Party Games 2025 - Australia's Voice - 5/TBD

The first of the new parties this time round, Australia's Voice is one of the family of sitting member of parliament leaving the party they were elected with and starting their own party. In this instance Australia's Voice has been formed by former Labor senator Fatima Payman who split from Labor over their handling of the Gaza situation.

Policy wise Australia's Voice is a bit to the left of Labor, which isn't surprising based on where Fatima stood within the Labor Party, The policy page is a bit light, but does include limiting negative gearing and lower the Capital Gains Tax discount (which I'm for even though this is my first election as a property owner), taxing mining companies more, and a more proactive stance on Gaza.

Party structure wise Fatima has a lot of control over the party having final say on all policies and candidates. This isn't unusual for parties set up around a single person, but does limit the development of the party as a self sustaining entity.

Australia's Voice has five candidates (one for the senate in each state except for Tasmania), and I guess they'll end up somewhere between the Greens and Labor on my ballot.

 

Party Games 2025 - Australian Democrats - 4/TBD

The Australian Democrats continue to exist as a shadow of their former selves. They have a similar mix of centrist policies to the past, and still use the "Keep the bastards honest" tag line, even though there's little chance they'll get enough people into the senate to be able to effectuate that. 

It does seem that a lot of the vote they got at their peak have moved on to other parties (the socially progressive side to the Greens, and I think the centrist side will have found the Teals attractive), and I don't expect that it will ever get them back.

Policy wise I do see a fair bit to agree with, including better support for higher education and the arts, more action on climate change, more investment in science, improving public transport nationwide, and more. 

They'll probably come ahead of the two majors, but I think they'll have other parties ahead of them. The Democrats also remain the only party I've met a former leader of.

Past reviews

2022

2013

Party Games 2025 - Australian Citizen's Party - 3/TBD

The Australian Citizen's Party has removed a lot of the conspiracy and craziness from the website over the years while keeping the economic populism, but there are signs it is still there lurking beneath the surface. There's still a bit of stuff about a loss of sovereignty to London/international banks, and the candidate profiles reinforce their outsider self perception.

Their main solution for all our ills is the institution of a national bank to fund infrastructure projects, which thinking about it why do we need a bank rather than just having the government fund infrastructure development directly through taxes? They also want to set up the post office to act as a bank, with the idea that the post office will better service regional areas without noticing that the post office already has limited services in regional Australia.

They'll end up after the majors but before the deplorables.

Previous reviews

2022

2016

2013

 

Party Games 2025 - Australian Christians - 2/TBD

Australian Christians continue their strong held tradition of wrapping up bigotry in religious freedom while failing to appreciate that the religious freedom they advocate should apply to people with religions other than theirs. Including a statement like "Protect the right of parents to instruct and train their children according to The Bible. " in their section of religious freedom just highlights how they see religious freedom as a privilege for themselves rather than a right for all. 

 Policy wise there are no real surprises. Anti-abortion, anti marriage equality, transphobic, pro internet censorship. One of the few positives I could find was their support for the Nordic Model which suggests support for more investment in education and social services, but I suspect they'd set these up with moralistic strings attached.

They only have candidates in WA & NSW so I won't have to work out where they'd go on my ballot, but they'd be after the majors and before the truly horrendous.

Previous Reviews

2022

2016

2013

Party Games 2025 - The Animal Justice Party - 1/TBD

I think a challenge with this series this time around is going to be I've done this a lot and the parties aren't changing much election to election, so I won't have much to say that I haven't already said before. The Animal Justice Party is definitely one of these. Greens but with a focus on specifically animals rather than the environment as a whole (although the do support environmental protection to ensure habitats for animals). 

On non animal issues they mostly take positions I support, things like taking rapid action to transition to clean energy, protecting human rights, better treatment of refugees, etc. When it comes to matters involving animals I'm not as gung ho. Eliminating all farming of animals for example is a huge and unnecessary change, not selling processed meats to people under 18 is impractical (are they going to lock the meats behind a counter along with the cigarettes?), and ending animal experimentation will impact scientific research. I can get behind things like banning greyhound racing, but there's too many big swings they take for me to be comfortable.

 They do have candidates for the QLD senate, so like last election I think they'll be before the two majors, but there will be other parties ahead of them.

Previous reviews

2022

2016

2013