b_auspol | Recent Entries

The Greens WA
https://greens.org.au/wa

And now I’m back into the parties that actually expect to contest seats. Like One Nation, I expect that any readers of this already have an understanding of the basic platform of the Greens, so I won’t both rehashing it all; rather we’ll be looking at their WA election platform.

The Greens WA have a complicated history. They were apparently a separate party from 1990 until 2003, when they finally decided to joined the Australian Greens. I looked at it all, and honestly Greens factional politics is a game up there with Labor factional politics in terms of how complicated and full of hidden moves it is to outsiders, so we’ll just say the WA branch of the Greens were successful on their own, then they joined up with everyone else and the party has generally been successful together.

Currently the Greens WA have 4 members in the Legislative Council; one each in East Metropolitan, North Metropolitan, Mining and Pastoral, and South West. There’s a good chance they’ll hold and/or pick up another seat.

( Policy Analysis )

Any Predictions?

No. We were predicting minor/micro party reactions, and the Greens are a bit past that now.

Is this party trying to kill me?

No.

Is this party trying to harm me?

No.

Conclusion:

Look, it’s the Greens. They would like a transition to a Green New Deal and if they can get there by removing incentives and placing levies on dirty industries they’ll do what they can. They want to expand Medicare and more free schooling and better public housing and all the policies that everyone on the left really would like to see Labor embrace more wholeheartedly.

Also they would like to remind us all CLIMATE CHANGE IS UNDERWAY, WE NEED CLIMATE ACTION.

It’s the Greens. For me to even list a microparty ahead of them means the microparty needs to have really tickled my fancy. Near the top of my ticket, everytime – this is where I expect my upper house preferences to help fill a quota.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA PARTY (WA Party)
https://westernaustraliaparty.org.au/

Oh this one is fun!

The Western Australian Party were founded in 2016 by Julie Matheson, who wanted a party to support her dignity in her habits of running for state and federal election as an independent (she is in fact a local councillor, so this isn’t quite as lost a cause as this can seem). She registered the Julie Matheson for Western Australia party. Now, I tend to regard any minor party that uses a candidate’s name in the party name is a flashing warning that the party is largely personality-driven by that individual and probably has very little cachet outside that individual. They are very very bad at re-electing anyone who doesn’t have that name, and quite often don’t even succeed at that. Probably for this reason, the party name was changed to the Western Australia Party, but also so they could claim to be a revival of John Forrest’s original Western Australian Party. This appears to be only slightly more factual than Clive Palmer claiming United Australia Party is a revival of the original holder of that party name.

They also are registered as WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PARTY as they want me to hate them on sight for using an all-caps name. They also really like using bold for word emphasis on their website which makes me hate them even more.

The WA Party currently has one member of the WA LC: Charles Smith, who was elected for One Nation, did as One Nation candidates tend to and became an independent, then decided to join WA Party rather than set up his own vanity party in May 2020. It’s a small blessing.

On this basis, we can probably assume the WA Party don’t have any real prospects this election despite having someone in the Legislative Council, unless they get really lucky with group voting ticket preference flows.

( Policy Analysis )

Any Predictions?

Actually no. I originally assigned secession to the WA Party when I did the spreadsheet, but we didn’t mention them by name at the time and since we have an Actual Secession Party on the ballot, I’ll let the Western Australia Party be.

Is this party trying to kill me?

No.

Is this party trying to harm me?

There are no gun policies among their policies, and I didn’t see anything problematic about vaccination, at least. They do appear to be harbouring a family court/men’s rights problem, but I can’t quite tell if it’s at the whinging about not seeing the kids end of things or the full on Men’s Rights end of the spectrum. That’s still enough to put them into the ‘harm’ category for me, though I wish I had a better read on the level of toxicity.

Conclusion

The WA Party are essentially at the mid end of the Liberal Party, in terms of where on the compass they are, while still being annoyed about the Major Parties. Feels very much like the sort of Common Sense Independent ("Why don't politicians do this? It's only Common Sense!" blah blah mid right wing opinion blah).

I’m not particularly keen on their love of policing, their crime policies, their lack of interest in climate change, everything they said about the family court and their desire to strip away taxation. But for most of that they couched things in terms where there was a desire to each sides things, rather than being hardcore fringe.

