Overview and Research

As I’ve recently returned to Australia, I had to do quite a bit of research on the parties as well as the candidates to work out what’s going on and figure out how to vote.

Specifically, I’m in Flynn in Queensland. Even if you’re not in my district, I hope the party information is useful.

For my research I started with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) candidate list as well as the ABC election guide.

From there, it was a matter of looking at party pages and then, in some instances, personal pages. I’ve also read interviews with candidates to get a feel for where they stand within their party where that might affect my decision making.

Each party is rated as follows:

• Green (✅): The platform is generally favorable.
• Yellow (⚠️): No show stoppers, but a mixed platform.
• Red (:cross_mark:): Ethically untenable. The party platform has show stoppers.

Note that not all parties have a list of values. Where they don’t, I’ve paraphrased based on their policies and may occasionally use policies as fill ins.

Parties

This list is in alphabetical order. There may be other parties where you are.

Animal Justice Party ❌

Rating: Red. ❌

Site: https://www.animaljusticeparty.org/

Notable Values:

• Animals and nature have the right to live and thrive free from negative human interference
• Human society which functions with kindness and compassion within its ecological limits

Notable Policies:

• Increase the age of criminal responsibility to the UN recommended 14 years
• Stop animal experimentation
• Move to an exclusively plant based agricultural system
• Pro abortion
• Ensure refugees can apply for asylum and that the condition of asylum seekers can be monitored by third parties such as journalists
• Encourage vaccination and only require it in high risk settings such as hospitals and aged care.
• Ban lethal control methods for introduced species and research effective non-lethal methods.
• Support voluntary euthanasia for those suffering from incurable diseases
• Prevent elected officials from serving as lobbyists for 5 years
• Ban deceptive and misleading political advertising
• Support ICAC
• Treat cannabis like alcohol and tobacco
• Move to exclusively clean energy over 15-20 years
• Implement a carbon tax
• Ban processed meat sales to those under 18
• Transition from carbon based transport to clean energy transport
• Significantly increase public transport and develop town planing around it

Personal Summary:

I was pleasantly surprised while reading through the AJP’s policies. They’re comprehensive and well thought out, despite being a fundamentally single issue party. I don’t agree with them all, I’m not willing to give up eating meat for example, but I do see them as both morally and intellectually consistent. They also seem to be somewhat (although not entirely) realistic in how change might be made. While there’s some drastic immediate change, it’s mostly thoughtful change over time.

The thoughtfulness of their proposals and ethical consistency makes a nice change. For that, they’re definitely a green rating. Humans are omnivorous though and a vast amount of our lives are also built on animal products (including a staggering amount of our medicine). The alternative to animal products for many of them is largely a far worse evil, petroleum products. As such, I believe that some of their core policies are infeasible and/or would have significantly negative consequences. For that I’ve given them a red rating.

Australian Democrats ✅

Rating: Green. ✅

Site: https://www.democrats.org.au/

Notable Values:

• Evidence Based Governance
• Integrity, Truth and Transparency
• Working together
• Looking out for one another and the planet

Notable Policies:

• Caps on political spending
• Require specific skills for appointments, to avoid “jobs for the boys”
• Ministers can not have related jobs for 3 years after leaving the ministry
• Avoid rather than declare conflicts of interest
• Independent approval of all political ads
• Net zero by 2050
• Declare climate emergency
• Transition away from fossil fuels
• Focus de-carbonisation efforts on the largest emitters
• Fund sustainable farming initiatives
• Have a carbon tax
• Remove subsidies for fossil fuels
• Increase taxes on non-renewable resource projects
• Fund training in other industries for those effected by de-carbonisation efforts.
• Focus military on Australian defence instead of assisting the USA fight their wars.
• Include preventative dental care in Medicare
• Invest in health and medical research
• Construct 200,000 new affordable/community homes and ensure affordable housing is part of all new housing projects.
• Reform taxation to discourage housing speculation and encourage investment in new property development.
• Create a national housing plan
• Fund farmers to deliver environmental benefits
• Ensure the costs of sustainable land management are shared equally between urban and rural areas
• Increase investments in diplomacy and foreign aid
• Reduce tension between the USA and China
• End offshore detention
• Raise minimum wage and income support so no Australian lives in poverty
• Invest in preparedness for future pandemics
• A right to repair consumer devices
• Stop planned obsolescence of consumer devices.
• Improve teacher pay and encourage teaching as a profession
• Invest in rail and public transport
• Create stringent vehicle emissions standards
• New vehicles to be electric only after 2035
• Switch from flat fees for cars to usage based fees to encourage alternatives to car usage

