b_auspol

FUSION: Science, Pirate, Secular, Climate Emergency

Website: https://www.fusionparty.org.au/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FusionPartyAus
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FusionPartyAus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fusionpartyaus/

Fusion are certainly the most complicated party to come out of the 2021 election reforms. Formed in early 2022, they are not a resurrection of Alfred Deakin’s Fusion Party (a combination of the Protectionists and Anti-Socialists in 1909), but are in fact the combination of the former Science Party, Pirate Party, Secular Party, Vote Planet, and Climate Change Justice Party.

You could actually describe the old Fusion and new Fusion as completely opposed in their focus. Alfred Deakin would be so mad.

This conglomeration of left microparties stretch as far back as 2006 (for Secular), but broadly are either from the 2013 election (Science and Pirate) or the last parliament (the various Climate parties).

In a delightful turn of events, their colours are described as “Bluebell, Aquamarine, Vivid Mulberry”, which are very pretty, if not a coherent identifying colour theme to look at in a massed bloc.

Party Analysis

Ok so given they are the merging of at least six separate microparties, what do they actually stand for? Essentially, the platform is a combination of all their pet hobbyhorses: Climate Action, Digital Rights and the Right to Privacy, Secular Humanism, and a bunch of general left social justice issues.

The climate policy is named “Climate Emergency”. Fusion want the government to declare a climate emergency, for net zero by 2032 (10 year transition), followed by negative emissions (so we are capturing carbon), increase regenerative agriculture. There’s also a lovely policy to aim for 800% of needed renewable energy, so we can export renewable energy overseas. There’s also an ecological restoration policy that wants to end all native logging, no new fossil fuel projects, regenerative agriculture, and managing waterways to decrease water licences and increase flows. There’s also an interesting policy to use Indigenous Rangers and local Indigenous knowledge more systematically for ecological restoration projects.

Their “Future Focus” policies are a mix bag of dream concepts. Essentially, they would like planning beyond the next electoral term, with a minister to consider long term consequences of decisions, an East Coast High Speed Rail line between the 4 capitals, medical research, more funding for research and development. “Develop manufacturing districts for industries of the future such as space, renewable energy, and quantum and biological computing” is a policy in ‘let’s become the next experts in SOMETHING’, while “Join the international research effort into developing fusion energy” is just making me laugh. Oh yeah, fusion energy time for us all! That’s a reliable investment opportunity.

Education policies include all Gonski reforms for primary and secondary schools, along with incentives for teachers at disadvantaged schools. They also want better funding for universities, less linked to grant applications, and for publicly funded research to be open access. (This policy was written by your local academic, clearly). Finally they are not on team free university – just “continue to fund HECS-HELP”.

The Ethical Governance policy contains the Federal ICAC policy, real time disclosures of donations over $1,000, better FOI requests, fewer restrictions on speech for public servants, more protections for whistleblowers. All of this is pretty much the boilerplate proposals that have been made generally.

Fair and Inclusive Society has the housing policy. Fusion focus on removing capital gains discounts, replacing stamp duty with land tax, and increasing zoning density policy. I’m excited to see the zoning, except for the fact that isn’t zoning density isn’t a federal issue, it’s a local government issue. (Campaign for the level of government you are running for, people!) Switching from stamp duty to land tax is popular with the left, and unpopular with people whose property has gone up massively in value. There’s also the Medicare policy (add mental and dental, increase bulk bill rates and telehealth) as well as a less idenitikit policy in “treat alcoholism and drug dependencies as health issues”.

Fusion are also advocating for an UBI of $500 per week, ok, and then to fund this they are… replacing tax brackets with a flat tax rate? What? A FLAT TAX RATE? In the middle of all this progressive policy? Stage 3 tax cuts aren’t enough, we will just abandon any sign of a progessive tax system? Whatever your feelings about UBI vs a better Centrelink rate, the flat tax policy is completely out of step with assisting people’s finances and off in libertarian dream land.

They also have some law and prison policies, which are “focus on outcomes and restorative justice, not punishment” (yes, I advocate for this myself, but the general public hate to hear about restorative justice when it actually occurs), more rehabilitation to reduce recidivism, and “reduce actual and perceived discrimination”. I’m not sure why the anti-discrimination law policy is with the “stop locking people up for long periods” policy, but hey, they’re both aspects of law. There’s also a “Remove censorship, blasphemy, and other laws against speech” policy which is always going to rub up against the anti-discrimination law. You can’t have perfect no discrimination AND no laws against speech. One or other of them will have to give way, they cover the same ground. (Welcome to the Section 18C debate).

Fusion want Voluntary Assisted Dying (aka at this point let the NT and ACT have self determination for this policy, as all the states have passed it or are finalising passing it). They would also like a Constitutional Bill of Rights, with rights to freedom of speech, association and religion, the right to privacy, the right to a trial by jury, the right against indefinite detention, and unjust seizure of property.

The Pirate Policy Section! (Ok they call it Civil and Digital Liberties). This is where there is a copyright, IP and public domain policy that refuses to commit to the reforms they want for copyright – it’s clear they want it shorter but won’t put a figure on it, just say ‘review trade agreements’. They also have a digital rights policy that says “Enshrine network neutrality and freedom of expression in law”, and suggests they want a right to privacy/to be forgotten, but do not spell it out, only hint at it. Commit harder here in your policies. I shouldn’t be reading them through the tea leaves of knowing what Pirate policies generally are.

The Secular Humanism policy section just “separation of church and state”, “remove religious ceremonies from government and public institutions”, “get rid of school chaplains”, “teach ethics instead and fund counsellers”. Is there anything new here? No. They also want to remove blasphemy laws, which are currently already abolished federally. Go bother NSW, SA, VIC, ACT, NT and Norfolk Island to finish taking the laws they already don’t use off the books.