I’d rank them around the Liberals on the ballot. Probably below, since they set off my Men’s Rights radar.

WAxit
https://www.waxit.org/

And we finally get to the party I’ve joked about the most since before their name change!

WAxit has a complicated history. It started as the Micro Business Party in 2016, which then changed name to the Small Business Party in 2018 and then on to WAxit in 2021. So you would be forgiven thinking that they are your classic mid right wing “Small Business Taxes are Too High!” party if not for that last name change.

Yes. Welcome to the isolationist/secessionist section of the ballot.

WAxit, as you can tell from their extremely derivative name, are tapping into the part of the WA population who have always looked askance at the other timezones in Australia and said “do we really need these people? We have all these rocks right here!” The past twelve months have been a carnival for these folk, as it’s reinforced for many of them that yes, they would be better off without those icky eastern state germs. We can keep most of them out with a hard border… maybe we can just make that permanent?
( Policy Analysis )

Any Predictions?

Okay, this is one of André’s:

Cannot wait for the WA separation movement to revive on the grounds that it is the only way to protect the western third of the continent from COVID-19.

Well, McGowan got there first, but we do have the glorious return of the WA secession movement. Solid effort André at predicting the absolutely predictable.

Is this party trying to kill me?

No.

Is this party trying to harm me?

No. That would require having policies. Though I think they wouldn’t mind going to war against an Eastern Stater like me.

Conclusion

WAxit are right here with broad suite of policies including: independence for WA, broaden the WA economic base, independence for WA, water is for farmers not rivers, independence for WA, hold a postal-only election, and independence for WA.

If you too wish to indulge in the secret tendencies underlying every person from WA to have a grizzle about those damn eastern states who steal the GST money and secretly dream of WA independence… vote for Labor. They actually have a set of policies for what to do while McGowan quietly continues to possibly secede from Canberra. Don’t vote for these yahoos.

I’d probably put them ahead of the far right parties who have guns, but no higher on the ballot than that.

Liberals For Climate - The Flux Network (Flux)
https://voteflux.org/

To celebrate Flux getting their name change past WAEC, let us discuss the other party this year making a last minute name change.

Flux were originally formed to contest the 2016 federal election. They are one of two microparties (the other being Senator Online) who have essentially the same platform: what if you could just directly vote on what your representative senator does? I think everyone has, at one time or another, fantasised about ensuring that your representative does what you want. Flux promises you a way to do exactly that.

( Policy Analysis )

Any Predictions?

We do! Presumably the VOTEFLUX people would have a response determined by public vote through their app. Couldn't see that going wrong at all.

So cynical, we are. Even more cynical than Flux are about the name change. Flux have not expressed an opinion on COVID on their website as far as I can tell.

Is this party trying to kill me?

No. They’d need to have a policy first.

Is this party trying to harm me?

Only in terms of “tearing my hair out over their techbro ‘brilliant idea’ of how to fix democracy”.

Conclusion

This is a cheap, cynical ploy from Flux to try and get more votes because currently, for some reason, not enough people seem to think their brilliant “let’s just crowdsource it” solution to coming up with policies is the right way to go about representing a community. So they’re going to try tricking less-tuned in voters into voting for them.

I would put these hucksters below the actual Liberals on the ballot. They’re still ahead of the right wing nutjob faction, but only because of the likelihood that crowdsourced opinions will probably not be quite as awful as say GAP’s position on most things. But who knows?

SUSTAINABLE AUSTRALIA PARTY - STOP OVERDEVELOPMENT / CORRUPTION
https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/

It’s time for the NIMBY party! Sustainable Australia were formed in 2010. Their original name was the Sustainable Population Party. They have one member in the Victorian LC, thanks to preference deals in group voting tickets that election. They think of themselves as centrists. The WA branch of the party only got itself registered last year, in preparation for this election. So they’re new kids on the block as far as WA state elections are concerned.

Sustainable Australia are on my shit list for their stupid name. It’s not the MOST stupid of the election but it’s pretty bad: all caps with a slogan included in the name. They have form for particularly stupid names: you may recall during the 2016 federal election they were using the name #Sustainable Australia, yes with the hashtag. It’s always a bit hard to take a party seriously when they are changing their name every election, trying to find a way to get that edge. It’s both cynical and ridiculous.

