Feeling shitty

So, it's been awhile.

Earlier this week I got a new habit tracking app to try. It seemed to be set up more how I want such a thing to work so I gave it a go, and one of the things I put on was to write a blog post three times a week. 

That however, is not what I'm feeling shitty about.

On Friday a friend reached out and said they wanted to talk with me. But then when they called, it was to ask for a contact at my work for his business.In and of itself, not necessarily a thing to get to me, but it was the way he handled the call, It seemed more like a telemarketer cold calling someone than talking to a friend, and it did get to me.

I know I'm not the best at socialising with people. I know I'm not someone who gets included in things because of this. So when one of the few friends I do have dealt with me like that it brought up my insecurities. 

Part of it was I didn't expect it to be a work related thing, so even though I'd been stuck at work an hour later than expected, and was consequently an hour late for something I was going to, I made some time for him as I thought it would be something else, and it felt like a rug pull when I got the sell. And the follow up email they sent includes their bosses as a cc, so now if I don't or can't reply it'll make them look bad which adds another layer of discomfort to the whole thing.

Actually, the request does kind of get to me. It's not something I'd do if our roles were reversed, and yes that's in part because has taught me that when I do things like that I don't get people helping me out because I don't build connections because I'm not good at interacting with people.

I thought typing some of this out might help me get it out of my head, but it hasn't and is just making me stew in the shittiness of it so I'm going to stop here and try and find another way to clear my head so I can get some sleep since I have a full day at work tomorrow and there's going to be a bunch to do with what's happened over the weekend.

Party Games 34-38/38 The Majors

I'll admit, I didn't budget my time well, so won't do as big a spiel on the majors as I should compared with the attention I've given the minor parties, but if you haven't seen at least something of the remaining parties I'm not sure this would make a difference. I'm also stretching the definition of major to include the Greens, but again, it's the night before the election.

As you could probably guess if you've read the other party write ups, you wouldn't be surprised that I'm not a fan of the Coalition (the Liberals, the Nationals, the LNP, and the Country Liberal Party). If this list isn't enough to make you unsatisfied with them I'm not sure what would. 

The ALP after the Rudd-Gillard years seems to have decided that the way to gain votes is to become more like the Coalition, but this just encourages the Coalition to become even more bold in moving the country to the right. In fairness to them, the Murdoch dominated press hold the ALP to a much higher standard than the do the Coalition, and some of the headlines this election have read more like ads than reporting. They're not great, but I trust them with running the country, especially with some minor parties acting as a Jiminy Cricket pulling them in the right direction.

Last on this list is the Greens. They've grown from just caring about environmental issues to having a broad range of policies that I can get behind. I don't agree with their opposition to nuclear power, but that's about it.

Party Games 33/38 Western Australia Party

Not surprisingly, the Western Australia Party advocates for better outcomes for WA. This mostly boils down to wanting a bigger cut of the GST pie. 

I feel a bit called out by one part of their environment policy, which is "Protection from invasive pests such as Queensland cane toads and Queensland fruit fly is also critical." but I acknowledge it's a fair cop.

I might give them a bit more consideration if there was a way for me to vote for them and it wasn't 8pm on the night before the election. I'll leave it for any WA readers to make up their own mind

Party Games 32/38 Victorian Socialists

Well, since the last socialist party wasn't the horror extreme left wing I keep hearing about, maybe the Victorian Socialists will show us what real horror is. Except no, they don't, the extreme left wing is just a beat up. 

The Victorian Socialists support a lot of good things, like a stronger social safety net, better treatment of refugees, taking serious action on climate change, decriminalising drugs. There are only really two areas I can't get fully behind. One is just disbanding a lot of our national security infrastructure (while it should have better oversight, I don't think we can just give up on doing it), and the other is their proposal for some massive once off wealth taxes. On the wealth taxes, I think a smaller wealth tax charged annually would be better than a large tax once off.

If they were running candidates outside of Victoria, they'd probably be ahead of both majors for me.

Party Games 31/38 United Australia Party

Clive Palmer's ongoing campaign to make me less likely to wear an enforcer tshirt in public because I don't want to be confused with one of his supporters continues to be one of the most annoying political parties. From mass spam text messages to buying out every second billboard to very long tv commercials, the United Australia Party keeps on giving (note, despite claiming 3 former prime ministers as members, this United Australia Party has no actual connection to this Australia United Party that merged with the Liberals in 1945).

Clive and the UAP have really tried to make hay of COVID, but have consistently been on the wrong side of things, be it opposing lockdowns to the point of suing WA, importing a tonne of hydroxychloroquine that doesn't actually work against COVID, and more. 