Finally we have foreign policy, which includes “Support political asylum for refugees, particularly for whistleblowers and those exiled for defending democratic freedoms” (I KNEW there had to be an Assange policy in here somewhere, though I note they’ve finally stopped calling him out by name specifically), a call to use foreign aid more often in diplomacy to support human rights, to “renew faith in democracy, institutions, and the media” (ok we’ll just do that), and to develop “strategic alternative supply chains for critical elements of the economy” including semiconductors, IT infrastructure, medicines, food, and steel and plastics processing, machining and fabrication. This all sounds very much like “create a local alternative to having to buy things from China in case we are at war” to me.

Policies that are missing here: the most glaring gap is I see nothing about Indigenous policies or Uluru Statement from the Heart. What is a centre left party without a policy on this at present? There also isn’t really a drug policy here, which I’d expect to see.

Is this party trying to kill me?

No, Fusion are too busy trying to reconcile 6 parties worth of policy to come out with anything aimed at killing me.

Is this party trying to harm me?

I have to say, the UBI policy is a badly thought out policy that could cause harm, but that’s because they’ve clearly put no thought into how the tax side of it would work. Otherwise they’re not advocating for anything that would cause harm (aside from eye rolling on some issues).

Conclusion:

Look, Fusion presents as a weird mish-mash of leftish policy because it’s a franken party of 6 micro leftish parties, each with their own pet issue. My major concerns here is the multiple times they were advocating for things that are handled by another level of government and whatever that tax and UBI policy was.

It is also an EXTREMELY inner city, university educated academics, white set of policies. Even more than you expect to see. Plus, your candidate is probably going to largely be for whatever their original party was, before the merger, and may disregard other parts of the platform.

Fusion aren’t actively advocating for anything I’d consider harmful, but there are more coherent left of centre parties and I kept feeling as I read their policies “they could do more”. I’ll still be ranking them reasonably highly but I was underwhelmed.

Australian Values Party

Website: https://australianvalues.org.au/

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/australianvalues.org.au/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/australianvalues.org.au/

The Australian Values Party was formed by Heston Russell in 2021. Russell is a controversial figure with a past as an SAS Commander who criticised the Brereton Inquiry and investigations into war crimes in Afghanistan. Since then he has had several stories about his fundraising activities for charity, in one of which he essentially scammed people on OnlyFans by telling them he was selling porn to fundraise for a veteran’s charity, Swiss 8, but proceeded to keep the money for himself. He also was running unauthorised fundraising with ‘veteran supporter pins’ he didn’t pay for under another company. This is not a man I find in any way trustworthy.

At the outset I have to say that I find Heston Russell a shonk and about as appealing a person as Ben Robert-Smith (he of the ‘why are you running this defamation claim revealing more details of your own war crimes’ fame) and I seriously disagree with anyone who may have been responsible for war crimes or have commanded a platoon who committed war crimes running for political office.

With that said, here is what his political platform contains.


Party Analysis

Australian Values Party is a Defence and Veterans focused party. He wants all defence manufacturing done in Australia with no international parts, a National Guard for emergency assistance (rather than just calling in the ADF), legislation to protect military personnel and veterans from “trial by media” (which appears to be ‘getting called out for committing war crimes’), more money and tech for defence, and a review of everything to improve assets. Basically, shower the military in money and stop letting the general public go “what the actual did you just say”. He also wants better medical support and transition support for veterans after service and their families, with less red tape and paperwork, which is fair, as from what I hear this can be onerous for veterans and their families.

The party has a fascinating policy that there should be a new Act for conduct of politicians and parliamentary staff, which includes better accounting of financial benefits, mandatory drug and alcohol testing, and meeting “exacting ethical and moral standards”. Now I am the first to say I agree that politicians should not be intoxicated while at work, and that there are some ridiculous uses of parliamentary allowances, but I’m always slightly suspicious of anything that comes too hard after parliamentary finances. Some of that money is in fact so that people aren’t paying out of pocket for being representatives, and we have solid evidence that things are better if there’s a bit too much money sloshing around than if there is too little. It pays for staff and second homes and long hours working. Also, while I do think that there is an argument for some method of censuring politicians who have been found to have been ethically wrong (whether rape allegations like Christian Porter, or bribery/donation issues like Sam Dastiyari, or ‘what did you make up this time’ allegations like Angus Taylor and his invented Sydney Council funds), I feel the ultimate determination of whether these politicians should be in parliament comes down to the voters. The Federal parliament has removed its power to exclude politicians for a reason.

The party (read Russell) is also very unhappy with media and government accountability. He wants “Media accountability measures to address the ongoing trial-by-media persecution endured by those who are unable to afford 'the cost of justice’ required to defend their innocence before guilt by public opinion.” He also wants a Royal Commission to essentially every event of the past 3 years including the fires, floods and COVID, Aged Care and Robodebt. The general thrust of this is that the media and government are negligent and have been destroying people’s mental health. I don’t disagree that we need reviews, but what I actually think we need is to implement PREVIOUS reviews rather than just go for another round of looking into what happened. Also this feels a LOT like Heston Russell’s grudge against the ABC.

Foreign Affairs policies include a Peace Corps/National Guard like body for national and regional foreign aid, and spending more time working in South East Asia and the Pacific with our neighbours. I support this; the fact that we don’t actually have better equipped ships for disaster relief deployment surprises me, as was most recently evident with responding to the Sāmoān volcano. A specific group for this work, rather than drafting AFP personnel each time, would mean you could recruit for some more specialist experience in disaster relief.