Okay, enough about petty things that irritate me, on to the policy platform.

( Policy Analysis )

Any Predictions?

Yes! Sustainable Australia Party will blame immigration.

At this point I haven’t seen any outright comments about immigration causing COVID, but that’s because I can’t be bothered scrolling back to March 2020. I have no doubt they fully believe the border closures and no immigration have protected us from the scourge, however: it’s a popular view.

Is this party trying to kill me?

Sustainable Australia don’t want to kill me or anyone else. They’d actually quite like to protect the environment. They’d just like everyone to stop having babies.

Is this party trying to harm me?

As an Australian citizen, Sustainable Australia are not out to harm me. But I can’t help but feel their policies are harmful for my friends who are on visas, as they’re generally implying they would rather my friends weren’t here.

Conclusion:

I’m going to be blunt and rude. Sustainable Australia always read as a bunch of slightly out of touch kind racist boomer NIMBYs to me. They want change! But at a pace they’re comfortable with, where they don’t have to encounter too many new or challenging ideas. Their issue sets always read as if they haven’t bothered running them past the nearest under 45 year old in reach – they don’t HAVE positions on the ‘cool’ or currently trending issues. They haven’t heard of intersectionalism. They’ve got that whiff of being a bunch of ageing tryhards. On the upside, their environmental and healthcare policies are generally good, as is their concern in trying to ensure there is less government corruption. The issue is that everything, but everything, comes back to their belief that there are too many people coming to Australia. On the downside: if you have to write a whole article about why you’re not really racist, you might need to face the fact that you appear pretty damn racist to outsiders.

On the basis of their opinions on health and the environment, I would consider that they deserve a look in somewhere central on your ballot, but I cannot endorse them any higher than that. They are certainly less dangerous than the swarm of right wing populists, but I'd probably feel more comfortable with them being around Labor on my ballot. And quite possibly below it.

Socialist Alliance
https://socialist-alliance.org/

Okay, and so we swing from the far right where we’ve spent a lot of time recently over to the far left.

Socialist Alliance are the only openly socialist party running this election (I do not count the Greens when I’m talking about the collective socialist parties simply because while they share values, the Greens are a lot more strategic at how they pander to Left Labor to borrow voters and are less enthralled with the eventual coming socialist paradise).

They were originally formed in 2001 and enjoy minor political success in the People’s Republic of Moreland and apparently also Freemantle and Cairns. This is FASCINATING: can anyone get me caught up on the potential People’s Republic of Freo and Cairns news as to why this is? Freo person in question is Sam Wainwright, who looks like he enjoys high levels of local popularity. When did Cairns become a possible socialist paradise? I want ALL the deets.

There is a long list of the various groups that have joined and split from the Socialist Alliance on their Wikipedia, because as we all know, nobody hates a socialist party quite as much as another socialist. They’re still trying to be a bit of an umbrella party, only a small one.

Reminder to everyone (including me) who can’t keep them straight: Socialist Alliance are open socialists who want to work with society and think that elections can help their platform (newspaper: Green Left Weekly); Socialist Alternative are the Troskyites who want to attempt work with society but who still believe elections don’t do anything (newspaper: Red Flag); Socialist Equality Party are the Marxists who are awaiting the Glorious Revolution and will have me up against the wall when the day comes (newspaper: I can’t find one/I think they read Red Flag and scoff). (These are only small jests)

( Policy Analysis )

Any Predictions?

None for Socialist Alliance. I am going to do something that will make both parties despise me and use Cate’s prediction for the Socialist Equality Party instead (how dare I equate the two):

The Socialist Equality Party is going to build an independent political movement of the working class to address COVID-19. They blame capitalism. And for once, Comrades, they are not entirely wrong.

Socialist Alliance is definitely blaming capitalism for making COVID-19 worse and causing a failure to address underlying issues. And as Cate says, they are not entirely wrong here.

Is this party trying to kill me?

Socialist Alliance have never given me the impression that I, as an aspiring lawyer, will be one of the first against the wall when the revolution comes. They would probably like me to spend more time on the parts of the law that allow me to keep a soul, but I am already turning down The Money in exchange for getting to keep Some Soul Parts, so I think I’m safer with them than some of the other socialists we have in Aus.

