Party Games 52/55 Australian Recreational Fishers Party

Coming out of alphabetical order due to their registration as a party very close to the announcement of the election but after I'd done some pre-planning and made my big long list of parties is the Australian Recreational Fishers Party. I guess they're for the fishers who don't like shooter & farmers. More seriously though, these guys seem a bit to the left the the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, and they're based in Tasmania instead of NSW, so maybe we might see them join forces in the future.

On the fishing front they stand for better support of recreational fishers and a ban on large industrial fishing (I'm not going to pretend I actually know what a super trawler is). On other topics they support the Gonski funding model (did that do anything special for Tasmania?) and the creation of a federal ICAC, and oppose GP co payments and reductions to penalty rates. Those are all ok by me.

Party Games 51/55 Voluntary Euthanasia Party

Thanks to the vagaries of alphabetical order I've been left with some rather serious topic parties towards the end. This one is the Voluntary Euthanasia Party. Again, the name basically sums it up. I agree with the idea of voluntary euthanasia for certain cases. I don't think it's a decision to be made lightly, and it's never going to be an easy one, but I do think it could be an option in the right circumstances. I think in my own case I could put up with pain, but if I lost my mind like full on senile dementia, then is there really anything of me left to preserve.

Anyway, the Voluntary Euthanasia Party wants laws brought in to allow people to choose to end their life on their own terms when the time comes. They propose some sensible safeguards, but not the cooling off period I've seen other parties suggest (I guess if you're suffering that much you want to end it a week waiting to make sure you've really made up your mind could be a very long time, so maybe a strict time period isn't such a good idea).

On other issues they say they'll take them on a case by case basis, but in general they have a moderate, progressive stance.

Party Games 50/55 The Australian Mental Health Party

The Australian Mental Health Party is another single issue party whose name pretty much sums up what for. They want better provision of health care and support networks for people with mental health problems. I've got no snarky comments for that. I will point out that they have not put forward how they plan to fund the extra spending they propose and they haven't said how they deal with other issues if elected.

Party Games 49/55 The Arts Party

Another of the new parties this election, The Arts Party advocates for greater funding and support for the arts in all their forms. This means better funding for the ABC and SBS, better funding for arts funding bodies such as the Australia Council, more time spent on art at school, extra funding for performances is regional areas, and so on. I'm pretty meh on most of that except for the ABC & SBS funding. Where they managed to regain my interest was support for restarting the Interactive Games Fund to support video game developers. This shows that they are open to new art forms, which is promising.

They also put forward some revenue raising ideas since pretty much all of their policies involve more spending. Their revenue raisers include extra taxes on banks, a reform of negative gearing, changes to how super is taxed, and creating a lottery to fund arts projects. These look to be sensible ideas, to the degree allowed by the level of specificity included in their policies.

They also have a poet in residence, which I think is a good way of exemplifying what they stand for.

Party Games 47&48/55 Socialist Alliance & Socialist Equality Party

Australia's two socialist parties, Socialist Alliance and Socialist Equality Party, don't seem to get along too well. The SEP feels the Socialist Alliance are capitalist sell outs because they support the Greens. The Socialist Equality Party do seem to be the more hard core of the socialist parties, tracing their origins to Trotsky of Russian revolution fame. In comparison, the Socialist Alliance feel like the university hippy socialist party.

As such, the Socialist Equality Party are very much for the seizing of the means of production on behalf of the workers and fundamentally reworking society, while the Socialist Alliance seem content to work within the current system to promote workers rights and stronger unions.

Since I'm not sure I agree that all of the capitalist system needs to be brought down, of the two I lean towards the Socialist Alliance.

Party Games 46/55 Smokers Rights Party

Given the Smokers Rights Party's close connections to the LDP and the changes to the senate voting rules, the party have decided that they will run just one candidate for a House of Represenatives seat in New South Wales so that they can keep their party registration, but otherwise they're telling supporters to just vote for the LDP. That's some low effort work right there.