The Australian Values Party want in depth reviews into almost everything, to see if money can be spent better, almost immediately after entering office. I find this highly unlikely to occur, particularly as it comes up in almost every single one of their policies. There is definite overtones of “there is too much bureaucracy” and “cut the red tape” and “do things that make common sense”. (Anyone who appeals to common sense in political terms is generally dangerously naïve).

Their entire energy policy is “let’s review what there is and what’s most effective” without committing to a position on what to use and whether to stop using fossil fuels. They want better federal quarantine for plants, animals and people, without specifics beyond “quarantine facilities” and “stop using the AFP”.

The first part of their health policy is “Any and all medical staff who lost their jobs due to state or territory mandates must be reinstated and, if needed, provided with federal exemptions to these mandates.” I am sorry, but up-to-date vaccinations are part of routine job expectations for medical staff. I have yet to see a convincing argument why they should be exempt from Covid vaccines but still have to be fully vaccinated for the flu and hepatitis. The number of people who lost their jobs on this basis is tiny and let’s be honest, I wouldn’t be comfortable having them treat me anyway. With open borders we are fully able to recruit additional staff from overseas as a stopgap for these personnel. In less vaccine-denial areas, the health policy wants more funding for early detection initiatives for conditions (I like the inclusion of dental, but I believe doctors, not government, should be determining what is a safe interval for early detection checks, to avoid false positives). They would also like national equalisation of medication regulations.

The Australian Values Party wants more sports development of youth towards the Brisbane 2032 Olympics, and also wants more funding for kids to be involved in cadets. There’s also a lovely dogwhistle here about “As we progress in technological advancements, previously common lived experience will continue to depart from our everyday lives, including those of our children.” I can’t quite get what it’s indicating towards – I think it might be sports, hobbies, car maintenance and other vocational items (which are still frequently in the curriculum) – but I can’t escape the feeling he’s pointing at something more concerning.

In terms of tertiary education, they want free TAFE for “critical areas of trade and specialisations” and subsidies/free HECS-HELP for health professionals. They are very into a training-to-job/career pathway, which is useful for students to gain employment, but also prioritises technical training over university studies into things you want to learn about and knowledge for knowedge’s sake.

In their firearms policy, the AVP is careful not to argue that they want more guns, but when you read it, they are arguing for more access to guns. They want a National firearm registration and licencing system, rather than state based systems, but they also want it managed at a local government level. I admit I’m confused what on earth local government would do with guns and I really think it should be kept at a more well funded level. Ok, this is where I get a bit “I work in law” but I feel guns and gun regulation are fundamentally linked to the Crimes Act. Criminal legislation is largely a State thing. While I agree with having national consensus on policy here, I see absolutely no reason why it shouldn’t be managed at state level, by the police. Local governments are for bins and roads, not checking people’s gun safes. There’s also a call out that military veterans are discriminated against by some States and Territories at getting registrations for guns, and honestly? If you’re not ticking the mental health boxes to get a weapon and you’re a military veteran I don’t think you should have access to a gun. In any case, the whole policy is a bit too enthusiastic about guns for my taste.

The climate policy starts with “Regardless of where you sit with climate change – we could all be doing more and better support the countries within our region to do so as well.” I really have nothing to say about that apart from that I think people who don’t believe in climate change aren’t interested in dealing with the impacts on our region. Policy wise, AVP are stumping for carbon capture and conversion, which have been largely found to be ineffective or not easily scaleable, and there is no commitment to reduction levels beyond a “scalable sustainable climate strategy”. In upsides however they want us to work with Indo/Asian-Pacific Region to support (financially) smaller nations with ‘sustainable initiatives’, however I feel that our leadership for that is sadly lacking given we are definitely the biggest polluter in the region.

The “Real Reconciliation” policy is a call for a Reconciliation Action Group (another committee!) to “to sit down, listen and work through the conversations that often come from generational trauma and carry resentment” and work towards planning a treaty. My major issue with this policy is while it is trying to say that we need to stop platitudes and make process…it spends the whole time making platitudes without committing to anything. There is no position on whether to support Uluru Statement from the Heart or on Constitutional Recognition or self-determination. There is also a lack of support for any equity programs – in fact there is a slogan that gives me the shivers: “Handouts and handshakes must be replaced by hard work” to address community issues. There is definitely an implication for ‘stop entitlements for First Nations’ people that are current attempts to redress imbalances.
 

Is this party trying to kill me?

While the party has a gun policy, it hasn’t specifically tried to water down policies that I can tell. Mostly they want to standardise regulation.


Is this party trying to harm me?

I kept getting the feel of dog-whistles for culture war issues while reading the website, but due to the general lack of commitment to policies beyond “we should establish a committee to investigate and review X”, there’s nothing I can pin down. There were definite shades of a bit of vaccine hesitancy around the health policy, however.

Conclusion:

This is a moderate right party who are far too into reviewing everything in government and lacking in firm ideas of what to do beyond that. On top of that, I really don’t think Heston Russell is a trustworthy person who even meets the moral and ethical standards he’s calling for all politicians to have to meet.

In terms of good policies, they are very invested in more work and assistance with the Pacific region and in disaster preparedness, but I just get a wishy-washy feel from most of their policies.

Australian Citizens Party

Website: https://citizensparty.org.au/election2022

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CitizensPartyAU

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

It’s time for my favourite* weird microparty.

The Australian Citizens Party is the new name for our old friends, the Citizens Electoral Council, aka the LaRouche conspiracy theorists. The party was originally registered in 1997 and have been amusing anyone brave enough to read their campaign material ever since.