Is this party trying to harm me?

No, they probably would like to consider solidarity and rights for me more than they would like to harm me (though may I note that as someone who identifies as ace and as queer as explaining takes all too long, I was not listed in ANY of that Solidarity Rights For All Diversities section, Socialist Alliance, update your literature, though I will grant you that specific trans and intersex policies documents are slightly more urgent).

Conclusion:

Look, Socialist Alliance are essentially the most cuddly option of all the Australian socialist organisations. Do I agree with them all the time? No. But I know their heart is in the right place and that they actually want to try to accomplish their goals via exploiting the system we currently have, rather than going immediately for revolution.

Do I wish that sometimes they would possibly consider being a bit more user-friendly? Of course.

Sam Wainwright has racked up seven years of local government experience, and that is not to be sniffed at in terms of ability to actually achieve things within government. His community keep voting him back in. On that basis, if I were in his region, I would strongly consider giving him a vote at the top of my ballot, simply because supporting effective political candidates is how we help small parties grow. The other two candidates, I would definitely be listing pretty high on my ballot. I’d certainly personally prefer a candidate I know their position on EVERYTHING for over, say, an AJP candidate where there are vast swathes of policy areas avoided as they can’t be put into an animal focused framework.

If you’re heavily left leaning, there are worse parties you could vote for, though I would still argue than the Greens are more effective at promulgating their similar agenda as they have already spent the past 30 years working out how to play in the big leagues (I realise this is a disincentive to many left leaning supporters who feel that the Greens have gone corporate).

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (Shooters)

https://www.shootersfishersandfarmerswa.org.au/

Ah, it’s the country party for those who hate the Nationals. (This is a well mined vein of party, I must admit, but Shooters have been the most successful of the Can’t Believe It’s Not The Nats: With Extra Gun Flavour)

Shooters were originally formed in NSW in 1992 and have spread to all the other states and federal elections. The name keeps broadening to encompass more categories in the hopes to pick up more seats. In WA, they currently have one Legislative Council seat, in the Agricultural region, which has been held since 2013.

So essentially, let us be honest, Shooters are hoping and expecting to keep that seat and might have designs on another in Mining and Pastoral.

Actually I just took a look at the quota flows for Shooters in the LC and how they went in various regions: it looks like it comes down to how big the exclusion transfers from the Nationals, Liberals and Australian Christians are. Shooters just got pipped at the post in Mining and Pastoral in 2017 by the Greens soaking up enough votes from the final exclusions of the third Labor candidate and the Flux candidate (Flux had been playing the group voting ticket game; Labor are just popular in a region dominated by miners); it was close to going to Shooters. They never picked up enough transfers in South West to get close, and the three Perth regions were always never going to happen.

( Party Analysis )

Any Predictions?

We do! The Huntin’ Shootin’ and Fishin’ party will blame feral animals and select native species, and offer to help deal with the problem in return for certain considerations in relation to gun laws and marine parks.

Now they don’t seem to have lucked out in any Australian feral animals being major COVID reservoirs. Sorry, you would have loved that.

Is this party trying to kill me?

They’re the biggest gun apologists in the country and they want less regulation and making guns easier to buy. Yes, that counts as wanting to kill me.

Is this party trying to harm me?

On top of the guns they’re pretty anti-environmental.

Conclusion:

I don’t like the Shooters, but they’re less wingnutty than some of the other right wing parties. On the other hand, they are also very very gun happy.

They also continue to only talk about their narrow suite of issues rather than a broader platform, even though they have seats in multiple states. They're still at the Little Party That Could stage rather than any sort of serious Third Party Electoral Threat.

I would never find myself voting for these folk, but I suspect I would have a hard time trying to pick whether they go higher or lower than One Nation on my ballot. And that’s actually a real concern – in the areas where they do well, that’s actually a consideration where more Shooters votes might keep PHON from getting a seat. If I was being super strategic about it, I think I might preference Shooters ahead of PHON in most regions simply because Shooters are more likely to get excluded and to stop PHON reaching critical mass, but honestly I’d want them well below the Liberals in any case and at that point there is very little left to influence in terms of seats.

Pauline Hanson's One Nation (PHON)
https://onenationwa.org.au/

Oh no it’s time for the far right whackjobs that actually have a chance at parliamentary seats.