Policy wise they promise big but give little detail. They've put up a lot of signs about capping mortgages at 3% but haven't said how. This is important because this will have a major impact on how things play out. If they just cap the interest rate banks can charge, banks will reduce the amount of mortgages they issue as they will not want to take on the extra risk. If they have the government pay any excess interest, then that means taxpayers will be subsidising people mortgages at a massive cost, and even though I'm almost at the point of buying, don't think this is a good idea. They also want to make the first $30k paid on a mortgage each year to be tax deductible, which unless they propose to do the same for renters (spoiler alert, they're not) just blatantly gives more favourable treatment to people paying a mortgage.

They also propose paying off the national debt by putting a 15% export fee on iron ore, and that this can only be used to pay off the debt. This does in part neglect the fact that government debt is usually issued via long term bonds, and the Australian government currently has bonds issued that go out until 2051, and while the government can offer to repurchase such bonds, they can't currently force people to sell them back. I also note that they only want to apply the export fee to iron ore, I'd like to suggest that maybe they should expand it to nickle as well, as I'm sure Clive would like to do his bit to help Australia.

Another interesting one I found was part of their plan to improve wages is to give people a 50% discount on income from a second job. I think this would just result in companies giving everyone two jobs and pocketing the savings.

On the plus side, they do want to cancel all HECS debts, which I will continue to support even though I'll have finally paid mine off this year, increasing welfare payments, and they support introducing nuclear power.

Unfortunately the few good things do not outweigh the crazy, and the UAP is in serious contention for last place on my ballot.

Party Games 30/38 The Local Party

The Local Party seems more like The Tasmania Party, although they do have a senate candidate for South Australia. Most of the issues they have on their party site are Tasmanian specific such as salmon farming and an electricity connection to the mainland, although they do take a look at some more general issues if only very briefly - on climate change all they've got to say is that it hasn't been fixed yet.

In short they seem to have potential, but need a bit more work.

Party Games 29/38 The Great Australia Party

Reading through the website of the Great Australia Party one can only come to one conclusion; they've been suckered in with sovereign citizen nonsense and taken it seriously. They've put some of the letters they've sent to the AEC about the nomination of some of their candidates (one didn't fill out the form properly and was rejected, and another is ineligible due to being an undischarged bankrupt) and while I'm sure they put them up hoping to garner sympathy, all they've done is make me admire the patience of the AEC's chief legal officer. Some of their email signatures are out there as well, citing among other things the United States Code and The Holy Bible, King James Version, Anno Domini 1611 Edition (very specific) as protection against the email being disclosed against there wishes (and I'm sure they've got the ok from everyone on the email chain to post the emails on their site).

On the policy side, they want to get rid of both the GST & income tax, take a much stricter stance on crime, making the Nuremberg code law (anti-vaxxers like to use the Nuremberg code's requirement for voluntary consent to being a part of medical experimentation as a justification for opposing vaccine mandates), getting rid of gun regulations, and want zero net immigration. 

I'm not sure why they have a random page about some sort of special cleaning solution.

Even if they had some policies I could agree with, the sovereign citizen nonsense makes it impossible to support them. If you take the position that the Governor General no longer has authority because of a wording change in legislation, and do things like appeal to the UK Privy Council despite that being made no longer a thing in 1986, or nominate while being an undischarged bankrupt after having previously been kicked out of the senate for the same thing, I don't trust you to run the country.

28/38 TNL

While not as fun as BNL, TNL (originally The New Liberals, but no longer able to use that name under new party registration rules) is so reasonable sounding in their policies, I'm curious why they wanted to create the association with the Liberals by choosing that name. The only thing I can think of is they were wanting to follow in David Leyonhjelm who got a substantial boost in the election when the Liberal Democratic Party appeared ahead of the Liberal Party on the senate ballot paper.

Because they don't really seem to share any common ground with the Liberals. The closest they come is their job guarantee scheme, which seems reminiscent of work for the dole, even if it's optional and much better paying. TNL is for quick action on climate change, they want an ICAC, they want better funding of the ABC, and improving social safety nets including welfare payments. 

I think I'll ignore the name and put them closer to the top than the bottom of the list.

Party Games 27/38 Sustainable Australia Party

The Sustainable Australia Party is all for keeping the Australian population low, to a potentially mathematically implausible degree when you consider the level of immigration they're willing to accept and that they say they don't want to impose restrictions on family size.