In a similar low effort style, I'll simply point out that I disagree with lowering taxes on smoking, repealing bans on public smoking, repealing restrictions on how stores display tobacco products, and repealing plain packaging laws are all ideas I disagree with.

Done,

Party Games 45/55 Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party

The shooters and fishers have added another member to their alliance, transforming from the Shooters & Fishers Party to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party. Presumably the farmer is the guy with a dog in the party logo.

This expansion of coverage means that they've added to their policies of winding back restrictions on gun laws and letting people fish wherever with some stuff related to farming. This includes letting farmers prevent mining on their property (reasonable), letting farmers clear land as they see fit (questionable), providing support for farmers implementing water conservation efforts (good), and preventing the government from stopping people burning on public land to protect their property (really?).

Their environment policies in general sound like they feel like the Greens have been too successful in preventing people from accessing nature.

Finally, they should have used an oxford comma in their party name.

Party Games 44/55 Science Party

Welcome to the future of the Future Party, where they've rebranded as the Science Party. Other than the new name, not much else has changed. In fact, at one point they say the support the NBN under the current fibre to the premises model. This means they still have a pretty good set of policies that appeal to me as a science nerd type.

These include high speed rail (come on over Bullet Train for Australia supporters), setting up a space agency to collaborate with other nations, better funding for education, and better funding for research. Their plan for a land tax also still makes me question how local governments will manage their cash flow when they only receive income when properties are sold, rather than on an annual basis.

Finally, while looking for Australian scientists who we could name their proposed charter city after instead of Alan Turing (no disrespect to the god of codes, I just feel we should find someone local), I learned of the existance of David Scienceman, which may be one of the coolest names ever.

Party Games 43/55 Seniors United Party of Australia

I think the best indication of the fact that the people running this party are indeed members of the demographic they advocate for is the design of their website. Back in the late 90s it was cool to use animated gif divider bars on your website. I even had a bunch of them saved in case I ever needed one. The coolest was the dripping blood one I got from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan site. Now, we've moved on from such things. But not these seniors, and maybe one day those weird hipsters who listen to vinyl records will pick up this trend as well, and the seniors will be cool again.

I've spent so much time being sarcastic about the web design skills of those behind the Seniors United Party of Australia because they don't put out much policy wise. To quote the party policy they want to "Promote and safeguard the economic, social, political, and fundamental rights of Senior Citizens, being persons over 55 years of age, living in New South Wales," and do use legislation to do so. The reason they seem to only care about the old people in NSW is because they never bothered to update the party website or constitution when they went national. I figure they'll look after oldies everywhere, but old people not from NSW should consider themselves warned just in case.

They seem to be pretty much the same as the Mature Australia Party, just lacking a grandkid with a web development company to make them a pretty site.

Party Games 42/55 Secular Party of Australia

The Secular Party of Australia stand on a platform of making government more secular, by removing religion from government, and government from religion. The religious will say that this is a war on religion, but the Secular Party would say that this is simply asking the question "Why does religion get automatic entry into so much stuff that doesn't really have anything to do with them?"

Some of the changes they suggest are minor. Removing prayer at the start of parliamentary sessions, making oaths in court not refer to a god, repealing remaining blasphemy laws and so on. Next are the plans that will get a lot of pushback. These include cutting government funding for religious schools and removing "promoting a religion" as a purpose qualifying for tax exempt status. Then there are a few big ones, such as supporting a republic because not just is QEII a foreigner, she's the head of a religion (one of her many titles is Defender of the Faith).

Overall I find I support most of their positions, but I feel that their position on food labelling could be tweaked a little so it doesn't resemble that taken by parties rather more biased in which religions they don't want influencing the Australian government.