One Nation was formed by Pauline Hanson in 1997. Do I really need to cover the history of this? Hanson’s reinvigoration of the party in 2016 was a dark spot for everyone. Half their wikipedia page is just a list of scandals. There is a long-running study that shows that the likelihood of a One Nation politician staying a member of the party for a full term AND getting re-elected is almost nil.

At present the WA Legislative Council has 2 PHON members. They started with three, all elected for the first time in 2017, but Charles Smith resigned in 2019, became an independent, then joined the Western Australian Party in May 2020. For anyone who tracks PHON politicians, the trajectory of Charles Smith is more common than the other two!

( Party Analysis )
Any Predictions?

We did not make any predictions around One Nation. It appears, however, that they are showing slight antivax tendencies. I didn’t see anything about borders (though I suspect One Nation is mostly fine with them being shut – they’re a party of Close The Border/Send Them Back after all).

Is this party trying to kill me?

None of One Nation’s outlined policies are out to kill anyone, aside from that antivax dogwhistle.

Is this party trying to harm me?

I really don’t like the implications that they are just fine with removing Safe Schools and their likely-antivax position. I’d say both of these policies are harmful to the community, particularly queer kids, non-white people and everyone likely to affected by climate change.

Conclusion:

Look it’s One Nation. The bigger concern is they won three seats last time around and have every chance of doing it again. Most of the big horrors of their platform are nicely hidden in dogwhistle and they just want more accountability and common sense in politics, right? Right!

Some of their health and education policies could get bipartisan support, but the others are horrible.

I wouldn’t vote for this mob, but they’re still marginally better than the outright conspiracy theory lunatics of the right who want guns. I’d still make sure they were low down my ballot, below pretty much every other party likely to get a seat, to try and prevent them from getting in.

NO MANDATORY VACCINATION PARTY
https://nomandatoryvaccinationparty.com.au/

Oh dear, it’s another party that is a really really bad idea this year!

No Mandatory Vaccination Party appear to have been set up deliberately for this election. I’m having a bit of an issue finding their exact foundation details, but it looks like they were established in September 2020.

They are also in the “I immediately dislike them” category as here is ANOTHER party with all caps name for no reason.

( Policy Analysis )

Any Predictions?

We have a couple for the Involuntary Medical Objectors (Vaccination/Fluoride) Party, and I am happy enough to look at them here because their base positions are pretty damn similar.

The Anti Vaxxers will blame the measles vaccine and 5G.
The anti-vaxxer wackos (Involuntary Medication Objectors) would like to point out that COVID-19 is clearly a conspiracy to increase vaccine injuries among the population. We probably bred COVID in a lab. Fresh air, bracing walks and a good shot of MMS will cure what ails you.

Why yes, we have all see these various conspiracies circulating, unfortunately (and I am horrified that I personally managed to call a stupid Trump suggestion: “shot of MMS” means “drink bleach”).

I can’t see that No Mandatory Vaccinations are supporting any of these policies, but that might be because they’re too blinded worrying about the return of the death penalty via lethal injection. SERIOUSLY??

Is this party trying to kill me?

Well, they’re anti-vaccine. I’m personally likely safe from death but advocating against compulsory vaccinations in, for instance, medical personnel in aged care settings will kill people. Not may, will.

Is this party trying to harm me?

They are antivax weirdos. Encouraging people not to get vaccinated will harm lots of people.

Conclusion:

No Mandatory Vaccinations are a one issue party who don’t understand how to read legislation. This seems a poor fit for being in parliament where your job is PASSING LEGISLATION.

I am willing to have a conversation that involves “hey maybe police shouldn’t be able to strip search children”, but this valid part of their policy is so overwhelmed by fearmongering that makes no goddamn sense. If that is one of your pet issues, I suggest you go write some letters to your local member or talk to the Greens, who also are rather anti the police having such broad strip searching powers.

I would not give these people the time of day. Low down the ballot, since their single policy is so dangerous.

(And did I mention they are campaigning on “no death penalty by lethal injection”? SERIOUSLY? I mean I’ve seen some out-of-date campaign issues around, but that one is dead and buried. We haven’t executed anyone since 1967, and we used hanging back then)

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
https://www.ldp.org.au/

Oh no it’s time for the libertarians.