Which makes it a bit of a pity that they predicate all their policies on this idea, because they do have some good ideas. They want a better funded ABC, have a reasonable environmental policy, want to introduce a universal basic income. But they also want to make superannuation optional, making the unemployed work in environmental restoration programs (although I do like one part of this which is bringing back the CES and getting rid of private companies handling job seeking activities).

Party Games 26/38 Socialist Alliance

I thought I'd finally got to the left wing crazies with the Socialist Alliance, but on the whole they're a lot less out there than I find some of the right wing fringe parties. I mean for all the talk on places like Sky News about the "Extreme Left" I haven't seen anything on the left as far out as some of the right wing stuff.

Socialist Alliance have a number of policies I like. They're good on the environment, workers' rights, want to expand health care, as well as sensible COVID policies.

There tax plan has some good things like cancelling the tax cuts for the wealthy the LNP has proposed, getting rid of negative gearing, and getting rid of subsidies on fossil fuels, but getting rid of the GST entirely will take a bit of work.

Party Games 25/38 Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party

My first beef with the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party is that they don't use an Oxford comma. However, I won't let that get to me too much, especially when there are bigger concerns with their platform.

Their platform mainly consists of letting farmers, hunters, and fishers do what they want, and the government putting them first when it comes matters of environment, land use, and whatever else they come up with. This includes COVID matters, where they're on the government shouldn't make people do anything to to prevent the spread side of politics.

In all fairness, I'm not the parties demographic, but I'd appreciate it if rural focused parties like this at least pretended that people living in cities were worth taking in to consideration.

Party Games 24/38 Seniors United Party

The Seniors United Party appear to have made things easy for me as their website no longer seems to exist (I'm sure it was there a month ago when I was putting together the list of parties), so I can't say much about their current policies. I suspect they're similar to what they were last time (I made comment about their lacklustre web presence then as well), being primarily focused on making life better for seniors.

Party Games 23/38 Rex Patrick Team

Rex Patrick initially joined the senate as a member of the Centre Alliance, replacing Nick Xenephon when he retired, but has since left the party and formed his own. 

His positions are a bit of a mix. Supporting net zero carbon by 2050 makes him better than some on the environment, but there's room for improvement. He's also good on government integrity, supporting the creation of an ICAC, better transparency on donations, although I'm unsure on his proposal that ministers need to pass a security clearance to be able to access classified information. My concern is that this gives a veto on ministerial appointments to the security agencies, taking that out of the democratic process. 

There's also a strong anti-China bent to Rex's positions, as well as strong support for South Australia, the latter of which I can't fault as he's a senator for that state. 

I'm not sure how he'll fare running on his own rather than as part of the Centre Alliance.

Party Games 22/38 Reason Australia

Reason Australia is the result of the merger of the Australian Sex Party, the Australian Cyclist Party, and the Voluntary Euthanasia Party. They describe themselves as civil libertarian party, but in contrast to the LDP, they actually seem to care about people.

On climate they look alright, supporting net zero carbon by 2030. Their health proposals overall are ok. They also propose transitioning to a 4 day work week, which I think would be a good thing.

 I like their secularisation policy, which includes getting rid of the prayer at the start of parliament, removing tax exemptions for businesses owned by religious organisations, and removing "advancing religion" as a charitable purpose for tax classification.  

They're not running in all states, but the do have someone running for the senate in Queensland, so they'll be above both the majors for me.

Party Games 21/38 Pauline Hanson's One Nation

Pauline Hanson's One Nation has been around for a long time now, and they may not be as blatant in the xenophobia, it's still there lurking at the heart of conservative platform. They oppose foreign ownership of pretty much anything, but especially farms, they want immigration greatly reduced, and they are highly skeptical of pretty much every international organization from the UN down. 

This last feeds on and into (in a chicken or the egg kind of way) their stances on climate change and COVID. On climate change they deny there's even a problem to be addressed, and on COVID they've been opposed to most steps taken to mitigate. And while they're not the first party to suggest a royal commission in to how COVID has been handled, as the "hearings" Malcolm Scott ran earlier this year show, they'd likely turn it in to a gathering of anti-vaxxers and fringe thinkers rather than a serious examination of what lessons can be learnt.

Looking for a positive, I think there is some merit in there proposal to pay off medical practitioners' HELP debt in exchange for a several year period of service in a regional area (and maybe we could get a Northern Exposure type show out of it into the bargain). But otherwise, there's not much there I can get behind.