Party Games 41/55 Rise Up Australia

One of the positives I get out of going through all the parties before an election is that I sometimes get into some interesting and unexpected tangents. In the case of Rise Up Australia, the tangent I went on was Saudi Arabian law. Why, you might ask. Because Rise Up Australia's founder Danny Nalliah claims that while he lived in Saudi Arabia he contributed to securing a royal decree allowing people to practice their religion in private. This seemed pretty impressive, so I looked online for this royal decree. What I found was most royal decrees are of an administrative nature, so things like appointments to government offices, amending existing laws, and the like. So I went further afield and it turns out that the US State Department in 2013 reported on non-muslim religious meetings being broken up and people deported for practising their faith in private. Maybe Danny needs to have a word with the current king.

Anyway, onto the party itself. It is right wing, anti muslim, and economically naive. Their big revenue raising proposal is a 2% tax on all transactions. So you take money out of the bank at an ATM, 2% tax. You make a payment online, 2% tax. You transfer money between two of your accounts, 2% tax. You loan your kid some money to buy their first car, 2% tax. You only ever deal with cash and keep your savings under the mattress, 0% tax. I don't think they've thought this one through. Fortunately they don't have any big spending measures to use all this money on other than reducing the GST and making it only apply to goods, not services, which doesn't at all go with their complaints about rich people avoiding taxes, because if there's one group that spends more on services relative to goods, it's the rich. Their unemployment policy is instead of giving people unemployment benefits, subsidise the hiring of unemployed people by an amount equal to the unemployment benefit they would have received for up to 12 months. I suspect a lot of people would end up getting fired after 12 months under such a scheme, especially as they also want to weaken employee rights.

And as icing on the cake, they proclaim global warming to be a hoax to gain the UN more power over people.

Party Games 40/55 Renewable Energy Party

The Renewable Energy Party joins the ranks of single issue parties with a focus on the rapid transition to renewable energy. They propose a target of 100% renewable energy by 2030. This is pretty ambitious. I think the larger hurdle to achieving this will be the political rather than the technological aspects (it just requires a large enough chunk of cash.)

They also have considered what they'll do on policy matters outside there focus area. They'll support the government of the day. This is a non-confrontational approach but it seems like it removes some of the opportunity for negotiating to achieve their ambitions. It also reduces the chance that supply would be blocked, which would be a good thing overall.

Finally, they have one of the cuter party logos.

Party Games 39/55 Pirate Party Australia

Ahoy me hearties, now we come to the Pirate Party Australia. Inspired by the Pirate Party in Sweden, they have a strong civil liberties and individual rights platform without the economic ruthlessness that other libertarian parties tend to have (I'm looking at you LDP).

As their origin suggests, the Pirate Party has a strong interest in the internet, and a strong set of policies. They support net neutrality, fibre to the premises for the NBN, and oppose data retention without a warrant and online censorship (well censorship in general, actually). They also take a strong stance on intellectual property, feeling that the current system has swung too far in favour of IP holders to the detriment of society.

In the realm of economics they support a basic income, and introducing a land tax (you can't offshore the land to avoid the tax). They encourage digital currencies such as bitcoin, but I'm yet to be fully sold on the bitcoin model.

They are also one of the few minor parties with a defense policy that haven't picked the magic number of 2% of GDP for defense spending. Their plan is for a more defense oriented armed forces, focussing on submarines and aircraft to hold off enemies, with the army defending the homeland to make life even harder for anyone made it to our shores.

Overall, I see a lot that I like with a lot fewer "yes, but what abouts" that I normally get.

Party Games 38/55 Pauline Hanson's One Nation

Pauline Hanson's One Nation was the prototype of the right wing populist party. Be it concerns about foreigners, protectionist trade stances, opposition to Islam, buying into UN conspiracy theories, denial of climate change, they were there first. This time around Pauline Hanson herself is running for the senate in Queensland, and with the double dissolution, this looks like her best chance in a while to get back into parliament.

There doesn't appear to be any changes in policy since last election. 