The Liberal Democratic Party were founded in 2001. They’ve been fighting to keep the Liberal Party from making them change their name ever since, and have been successful at it. They currently have three Legislative Council members: 2 in Victoria and one in WA. This means they have a representative up for re-election this time around. They have previously been successful at the 'confuse the voters by having Liberal in their name' tactic, which is how David Leyonhjelm first got into Federal Parliament, but I suspect their improved prospects since then have revolved around people actually knowing what the party is.

After looking at the quotas for the 2017 election, I now suspect some group voting ticket nonsense is how the Lib Dems managed to get that single seat in the South Metropolitan regions. This is also the only region they were to the left of the Liberals and thus the only region in which they had an initial quota over 0.1. They managed to pick up the Australian Christians, Daylight Savings Party and PHON exclusions to jump into the lead. DSP were absolutely playing group voting ticket games, and AC preferred the Lib Dems over PHON, otherwise PHON would probably have taken the spot. So if they can keep this seat (which had a 0.27 quota primary vote while majorly to the left of the Libs on the ballot) is absolutely going to come down to the group voting ticket negotiations.

I’ll be frank – I seriously dislike the LDP. I don’t much like libertarians, and they have a tendency of electing particularly odious members of the species (David Leyonhjelm, anyone?)

( Policy Analysis )

Any Predictions?

Actually, no! We forgot them. But it’s ok as they’ve given us plenty of material about their response to COVID above.

Is this party trying to kill me?

I think I have to go with no, here. None of the policies they are taking into this election are aimed to kill me. I didn’t see any gun regulation changes or anti-vaccine messaging or other items of concern. They’ve been very slick at hiding it, if there is any.

Is this party trying to harm me?

Again, I don’t think so. I think their policies would probably harm WA in that they want to strip away a lot of taxation while also freezing salaries and forcing the budget back into balance during a pandemic, but I can’t see where their policies are out to harm individuals.

Conclusion

The Liberal Democratic Party are libertarians. They believe in as much personal freedom and as few regulations and taxes as possible. They are definitely taking the chance to put the boot into McGowan over what they consider to be overreach in his response to COVID, which tracks pretty well with their general policies.

I’m suspicious of what they are hiding in such slick and minimised policy marketing for the election, but there actually are a couple of gems in there – the hospital policies for one – that might be worth considering. On the other hand, they have absolutely nothing about a climate policy and their policing policy doesn't mention a single thing about race issues, so no kudos there.

I still think they are a bunch of white dudes interested in white dude issues and as far as I am concerned the various Australian governments should continue to throw money at their states and territories during COVID and afterwards to help their populations now, help the recovery after, and help reverse the recession we were already heading into before all this hit, rather than embrace libertarian fiscal austerity just for The Budget.

I would rank them ahead of any of the dangerous right wing parties. But still on the bottom half of the ballot.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

13 March - time for the WA State Election! ~~(And time for the rest of the country to find out if WA are quietly holding a secession referendum simultaneously)~~

Let's be honest here, I mostly care about the Legislative Council, as I don't have any strong affinities for particular lower house seats and I think we can all guess that the margin McGowan will be sweeping back in with will be huge, bar any quarantine catastrophes in the next two months.

Also, my interest is heavily on minor parties, given that it's a good indication of the parties likely to throw their hats in the ring for the upcoming Australian Federal Election that must be held by 30 June 2022 and is presumably being announced as soon as Stage 2b vaccinations get underway.

So! Who is registered! Who is on the ballot? All ready to go?

Parties:

There are as of the time of writing 17 parties registered in WA plus two more attempting to get registered in time, plus whatever crop of independents run. We won’t have that until 12 February 2021 when nominations close.

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

Great Australian Party and Legalise Cannabis are the parties attempting to register in time get on the ballot. I both want GAP to succeed (for my amusement) and do not want them to (because I rank them next to the Citizens Electoral Council in terms of how prone they are to conspiracy). Legalise Cannabis will likely manage to get registered quite easily.

Both the Daylight Saving Party and Flux are trying to register new ballot paper names, which I will get to if they succeed. I suspect they may not be successful, as both parties are hoping to pick up excess votes by using the word "Liberal" in their name. In any case, it's a super cynical ploy from both parties.