They technically won a by-election in Queensland way back in 1988 but their candidate abandoned them for the Nationals almost immediately afterwards. They have never since won any serious amount of votes.

The Citizens Party have a certain rhythm to their crazy. Tragically they appear to have removed my favourite link of theirs from the old website: Has your neighbour been brainwashed about Lyndon LaRouche? I have a strong opinion that any time you have to make a special page or point of explaining why you aren’t a conspiracy theorist, it conveys that in fact you are near as no mind that.


Party Analysis

The Citizens Party are very into banks. If you were to ask me what their policies are in between elections, I would gleefully shriek “Glass-Steagall! Stop the bail-in! Bradfield Scheme! The Queen is a lizard!” I cannot explain to you what most of this means, but I certainly have read a lot of their opinions on the matter over the years. Apparently global banking is going to destabilise and collapse any day now and the government will steal all our money. Also the Bradfield Scheme is an impractical dream to drastically redirect water in QLD that would likely cause more climate issues than it solves. And the lizard thing is of course David Icke antisemitism.

Their actual listed policies however for this election are: a national bank, no bail-in for banks, Glass-Steagall banking separation… ahh, Citizens Party, you haven’t abandoned your roots.

In terms of banks, they would like a new national bank. Actually, a couple of national banks. One for our money, using post offices as branches, another to pay for investment in giant Australian infrastructure projects, and a third to “expand manufacturing and agricultural industries”. They also repeat their conspiracy that even though the Australian government guarantees savings deposits to a figure of $250k per individual per bank against a bank failure, the government could really truly call in all the money in the banks in a dire financial emergency. Also they want a Glass-Steagall Act, which I have never fully understood but is supposedly to protect us all from banks speculating with our money.

The giant infrastructure projects they are interested in include: the Bradfield Scheme (tunnel in QLD to redirect water to the Red Centre, proposed in 1938); Project Iron Boomerang (a giant iron ore to steel plants railway across northern Australia, proposed in 2006); and high speed rail between all national capitals (proposed every single election since time immemorial). All three of these projects are pie-in-the-sky ideas that get mooted then ignored by governments who look at the costs involved vs likelihood of any financial return and push them off until the next time someone wanders in their door raving. They are extraordinarily unlikely to ever happen.

In bank policies I am not so inclined to ridicule them over, the Citizens Party want “full compensation for financial victims” including cases from the Banking Royal Commission, with the government paying the compensation now and recouping it themselves from the banks. I’m not opposed to the government helping out and smoothing the way, but in the circumstance that some of this money is probable unrecoverable, I think managing the payment scheme from the banks rather than just anteing up the money themselves is probably a more budget-wise option.

They also want to prevent any house or farm foreclosures in case of the property bubble popping, so people don’t lose their homes. I’m not completely opposed, but also I would be extremely wary over any policy for this that went beyond one property per household, and I don’t think the government should have to pay for mortgages taken out well beyond serviceability. There is some proportion of loans that if the government stepped in to protect them, would essentially be throwing tax money down a black hole propping up the banks.

A 0.1% tax on all shares, bonds and currency exchange transactions! Try to stop financial speculation via taxation! Look, I don’t even know how this would work out, and if it’s viable.

In policies not relating to banks (their core turf), the Citizens Party would like to “End Australia’s shameful reputation as a paradise for white collar criminals by overhauling the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) into an aggressive law-enforcement agency feared by the banks.” Oh wait. It’s still about banks. They essentially want ASIC to be more top down heavy and interventionist against companies. I can’t stop giggling at the description of ASIC as becoming a “feared law-enforcement agency”.

Expanded healthcare! The Citizens Party want more medical treatment providers and hospital beds. I have no objections to us spending more money on healthcare, it’s just that for a federal government election, a lot of that is delivered by the States themselves. But of course, chucking more money at states to spend on healthcare is sensible. We HAVE seen the vulnerabilities in the healthcare system over the past two years come into stark relief, and you honestly can never over-invest in healthcare.

We should also not go to war with China, and stop following the UK and US’s foreign policy decisions. Highlights of this policy include: “reform the war powers to replace the prime minister’s power to unilaterally declare war with a vote by Parliament” – I’m not opposed, I just know the war power is something constitutional and held by the cabinet, so shifting it over to the government as a whole may take some doing; free Julian Assange – anyone with a spelt out Julian Assange policy is a party that I side-eye as it’s a classic case of ‘please please pick a better case to advocate over’; and that instead of being aggressive towards China we should instead join in the Belt and Road Initiative, aka China’s soft power buying initiative, to raise global living standards. I don’t think there is a reasonable way we can just sign up to help fund Belt and Road, and I don’t think that’s a wise call in any case.

Justice for refugees! Finally a policy I can unequivocally agree with. This is pretty standard stuff: stop indefinite detention, release refugees into the community, allow the NZ resettlement offer to go ahead, and then specific media callouts for refugees released from Park Hotel (happened this past week in the election prelude) and Murugappan family back to Bileola.

Finally, the Citizens Party want us to legalise nuclear power and build power plants.

Is this party trying to kill me?

No. They aren’t advertising any gun-related policies or anything that seems likely to kill me.

Is this party trying to harm me?

They’re a pack of bank-obsessed conspiracy weirdos but the Australian Citizens Party don’t seem to specifically have any policies that will hurt me.


Conclusion:

Look, the Australian Citizens Party are bad news. They do want better healthcare and treatment of refugees, but otherwise largely indulge in a desire for central, government-run banking while also being paranoid the banking system is about to collapse and all their money will be stolen.