Party Games 20/38 Liberal Democratic Party

The Liberal Democratic Party is Australia's libertarian party, and they are very committed to their ideals. They have become a lot more outspoken during COVID, with their position on the matter is that no government should take any action on the issue other than maybe asking people to be careful. And while yes there can be debate on how effective government action was, and what should and shouldn't have been done, the position that nothing should have been done at all is one I don't find tenable.

The idea that government shouldn't really do anything forms the basis for most of their policies. They want to privatise schools, privatise the ABC & SBS, and get rid of a whole slew of government regulation. Their budget proposal is to cut all departments' (except the armed forces) budgets by 10% initially, and then cut an additional 1% each year until the budget is balanced, which could be an issue because their tax plan would cut tax revenue by about 25%. 

They oppose any action on climate change, which means they want to get rid of any carbon reduction targets, let alone a net zero target, they want to get rid of subsidies for renewables (which I could support at this stage if they also got rid of all the subsidies for fossil fuels and factored in externalities from pollution by say imposing a carbon tax, but they don't seem to get there). I do agree with them on allowing nuclear power.

Finally, I guess this last bit is more subjective than normal, but to me it feels like their freedom fundamentalism leads them to always siding with the dickhead in situations. Whether it's things like opposing racial vilification laws because of freedom of speech, opposing worker protections because employers should be free from regulation, supporting a company that put's sexist jokes on their hire vehicles, and more, the freedoms they support always end up being freedom for the powerful rather than the powerless. And so, since I don't want to have to ask "Am I the Asshole?" I'm placing them towards the bottom of the ballot.

Party Games 19/38 Legalise Cannabis Australia

Alright, a day and a half left until election day and I finally reach half way. As usual, the depth and thoroughness of these reviews drops as we get closer to election day.

Legalise Cannabis Australia wants marijuana legalised. While I'm not a user, I do support legalisation. Places like Portugal show that when you treat drug use as a medical matter rather than a criminal one you get better outcomes. It's partly because I'm already sold on the idea that I think some of their justifications such as using hemp to make biofuels seem like overkill. Just say that this is something fun to use, and criminalisation is an overreaction that causes more harm than good.

The party doesn't appear to have any policies unrelated to the legalisation of marijuana.

Party Games 18/38 Kim for Canberra

Kim for Canberra is another single candidate party vying for one of Canberra's two senate seats (a mathematically challenging proposition). Despite this challenge, Kim Rubenstein has a decent mix of policies, going strong on climate change, making sure an ICAC has teeth, and gender equality.

The one policy I've not yet seen elsewhere, and probably won't, is her proposal to increase the ACT's senate representation from 2 senators to 4. This is primarily on the basis of population, as the ACT with a population of 450k gets 2 senators, while Tasmania gets 12 senators for its 530k. This discrepancy definitely shows the advantage of being a state rather than a territory. A larger senate cohort would also make electing independent senators easier (the quota would drop from 33% to 20%), but would result in the odd case of the ACT having more senators than MPs (although that's long been the case for Tasmania).

If I lived in Canberra, I'd probably put Kim ahead of both the majors.

Party Games 17/38 Katter's Australian Party

Katter's Australian Party takes after its larrikin founder Bob Katter. To say Bob's a bit of a character is an understatement. 

I think the best way to summarise the position of the KAP is to say that if you live north of Gympie, you'll do well, and if you live in a big city there's not much for you. From special tax rates for people in rural areas, spending more money on regional infrastructure, providing subsidised loans for rural development, and so on and so on. Oddly they also want to turn farmers into jailers, with a proposal to send convicts to remote farms to work their sentence rather than putting them in jail. They also want to ensure that marriage is strictly one man and one woman, so they don't seem to consider that battle lost yet.

I didn't really see anything that stood out as for the city slickers, other than some grumbling about council funding favouring urban areas because there's more people here. And so as yet another country good city bad party, I can't really support them.

Party Games 16/38 Jacqui Lambie Network

Jacqui Lambie remains one of the few positives to come in to politics thanks to the political adventures of Clive Palmer. Like Ricky Muir, she's shown a sincerity and dedication to the job of senator well above what was expected based on their pre-election performance. This hasn't always translated into concrete results, and I haven't always agreed with her positions, but she takes the responsibility seriously.

The Jacqui Lambie Network website lacks much detail on policies. The FAQ includes "what is your policy on X, Y, or Z?" with the answer that they don't want to come up with lots of different policies that never get implemented, and instead their focus is getting the balance of power, which is honest. In fact the site looks more like a kickstarter campaign with fundraising targets for different campaign actions.

The lack of policy details probably mean I'd put them between the two majors on a ballot, but since they're only running candidates in Tasmania I don't need to do so.