Let's get to it.

There are a couple of things I plan to do for the parties listed.

1. There was a test I came up with for the last federal election, to try and distinguish between far too many right wing parties so that I could figure out how to order them on my ballot. It's the "Is this party trying to kill me?" I'm going to extend this to the "Is this party trying to kill me? Is this party trying to harm me?" test for this election.

2. Back in March 2020 a few friends and I joked around about various minor party responses to COVID. I ended up putting a list together here. I'll be reviewing these predictions for the relevant parties to see how accurate we were.

My Queensland State Election feelings, now all the dust has settled after a fair amount of drama.

The quote of the night, as repeated CONSTANTLY by delighted Aussies watching everywhere, was “The One Nation vote has collapsed”. And there was much rejoicing.

(Did you know? The One Nation vote collapsed)

James Ashby’s dummy spit interview, from the very first moment of his dead ‘hi’ through to the frenzied ranting about fruit and vegetable prices, ABC fat cats and fishermen being raped and pillaged, was a masterwork in WHY the One Nation vote has collapsed and why your average voter might feel that the party doesn’t exactly provide a useful voice in parliament. They hung on to their one seat, but they certainly didn’t make gains anywhere else. Pauline Hanson was apparently holding forth on Sky News about how the party would make up ground in postals, but let’s be honest, that won’t be happening.

My other highlight of the night was watching the returns for the Greens, as they picked up a second seat and eventually came third in a very tight three way contest in a third seat. Inner city Greens dynamics are getting more efficient about picking up seats, and I expect this is a tendency that will continue at both state and federal level.

A lowlight, on the other hand, was the frenzied accusations between the ALP and the LNP over who was more to blame for the Greens now having two seats in the QLD parliament. How dare either party preference the Greens strategically. Steven Miles particularly seemed rather unhinged about it all, which was astonishing given some of his fellow panellists.

I watched the ABC election coverage, as is traditional. Poor Antony Green was looking quite overworked, with the fact he’s had to back up from covering the ACT and NZ elections two weeks ago (so postals only finalised the ACT seats on Friday), prepare for the QLD election and still be standing by to explain US modelling later this week. His throat ended up very dry – I’m actually surprised he hasn’t officially announced that he had a COVID test after all that coughing, just to reassure people.

This was the first head to head election for two women since 1995, and certainly the first one the rest of the country was paying any attention to. I must admit, the duelling pink/red v blue blazers on the party leaders made much more of a visual contrast than different coloured ties.

I was just so tired by the fact that Labor’s response to a situation where they looked a shoo-in for a return to government, either as a minority or a majority (and let’s be honest, by about 2 hours in it was pretty convincing that it was likely to be a majority government) was to spend as much time as possible telling the Greens that they have no interest in forming a power-sharing agreement with them and blaming them for daring to get into the lead in certain seats. It’s just… you have so many other things to celebrate. Maybe pissing off the Left is not exactly in your best interest?

I know, I know, Labor seems to think that Gillard’s minority government with agreements with the Greens and the crossbench were part of the reason that firstly Gillard got rolled and then they lost 2013, but to be honest, I think they’re reaching. The disgust at the idea the Greens dare exist and take “Labor” seats sounds so reflexively 1980s that I gasped a few times. It’s not like Lee Rhiannon is running for a seat, here. Your average Greens candidate in a likely seat these days is: a well educated, teacher-like daggy dad; a young queer woman; a visible minority. While the forever-runners continue in unlikely seats, the people standing in electorates where they have a real chance are the sort of people that you might have hoped to recruit to Labor for their energy and community involvement.

Also, as Scott loves to remind me, the ACT government has frequently had power-sharing agreements with the Greens to no ill effect. They signed the latest just this morning, and Shane Rattenbury is getting three cabinet positions out of it (which is a fair proportion, after contributing 6 out of 16 seats in this agreement). Jacinda Ardern just signed the Greens on with Labour to hold government in NZ, even though she didn’t need them, as she preferred to have them inside the tent with her rather than protesting on the outside. It can be done and it’s been proved to be effective.