Their policies are tightly focused and do not contain opinions on a lot of current issues, but this isn’t hugely worrying, as they are a microparty who are unlikely to gain votes outside of their cult members supporters.

Do not vote for them, but do enjoy their commitment to ridiculous giant dream projects for which they haven’t thought through the consequences.

Australian Labor Party

How to Vote: The HTV lists vote 1 above the line Labor, 2 above the line Greens. No votes for our socialists. There’s also a reminder in the bottom right to take a photo of the HTV as they won’t be handed out at polling places, and a list of polling locations and pre-polls on the reverse.

Photo comments: the group campaign photo is a composite of three separate candidate pictures with a background of Rydalmere Pedestrian Bridge. I’m amused they used this bridge, as it’s definitely one of the most industrial looking one in the ward (and also an old feature of my bike rides in my teens – I’ve carried bikes over that bridge many a time).

Dr Patricia Prociv – current councillor

Website: https://patriciaprociv.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RosehillWardParramatta

Let’s start with Labor!

Patricia Prociv has a personal website that she uses both for her campaign and to talk about what’s going on in the council. I’m deeply charmed by its strong Geocities feel and hand coding, and I’ve been enjoying watching it get updated as the election got closer.

Prociv’s platform is based around a bunch of public infrastructure upgrades, increased public transport, and community consultation.

For public transport, she is agitating for a bus from Lidcombe Station to Wentworth Point and Newington. Currently the suburbs are served with buses to Olympic Park Station and Burwood Station, but a link to Lidcombe Station would prevent the need to change trains. She also wants better bus and ferry timetabling across the ward and reinstatement of some cut services.

Clean up: Currently Parramatta is on booked council clean ups only, with the ability to request 4 clean ups per year. There are also generally 2 scheduled e-waste drop off days per year, but COVID’s caused issues with them. Prociv would like to switch to 2 scheduled and 2 booked clean ups per year, which I’m not horribly opposed to. The nice thing about scheduled cleanups is that it tends to compress all the dumping to certain times of year, as people are less likely to use their booked ones then, and it’s certainly easier for apartments to access. You also find yourself playing “illegal dumping or booked cleanup” less often. She also wants river clean up of Duck River, Duck Creek and a’Becketts Creek for both household and industrial waste, and yes they all definitely could use it. All three are inflow creeks running into Parramatta River, surrounded by industrial land, and are not places where I’d be willing to touch the water. She also supports the volunteer litter cleanup of Haslams Creek and Parramatta River. Haslams Creek is an honestly great wetland that you’ve probably seen me photograph repeatedly that runs to the west of Olympic Park. These wetlands have been getting revitalisation for the past 30 years since Olympic Park was built and maintaining and improving them is always a tick my book.

Prociv supports more parks and more all age all ability playgrounds. She also specifically wants to upgrade the land under the M4 to be more useable. And this is definitely something I support - it's an excellent bike route, but the very shaded area under the motorway is largely otherwise filled with stone rubble and the motor bike training course at one end. There's plenty of scope to make it a more useable area, especially as the apartments nearby could use another closer park or sports courts area.

She wants better council communication with residents and more work with local volunteer groups, but also better access to community meeting rooms and spaces. This is an ISSUE due to construction in Parramatta proper – the current temporary library is extremely short on meeting rooms for hire and I am told hiring local council halls is both liable to get you bumped AND the facilities need some upgrades (like air conditioning. And less leaky roofs).

Current council plans she supports: Prociv supports bike-only paths and separated walking and cycling paths in busier areas. Also she supports the new Alfred St Bike Path and Pedestrian Bridge, which I am drooling over, as it runs straight from the M4 path down to the new light rail stop and Parramatta River bridge crossing, that will make accessing the north bank bike path WAY more convenient for Harris Park and Rosehill residents, while allowing north bank residents to walk directly across the bridge to a new light rail stop. Basically, this bike path is a "win my votes" project for some reason and I can't get over it. She’s also into the North Granville community upgrades (some revitalisation to the north side of Granville station, which is an extremely run down local shopping area, plus upgrades to the local park including a better dog park and new playgrounds, lighting, and facilities).

On other noisy council issues: Prociv supported the Save Willow Grove movement and opposed the Parramatta Powerhouse site plans. She voted for Phive. She’s also supported the replacement of Parramatta Pool and getting the cost paid for by State funding rather than local residents, since State were the ones who took the pool off the council for the stadium in the first place.

QR codes: Provic loves them and fills her graphics with them. There’s one on her corflute. I love that she’s leaned into the fact that everyone’s had a crash course on how QR codes work in the past two years, and put them in as well as traditional links. She’s using QR codes as contact information links on her posters. She has also devoted pages of her website to both how to access prepoll and postal voting, and to polling places within the ward, on which she’s supplied QR codes as links to access this information at the official NSWEC pages.

Prociv has also got a page on her website about drawing cartoons as a way to keep busy during COVID. Given her background in Arts Education, I love that she decided to make this suggestion for anyone on her website during a lockdown.

NB: for my own amusement, while I was initially looking over Prociv’s website for this election, her page on her running mates was using placeholder images of a Socialist Alliance How to Vote card for the NSW Senate from the 2019 federal election, and pictures of the proposed parklands at Wentworth Point as stand ins for candidate pictures. I’m tickled that Prociv was using a mock up with one of Price’s how to votes.


Paul Noack

Paul Noack is the second Labor on the ticket. Normally I’d say this means his likelihood of being elected is extremely low, however without the Liberals running, he’s at least worth considering seriously. He is a retired AWU official and also recently retired as a “Fire Fighter Organiser” which sounds like it’s from the RFS? In any case, he’s got definite strong organiser and networking experience between the two roles.