Personal Summary:

The Democrats seems to have a good wide ranging set of policies which are progressive. Many of their policies are reasonably well formed and seem to be based on solid research. Most of them are reasonably detailed, although there are some gaps.

Generally reasonable and detailed platform with no show stoppers gives them a green rating.

Australian Federation Party ❌

Rating: Red. :cross_mark:

Site: https://ausfedparty.com.au/

Notable Values:

• Transparency - by the Government for the people it serves
• Trust - Re-building trust in the Government and the people of Australia
• Courage - The courage to do what is right for the People of Australia
• Freedom - Fight for every person’s individual freedom and their freedom of choice without fear of coercion, interference, retaliation or retribution from the Government, person or entity

Notable Policies:

• Completely voluntary approach to public health
• Anti-vaccine
• Pro pseudoscientific non-medical treatments
• Outlaw transfer pricing and other ways for multi-nationals to transfer profits offshore.
• Ban lobbying of Australian politicians by international corporations
• Make politics much more interactive with the population, including requiring all members to have a monthly town hall meeting.
• Anti-abortion
• Anti-sex education
• Christian Values (no mention of which sect of Christianity)
• Harsher drug related penalties
• Move schools to the independent public school model used in some schools in Western Australia
• A ceiling for school fees, above which private schools do not receive any public funding
• Reward schools for diversity
• Break apart excessively large concentrations of market power (such as Big 4 banks or NewsCorp)
• End superannuation
• Create a sovereign wealth fund, similar to Norway
• Limit foreign ownership of land and residential property
• Cap salaries for CEOs and other senior staff members to 44x the lowest paid employee
• Move local government service delivery to state governments
• Move health and education to the federal government
• Move away from petroleum based farming
• Establish the Great Forest National Park
• Encourage hemp farming
• Significantly increase investment in renewable energy and reconfigure the energy market to encourage more small businesses to bring new solutions to market.
• Reduce the amount and impact of consumer goods packaging on the environment
• Use the gold standard for money
• Acquire nuclear weapons from the USA

Personal Summary:

There’s some nuggets of good policy here, wrapped up in horrendous nationalism, non-sensilla pseudo science and religion. I like much of the ecological policy, there’s some great ideas in there. Similarly, I strongly believe that executives (in industry and government) need to have pay caps and that we need to take a Norwegian approach to our natural resources.

Unfortunately, the negatives here are severe. Enmeshing religion with the state, ending superannuation (and not replacing it with some other system which provides people with guaranteed financial stability in their old age), anti-vaccine (and general anti-science based medicine) and acquiring nuclear weapons are all show stoppers.

Australian Labor Party (ALP) ⚠️

Rating: Yellow. ⚠️

Site: https://www.alp.org.au

Notable Values:

• Equality
• Manufacture locally

Notable Policies:

• Create medicare bulk billed urgent care clinics
• Reduce prescription costs
• Restore regional telehealth services
• Create an Australian Center for Disease Control
• Fee free TAFE
• Upgrade air flow and air quality systems in schools
• Same job, same pay
• Make Fair Work Commission focus on long term rather than gig jobs
• Make wage theft a crime
• Government contracts buy from Australian businesses
• Fiber to the home based NBN
• Establish a local defence manufacturing sector
• Significant investment in rail, including finishing the Sydney to Newcastle high speed rail project
• Upgrade the electrical grid
• Invest in the development of more environmentally friendly metal smelting
• Invest in solar and grid storage
• Encourage electric vehicle adoption and build supporting infrastructure
• Close multinational corporation tax loopholes
• Increase the low and middle income tax offset and cut taxes
• National anti-corruption commission
• Supports buying nuclear subs
• Invest in forestry plantations
• Create an agricultural workers visa
• Invest in regional road and rail
• Increase funding for ABC and SBS
• Establish a national water commission to manage water
• Increase foreign aid and collaboration with pacific island nations