In regards to the speeches – I haven’t seen people pointing fingers too loudly, but that was a shambles. The ALP and LNP should have been in closer communication. I don’t know WHY Palaszczuk headed for her party before receiving a concession phone call from Frecklington – were the LNP dragging their feet? Did she just want to party? But having Palaszczuk make her acceptance speech before Frecklington had even officially conceded, and then for Frecklington to start hers once Palaszczuk was already talking… it was decidedly odd.

In summary:

THE ONE NATION VOTE HAS COLLAPSED.
HISTORIC THIRD TERM FEMALE PREMIER.
Deb Frecklington has bowed out of leadership (but not Parliament) to spend more time with her family, after defiantly stating on Saturday night she was definitely staying on.
DID I MENTION TWO GREENS SEATS?

A lot of hay has been made over the past few weeks over the Annastacia Palaszczuk (ALP) v Deb Frecklington (LNP) election being the first time an Australian State Government has had two women go head to head, and what that means for the country.

This is technically true but unfair to the ACT and NT, as our two main Territories have been carrying a lot of the effort at increasing women in leadership positions over the past 31 years. The election of Rosemary Follett as the first Chief Minister for ACT in 1989 started a trend that had resulted in at least one woman holding leadership of a State or Territory each year since then.

This is the second time the country has seen an election at this level with two women contesting the leadership role, with the first being the 1995 ACT Territory Election, where Rosemary Follett (ALP) and Kate Carnell (Lib) faced off for leadership, with Carnell winning that election.

There have only been three gaps in female leadership at State and Territory level since 1989, for a total of 447 days, where women have not held ANY of the leadership positions (and held opposition leadership during these periods): December to February in 1989/90 and 2014/15, and an extended period from October 2000 to August 2001.

In addition, last Tuesday, 27 October 2020, the combined Australian States and Territories passed another quiet invisible barrier – 50% of the positions of Premier, Chief Minister and Opposition Leader were held by women. This has been part of a gradual increase in positions over time.

NSW and QLD are both led by women: Annastacia Palaszczuk (ALP) in QLD and Gladys Berejiklian (Lib) in NSW.
Both of their Opposition Leaders are women: Deb Frecklington (LNP) in QLD and Jodi McKay (ALP) in NSW.
There are a further 4 female Opposition Leaders: Rebecca White (ALP) in TAS, Liza Harvey (Lib) in WA, Lia Finocchario (Lib) in NT and Elizabeth Lee (Lib) in the ACT.

Only Victoria and South Australia currently have no women leading the major parties, and only South Australia has never had a female Premier. Victoria has not had a female leader since Joan Kirner resigned in 1993.

Table of Women Premiers and Chief Ministers between 1989 and 2020

Now, from this very rough visual, you can see the effect of various country trends over time. The Howard Years line up with a decrease in female leadership, which only truly began to recover with Anna Bligh (QLD ALP) assuming leadership in 2007. Before that, ACT and NT were doing the heavy lifting in maintaining women leaders, alongside Kerry Chikarovski’s (Lib) long stint in opposition in NSW. There is probably a lot of analysis to be done on the Liberal tradition of sticking a female caretaker Opposition Leader into government, but at this point I’ll simply note: while the ALP has definitely been the initiators and leaders of appointing women as leaders in most states, and no state or territory has had a Liberal female Premier or Chief Minister prior to having a Labor one, there are currently more women in leadership positions across the Liberal Party at state level than there are for Labor.

The Queensland State Election is a historic moment for Australia. But the equalising of female leadership at State and Territory level is equally historic. The next goal should be trying for 4 women as Premier or Chief Minister simultaneously.

(And for South Australia, cradle of women's voting rights in Australia, to sort itself out and join in the program!)

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Page Summary

The Greens WA
WESTERN AUSTRALIA PARTY
WAxit
Liberals For Climate - The Flux Network
SUSTAINABLE AUSTRALIA PARTY - STOP OVERDEVELOPMENT / CORRUPTION
Socialist Alliance
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party
Pauline Hanson's One Nation
NO MANDATORY VACCINATION PARTY
Liberal Democratic Party
LEGALISE CANNABIS WESTERN AUSTRALIA PARTY
Health Australia Party
Great Australian Party
Daylight Saving Party
Australian Christians
Animal Justice Party
Preview of the WA State Election
Queensland State Election Roundup
The Australian Women Premiers, Chief Ministers and Opposition Leaders: A Retrospective

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