Noack lists his interests as community parks and green spaces and better public transport for Wentworth Point, sustainable development and increased community consultation.

Noack lives at Wentworth Point and is campaigning on that point. Rosehill Ward is a ward split by a number of geographical boundaries (Parramatta River and Rosehill Gardens Racecourse), leading to three-ish population clusters with different priorities. You have the Harris Park/South Parramatta section to the west with its proximity to the CBD and strong Indian and Maronite Catholic communities, the Rydalmere/Ermington section north of the river which still has industrial sections and a lot of older family housing, and the Silverwater/Newington/Wentworth Point end, which is largely all new-build in the past 20 years, HEAVILY medium to high density, populated with young professionals and definitely the Japanese/Korean end of the ward. (Newington is the suburb that was built as the athletes village for the Sydney Olympics, for my out of town friends).

Rosehill could use someone living around Wentworth Point electorate in some ways, as it’s definitely an area that is still getting infrastructure in place. One of the achievements last council was getting a better access bridge from Wentworth Point over to Rhodes shops for residents. There’s also a proposed new High School for Wentworth Point beside the very shiny new Primary School. I went past the land on the weekend on my bike, and at the moment it’s a very fenced off weedy peninsula. Labor’s proposal is that the remainder of the peninsula, once the high school is in place, should be public parkland rather than completely devoted to school ovals. From my perspective, that’s probably a smart move: while Newington Nature Reserve is just opposite, the whole area of it is definitely more devoted to walking and cycling paths and an excellent playground on the other side of the Armoury that is quite a hike to get to from Wentworth Point proper. Some more little kid playgrounds and a public oval would actually be a valuable addition for local residents – even though the Point is just beyond the Olympic Park and Bicentennial Park complex, there is not really many spaces for say, family cricket or soccer games, or to take under 5s to play. There are AMAZING facilities right next door but most of them aren’t set up for casual sports use. A lot of the park land in the area is actually wetlands and bird habitat with winding paths through more than your local sports oval.

Now I love Bicentennial Park and the bike tracks through Newington dearly and spent a lot of lockdown in them, but Wentworth Point could definitely use another park that feels like a local place to take the kids to run around from the apartment towers nearby.

Picking through what is public on his social media, he supports the Aus Republican movement.

Now, most of the Wentworth Point policies are currently supported and put forward by Dr Prociv, but having a Councillor from what is a rather edge section of the ward that has a growing population certainly would be good for hyper local reasons.


Sinead Simpkins

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sineadsimpkins4rosehillward/

Sinead Simpkins lives in Rydalmere, meaning Labor are running a candidate from each chunk of the ward. Simpkins is 27 years old and currently works in Early Childhood Education. She was hard hit by the COVID job market: she basically had just finished up a Masters at the end of 2018 and then lost her new job as a legal assistant in the first wave of 2020 job losses (SMH article here) and has direct experience with Centrelink, robodebt, the current rental markets and all the fun there of trying to break into work when no one is hiring young people.

She’s officially Labor Left and very Young Labor, with degrees that are definitely aimed at a future in politics. A scroll through her personal facebook is a lot of campaigning on social issues, climate activism and votes for herself and friends for various youth political gigs. She also appears to have links to ParraParents, which makes sense as a ECE educator in the area – ParraParents is very into local parks, play areas for kids and activities for children.

Her personal interests for local council revolve around public transport: particularly better bus and ferry services, as Rydalmere is dependent on these until the new light rail finishes. Rydalmere and Ermington do need these, as they’re fenced in on one side by Victoria Road and the other by the river. It’s very much an area you need to get out of before you can transfer to faster public transport links. She’s also interested in Sustainable Development and more Environmentally Sustainable Initiatives. She’d also like better dog parks in the area (and has a very cute dog herself!) She still plays hockey in a local league.

I like Simpkins quite a bit. She makes the point that she’s one of the few young candidates running in the ward, and the council at the moment is quite retiree heavy. However, she is also third on the ballot and clearly here to get some campaigning experience from the branch.


Overall opinion:

I expect Labor to do very well this election, in no small part because of the withdrawal of all Liberal candidates. Patricia Prociv seems to have used her time usefully during her last term. I think between Paul Noack and Sinead Simpkins I have a minor preference for Simpkins, in that I honestly think another younger councillor with direct experience of unemployment and renting is never a bad thing in a council, but with full knowledge this run is mostly training.

Small Business Party

How to Vote: Small Business Party recommends voting 1 for them, assigning no other preferences.

Photo comments: There’s a nice shot of Andrew Wilson in front of Parramatta Town Hall that was taken several years ago, judging by the lack of the construction hoardings in the background. Very “Yes I was Mayor”. Also a few of him in his mayoral chain, and one posing with Angela Vithoulkas in Wynyard Park in the city. The picture I’m MOST amused by, though, is Wilson posing in front of a heap of dirt labelled “The site of the future Parramatta Aquatic Centre”. Yes, I want my new pool, but that pile of dirt isn’t convincing me of anything!

 

Andrew Wilson - current councillor

Website: https://thesmallbusinessparty.com/city-of-parramatta/

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

Andrew Wilson is the most experienced local council member running for election in the ward. He’s been on Parramatta Council since 1999 and has served as Lord Mayor. He’s decided to join with the Small Business Party to run this year, which is annoying me, as he’s reasonably practical and that’s generally not anything I associate with Angela Vithoulkas.

Previously, Wilson ran under Our Local Community (2017), Lorraine Wearne Independents (2012), and the Liberal Party (2008).