Finally, they don't seem to have quite understood the new senate voting rules, and are giving incorrect information on their how to vote page. They have mistaken the section that says what a voter should do when voting (subsections 239(1-3) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act) with the section that says if you don't stuff up voting too badly we'll still count it as much as we can (subsections 268A and 269(1)). This seems like the sort of mistake a political party shouldn't be making.

Party Games 37/55 Palmer United Party

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Last election the Palmer United Party fielded candidates in every lower house electorate and every state for the senate. This time around they're still fielding senate candidates in each state but a just single lower house candidate. This follows on from two of the three senators the party got elected quitting the party, leaving it with just one vote in the senate, making it less significant a block for the government to deal with.

The other main cause of their decline is the decline of the popularity of Clive Palmer. He's not recontesting his seat in the lower house, and isn't even trying to get into the senate this time around. His performance as a parliamentarian has been mixed, to say the least. At least his goodbye videos have been amusing, and he has inspired at least one photoshop battle on reddit.

Looking back on their policy list from last time, of the five items, one has been achieved, on one he's had some on paper wins but in practice was outmanuevered by the government, and on the other three has made no progress. The one achieved is the elimination of the carbon tax, but with the coalition in power that was never not going to happen. The area he got out manuevered was in terms of refugee policy. Early on PUP made a deal with the government in the area. The government got the PUP votes for a policy, and in exchange introduced Safe Haven Enterprise Visas, which would have allowed refugees to live and work in regional areas. Where they got beaten by the government is that only about 20 of these visas have been issued out of over 2000 applications, so it hasn't been that good an achievement for PUP.

Their campaign this election is a bit different. Instead of being on the party website, the 2016 campaign is at a site with the conspiracy theory suggesting url of www.thetruthhub.com. Then, in the menu at the of the page, before talking about candidates and policies, there's a page relating to the current law suit regarding Queensland Nickel. On this page they don't present any explanation of the case, or provide any context about the collapse of the company, they just have a copy of the legal submission. And while I did browse through it, as a non-lawyer I didn't get much understanding from it. I found it curious that this should come ahead of the policies and candidates, especially as the party is meant to be distinct from Clive Palmer's business interests.

Policy wise there's not much. They support a federal ICAC, education spending, easier access to super before retirement. And while they take credit for keeping funding for the Clean Energy Corporation, they voted for the removal of the carbon tax with only vague support for an emissions trading scheme once other countries had started one, so I think that was a loss for the planet overall. There's a suggestion for a novel new tax scheme that allows companies to pay their taxes once a year rather than quarterly, which make it harder for both the government and the companies to keep track of and manage their cash flows.

The party's achievements page I feel needs to be taken with a heavy grain of salt. I think you need to do more than be one of several groups voting for something to say you did it. For example, I don't really feel that the Palmer United Party can claim all the credit for removing the carbon tax. I think there may have been a few other groups that may have had more of an influence on how things went there.

I suspect that this election will the PUP will not fare as well, and indeed it may only be the ex-PUPs Glenn Lazarus and Jacqui Lambie that remain in the parliament as a sign of Clive Palmer's brief moment of glory.

Final random thought: I wonder what they have against .au domain names.

Party Games 36/55 Outdoor Recreation Party (Stop the Greens)

I'm a bit behind schedule now as I took last night of to watch the Game of Thrones season final twice (it's that good). So this and the following posts might be a bit briefer than earlier installments (and their not exactly huge treatises to start with.)

So, the Outdoor Recreation Party (Stop the Greens) position boils down to two main things. One, the Greens are killjoys who stop people enjoying nature, and 2) Government shouldn't tell anyone what to do. The second principle I suspect comes from former party officer David Leyonhjelm, whom you might be more familiar with as Liberal Democrat Party Senator David Leyonhjelm. It would appear that there was some overlap between his participation in the two parties, and there have been suggestions that this was not purely innocent.

So what does this mean policy wise. It means people can do whatever they want in national parks, hunt whenever they like, fish whenever they like, own whatever guns they want, have significantly increase speed limits, let people clear however much land they want, greatly reduced taxes, and so on. I think you can see some of the LDP influenced thinking here.

