.

Climate policies! The Democrats are anti-nuclear, want 66% reductions by 2030 and net zero by 2050, a price on carbon, no further subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, more public information about the breakdown of carbon emitters by sector, and to declare a climate emergency. They also want reforestation, better water management (including a health Murray-Darling Basin), and “climate sustainable agiculture”. To be honest, aside from the 66% reductions, this is again pretty boilerplate centrist climate agitation at this point. They have a focus on the transition and transitioning not only sectors but jobs and industries. It’s extensive in what they want to achieve, but again soft touch on the details of how.

The Defence policy is oddly focused on actual shoreline defence, rather than any form of equipment we could use overseas, either for wartime or peacekeeping operations. They want longer range strike aircraft, anti-ship missiles, and diesel (not nuclear) submarine purchases. The entire policy is basically “we are still fighting the last war, also nobody will invade our shores”. They DO have a policy that “those involved in war crimes should face appropriate legal action” which I heartily support, and would support even more if Ben Roberts-Smith and co were the first people investigated.

To compliment this they want increased foreign aid and diplomacy, more Covid vaccine diplomacy to our region, not enter wars without UN and parlimentary sanction, end immigration detention and offshore processing, and also this gem of a policy “Work to reduce tensions between the United States and the Peoples Republic of China”. Never say that the Australian Democrats are unambitious, folks. Also a “feminist foreign policy” proposal, which is interesting and seems to involve increasing women’s representation and addressing issues like poverty, education barriers, gender based violence and reproductive health. It’s actually quite interesting seeing the ‘raise women’s education, raise the nation’ argument in an election policy plan.

Tax plans! The Democrats want to raise the tax free threshold to $37,000 per annum and increase taxes on the super wealthy and global firms (wealth over $100 million and inheritances over $10 million). I’m slightly unsure as to whether you would actually raise more money this way, but it would undoubtedly be a popular move.

With all this tax money they want to raise Centrelink payments to $90 a day, get rid of cashless welfare cards, new build social housing, have more affordable housing (restricting negative gearing to new builds). The policy “Transfer 50% of public housing stock to community-based housing operators” makes me side eye quite a bit – I don’t think we should be giving public assets to non-profits to administer. They do actually have a very mild tenancy policy too (some regulation improvements, pegging rent increases to median wage) but I don’t think it goes far enough.

The Democrats have a policy to ban gambling ads - ok I’m on board! They also want better money laundering protections, federal casino regulation and a ban on micro-transactions in games ‘available to’ children. I really can’t see any downsides here.

Is this party trying to kill me?

No. The Democrats policies don’t aim to kill me.


Is this party trying to harm me?

The only way this party is going to harm me is by eye rolling too hard at how they think they still have any electional chance.


Conclusion:

The Australian Democrats platform remains reasonably centrist and focused at “keeping the bastards honest”. However I just cannot see them as electable in any sense. Older folk remember the fact they lost their position as the sensible centre over the early 2000s, and younger folk have no idea who they are.

Their policies are fine? Centrist left, but fine. They’ve tapped into the climate policies that are attracting a lot of disaffected voters at present from the majors. It’s just I don’t see what they offer that will attract voters away from either the Greens or a lower house Teal vote.

Also they are trying WAY too hard and are really bad at providing a tight argument for why I should vote for them.