Wilson is a strong supporter of the Powerhouse move. He’s actually reasonably strong on the local arts scene – he’s also campaigned previously about keeping Riverside Theatre publicly owned. However, this does make him the sole candidate in this election that did NOT back saving Willow Grove at its original location. Wilson also supported the new stadium and upgrades for the new Parramatta Pool and getting the pool paid for by NSW Government (though we’re not getting waterslides. Andrew, where are my waterslides?)

In terms of transport, Wilson supports and has worked for footpath upgrades and a walkable city (good! They’re needed) and for better links including the bridge and increased footpath capacity between Melrose Park and Wentworth Point. Wentworth Point honestly needs every bit of transport links it can get, as it’s definitely still being developed. He helped get the Baylink Shuttle Bus, which is a free shuttle that essentially travels between Wentworth Point and Rhodes shops. He pushed for a Metro stop at Wentworth Point (this is NOT on the Metro West map and would have been a significant diversion – they’re getting a stop at Olympic Park instead, which is best described as “next to the train station, on the same block as the Sydney Olympic Park vaccination centre, but up the hill”). He also has campaigned in Council for more overhead crossings and pedestrian tunnels for main roads. Honestly, he’s pretty solid on transport and the only point where I’ll go against him is that he’s blocked sale of car parks. If car parks aren’t financially viable, get rid of them, replace them with something more useful.

His big focuses for the upcoming term are more footpaths and redevelopment of North Granville. This is BADLY needed. Parramatta is in one of those stages where waves of redevelopment are slowly spreading out from the centre of the CBD. As someone extremely self-interested who enjoys good food and a nice local cafe and plenty of community facilities on my doorstep, I am all for this and less for rundown shopping strips that you wonder how the lights stay on.

Look, there’s a reason Andrew Wilson has teamed up with the Small Business Party. He’s a conservative at heart and I wouldn’t trust him to be perfect on social issues, but he’s reasonable and you can talk to him. He’s very passionate for the arts and science and community facilities. He’s also got a lot of lived experience on Council, which can be both good and bad. (And yes, he puts up with “Andrew, where’s my X” from locals when things go down, so there’s that in his favour).

On the downside though: my goodness their flyer. The one pamphlet I’ve got was definitely not copyedited and includes such joys as “Supported the cause for improved improved bus services including the M52 bus” and "We are ghting for families, small businesses and their communities”. Gotta keep ghting for improved improvements on Council.

 

James Laurence

James Laurence is a plumber. He’s filed his paperwork saying that his interests this election are to “stop wage theft and sham contracting in the construction industry”. Now this is also an issue near and dear to my heart as someone who deals with deemed employment for ABN contractors in the construction industry ALL THE TIME for work, but I cannot say that local council is the right place to approach this issue. You want state and federal legislation, mate. He also wants better ethics in property development, and do we all.

Laurence sounds exactly like a plumber operating a business in the construction industry should. If I’ve tracked him down correctly he’s working in his dad’s plumbing business. I have no idea what he actually would like to do if he got a council seat, as he hasn’t said anything, and there’s really nothing in his social media.

 

Christine Rigby

Christine Rigby is a retired TAFE teacher. She’s run with Andrew Wilson before in the 2017 local election.

Rigby’s paperwork lists her involvement with various committees, including at least one Newington strata community, being on the disability committees of the old Auburn Council and of Parramatta Council and on the Heritage Committee for Parramatta. Someone with hands on experience with disability committees, strata, and a retired teacher is at least well versed in how councils run! Rigby knows what level of government she’s running for, unlike Laurence. I suspect she’s in third as she’s only running as a favour to Wilson to fill out the ballot.

 

Overall Opinion:

Our Local Community are deliberately positioning themselves to be the Liberals when there are no Liberals available. Andrew Wilson is possibly the better “Can’t Believe It’s Not A Liberal” candidate to my mind; he’s got the experience (and got the council conflicts) to back himself up. I’m honestly tempted to rank him ahead of OLC simply because I know what I’m getting with Wilson. Also, all three candidates are Rosehill Ward residents, unlike the OLC candidates.

The Greens

 How to Vote: The Greens have listed three parties on their how to vote this year: 2 goes to Labor and 3 goes to Community Need Not Corporate Greed (Socialist Alliance). They do not rank the two right parties.

Photo comments: Their FB header is a lovely shot at Lake Parramatta from the bend opposite the swimming area! The group shot though is taken in front of some very generic trees, and I’d guess it might be up Epping way, from some other context clues? It’s a hard one.

 

Franceska Strano

Website: https://greensoncouncil.org.au/franceska-strano/

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/franceska.strano/ 

Franceska Strano seems to be a very hands on member of the local Greens chapter, which I find really encouraging, as while Phil Bradley is good at what he does, he definitely needs some younger support. And Strano is definitely a modern intersectional Greens candidate with interests in advocacy for “STEM, women in leadership, LGBTQIA+ rights, multiculturalism and racial equality”. Also good to see someone actually use the full acronym, thank you.

Strano is a civil engineer with experience in transport infrastructure, water resources and renewable energy. She is, if any, my PERFECT bait. She also likes gardening, cooking and kayaking on the Parramatta River, so I’m pretty sure I could get along with her just fine in person.

However the important thing here is policies.

Strano has done quite a lot of work with Save Willow Grove, which is not a surprise to literally anyone in the area, as the Greens have all be quite strident on Save Willow Grove and anti the current Powerhouse plans.

In terms of transport, she’s campaigning on improved public transport and infrastructure. There’s not a huge amount of detail here, but Strano is a Greens candidate, I’m happy to extrapolate this as “better footpaths, better bike lanes, better bus service timetables and get the light rail and metro built”. She was a supporter of the new Bayside Shuttlebus.