On the topic of national parks and similar, it feels like they don't quite accept that the reason our national parks are so good is because we limit what people do there, and that if we just let everyone do whatever, then we might not have much to leave future generations.

Party Games 34 &35/55 Online Direct Democracy & VoteFlux

I'm combining my write up of Online Direct Democracy - (Empowering the People!) and VOTEFLUX.ORG | Upgrade Democracy because both are making a very similar pitch. Instead of having an elected senator make decisions on how they will vote, their senators will vote according to the public will as determined through online voting. Given the recent brexit vote, I'm not sure how sold I am on direct democracy for everything.

Both parties are promising to have their system up and running in time for their candidates to take office if elected, but neither are fully operational at the moment. Neither provide much reassurance as to how they will get people to become involved, and how they will ensure that those involved do constitute an accurate representation of Australia as a whole. I suspect they'll tend to attract the young, tech savvy demographic but ignore the older non-tech savvy generations (I can't see my grandmother who still has dial up getting involved with either).

Both will allow you to delegate your votes to someone else, so I'm also curious what would happen if another party did a big push to get their members to register and then just delegate their votes for everything to a party representative. VoteFlux has another feature that I'm not quite sold on yet. They plan to allow you to trade away votes on things you don't care about so that you can have more votes on an issue you care about.

Finally, I'm concerned about the security & privacy implications of their systems. To be as auditable and reliable as they say they will be with systems that are not yet implemented and tested, I'm worried it will be possible to see people's voting history, and that the systems won't be as secure as they claim.

Party Games 33/55 Non Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting)

The Non Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting) have pretty much kept the same set of policies they had last election. Reform to the child support and custody laws currently in place is their main area of focus. They do have some policies in other areas, but it all comes back to child support and custody. For example they say that a major part of the increase in prison population since the mid 70s is due to the current Family Law act. Their main focus in terms of unemployment is the apparent high rate of unemployment among parents paying child support.

They also have not taken my advice from last time to get some lessons in web design. I don't think the line right at the very bottom of their page reading "var sc_project=6270014; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_security="f391aee4"; var sc_https=1; var scJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://secure." : "http://www."); document.write("");" is meant to be visible.

Party Games 32/55 Nick Xenophon Team

Since last election the Nick Xenophon Team has expanded, and this election will be running senate candidates in all six states. With the double dissolution and Nick's strong support in South Australia, it looks likely there will be at least two team members in the new Senate, if not more. So where does the team stand?

Most of their policies I can agree with. Restrictions on gambling is a good idea, as is increasing foreign aid. They support marriage equality, better treatment of asylum seekers, a national ant-corruption body, better mental health care, and better education funding are also good ideas.

I am curious about the suggestion that utility prices should be tied to the CPI. Since utility prices are included when calculating the CPI, this would require some clarification on how they want this to work. Their policy on GMOs seems a bit alarmist as well.

Overall, I won't be too concerned if the remain an important part of the senate cross bench, but I'm don't think they'll pick up any seats outside of SA.

Party Games 31/55 Mature Australia Party

I don't have a lot to say about the Mature Australia Party. What little they have in the way of policy can be boiled down to 1) better pensions, 2) better health care for the elderly, 3) less government spending, and 4) an immigration policy rather reminiscent of some of the more xenophobic parties out there. As a party initially formed by a bunch of oldies concerned about conditions in quasi-retirement villages this may not be too surprising.

Some of their concerns suggest that they haven't quite kept up with the times. Their plan for pensions is that all pensions should be tied to pensions for politicians. Now since 2004, all new members of parliament don't get a fixed pension, they get a contribution to their super plan, just like everyone else. There's still a lot of parliamentarians under previous schemes from before super was a thing who will get pensions, but the changes have already been made. This is something I found out through a simple Google search. Again, this is a party of oldies.