In terms of parks, “..and every child in Parramatta deserves a good park!” That’s a catchcry I’m happy with (and after lockdown, all the adults could use a good park too, why are all the kids hogging the good flying fox down at Parramatta Park). The Greens have been campaigning on natural grass not synthetic turf in the local park upgrades – apparently the new North Granville park upgrade is at risk of it on the oval.

Getting smarter about waste and the reduction of plastics: this is also linked to the “no fake grass” campaign but also the local Greens have a lot of park and waterway clean ups. This is not surprising. I can’t see a position on the new food waste bin trial but suspect that’s under “smarter about waste”.

There is also a line on making Council “open, ethical and transparent” and leaning into more resident groups for consultation with Council to give residents more voice.

She’s also involved with the set up of the Little Free Library that’s under the M4 and next to the bike path and rail crossing. It’s a really cute spot for it, and accessible to a bunch of local apartment buildings.

I think Council needs a civil engineer who knows about infrastructure and particularly a climate friendly engineer with that skillset. It’s some excellent hands on knowledge.

I do however want to note that it appears that Strano lives outside the ward – her registration paperwork gives her enrolled address at Baulkham Hills. Only a teeny bit of Baulkham Hills even falls into Parramatta Council itself, and that’s in North Rocks Ward.

 

David Schwartz

David Schwartz works in IT, with a fairly varied skillset from what he’s listed in his candidacy documents. He’s fairly active about local Greens campaigns, including climate legislation, privatisation, lots of community petitions and the like.

He believes in “community led initiatives” and “sustainable development practices”, so yes, normal Greens areas.

Also he’s part of one of the local D&D groups and given I suspect I know which one, I’m honestly astonished there’s nothing in here about better room hire at the new Library and in other spaces for community groups. (It’s a problem! There is definitely a shortage of rooms). If he was actually in a more winnable spot on the ticket I might bother asking.

Schwartz does live in the ward.

 

Susan Xiao Hong Chen

Susan Chen lives in Parramatta, is very active on the Parramatta Greens Facebook page, but her account is locked. That’s about all I’ve been able to get. A perfect third candidate of the “fill out the list” variety.

 

Overall opinion:

Phil Bradley has done quite a lot of good work with the current Labor team on Council. I’m actually really enthusiastic about Franceska Strano and think she brings a useful skillset and is at that “just really needs the next step of actual work as a politician”.

So! Polling is open!

I've reviewed all the independents in the Legislative Council by region:

• Agricultural Region
• East Metropolitan Region
• Mining and Pastoral Region
• North Metropolitan Region
• South Metropolitan Region
• South West Region

Please take a look at your region. I cannot in good faith recommend voting for any of these people, but there are some fascinating characters contained in here (as well as a whole pack of fake independents).

I've also reviewed all the minor and micro parties, leaving out only Labor, Liberal and the Nationals (as I presume you have your own opinion on their policies). After having read many, many election platforms over the past month and a half, I've roughly come up with an order of parties that I feel confident about (taking that I'm a pretty leftie sort who's overly fond of impossible microparties):

• Socialist Alliance
• The Greens
• LEGALISE CANNABIS WESTERN AUSTRALIA PARTY
• Australian Labor Party
• Animal Justice Party
• SUSTAINABLE AUSTRALIA PARTY - STOP OVERDEVELOPMENT / CORRUPTION
• Liberal Party
• National Party of Australia
• WESTERN AUSTRALIA PARTY
• Daylight Saving Party
• The Flux Party / Liberals for Climate
• Various Independents
• Australian Christians (WA)
• Health Australia Party
• Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party
• WAxit
• Liberal Democratic Party
• NO MANDATORY VACCINATION PARTY
• Pauline Hanson's One Nation
• Great Australian Party

The vast majority of the independents I would insert where I've listed them on this ballot. There is very little to recommend most of them. Parminder Singh in Agricultural and Michael Tucak in North Metropolitan are worth a second look, in my opinion, but otherwise you're pretty safe just listing the lot of them somewhere below all of the major and large minor parties.

South Metropolitan has the most independents running of any of the regions, with 8 different tickets to investigate. There are very few details on any of these folk. This should be fun.

Graham West & Liam Strickland

( What they're for )


Jourdan Kestel & Lee Herridge

( What they're for )


Mark Rowley & Marlie Touchell
https://www.facebook.com/CandidateWA2021/posts
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uOicen59a5YJ:https://www.facebook.com/CandidateWA2021/posts+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au (cached version)

( What they're for )


Dave Glossop & Lewis Christian Butto
https://www.facebook.com/DaveGlossop4councillor/

( What they're for )


Glen Michael Leslie & Stephen Yarwood

( What they're for )


Stan Francis & Jeremy Lay

( What they're for )


Leon Hamilton

( What he's for )


Larry Foley

( What he's for )

Next is Mining and Pastoral region, who have three sets of grouped independents.

Tayla Squires & Cameron Paul Gardiner

( What they're for )


Christine Jeanette Kelly & Noel Wayne McGinniss

( What they're for )


Anthony Fels & Van Son Le

( What they're for )

For the Independents I'm going to group them by region, simply because I tend to find their election policies can be summarised pretty quickly.

First up is Agricultural Region, who have one unnamed independent group and 6 independent candidates.

Felly Chandra & Chelsea Henderson

( What they're for )


JM David
http://jm.david.net.co/

( What he's for )


Parminder Singh
https://www.facebook.com/Parminder.Singh.WA/

( What he's for )


Les Mirco

( What he's for )


Peter Wallis

( What he's for )


Steven Hopkins

( What he's for )


Andrew Ballantyne

( What he's for )