Personal Summary:

There’s some decent policy here, but it’s not transformative or particularly progressive. On the good side, we have things like making wage theft a crime, regional telehealth, a Center for Disease Control, and maybe, just maybe, actually giving us the NBN that was originally planned (as opposed to the “cheap” version the Liberal party gave us).

On the other hand, there’s a lot of places where the policies are short sighted or just lacking a strong vision. We don’t need nuclear submarines (but we do need nuclear power plants). We need an anti-corruption commission with teeth, not just an advisory body. We need massive and urgent climate change investment, regardless of how you feel about the veracity of climate change claims, the investment along with creating current jobs and future industry would be a huge boon to the economy. There’s some nibbling at the edges, but it falls wells short of “become a global leader on climate change and treat it like we would treat a world war”.

Australian Values Party ❌

Rating: Red ❌

Site: https://australianvalues.org.au/

Notable Values:

• Respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual
• Commitment to the rule of law
• Equality of opportunity for all people
• Freedom of religion, speech and association.
• Parliamentary democracy
• Recognising the English language
• A ‘fair go’ for all

Notable Policies:

• Drug and alcohol testing for politicians
• Review ABC funding, make some parts of it a subscription service
• Certification for journalists
• Review system of government and federal/state interactions
• Australian manufacturing of all defence force requirements
• Create a national guard to deal with national emergencies
• Invest in robotics and unmanned platforms for the military
• Focus defence and assistance on the South Pacific, while maintaining ANZUS and AUKUS treaties
• Create a federal quarantine system
• Model energy policy after France
• Nuclear and hydroelectic power investments
• Make Australia an exporter of energy to the region
• Include dental and mental health in medicare
• Standardised pharmaceutical practices and medication access
• Exports are conditional on meeting a reserve level which ensures access locally to any product exported.
• Invest in community programs for children to teach non-academic skills to children, allowing schools to focus on academic needs.
• Free TAFE for critical trades
• Free university for health workers
• Economic development zones to encourage rural development
• Fuel excise subsidies for rural Australia
• Telehealth availability for all Australians
• Reduce all pollution, not just carbon
• Climate policy is emissions offset focussed
• Fund foreign language education
• Zero tolerance for drug trafficking, support and rehab for substance abusers
• Support offshore detention, with a maximum processing time of 2 years.
• Prefer allowing illegal immigrants to stay, harsh penalties for people smugglers

Personal Summary:

There’s a lot of text on their website, but little substance. Quite a number of their policy pages are just complaints about how things are down now or calls for review. What actual policies they do have are often thin.

Having said that, I do like many of their ideas, including manufacturing all our defence force requirements locally, focussing on being a good neighbour, a French style power grid policy and including dental and mental health in medicare. Even though their drug policy lacks detail, I do like that it’s applied equally to politicians in the form of random drug testing.

I’m less keen on fuel excise subsidies (we should be moving away from fuel and reducing profit seeking from fossil fuel industries rather than subsidising their use). While I don’t like offshore detention, the limited timeline and preference for allowing people to stay offsets it to some degree. I’m also really not a fan of an emissions offset focussed climate policy as it seems to be unlikely to bring the needed change. Making ABC a subscription service is clearly a bad idea (although not a show stopper) and certifications for journalists seems ripe for abuse. I’m also concerned about their English language policy with foreign language education requirements but only for the purposes of security. Not only does it miss many of the advantages to a multi-lingual society, the phrasing leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Overall, there’s some decent ideas (if a lack of detail), some things to be concerned about (including the general tone of several of their policies), but no show stoppers.

In the “so orange, they’re actually red” category, the how to vote pages don’t list the names/parties of their preferred candidates (just their boxes) and if you decode the boxes it turns out that their primary preference is One Nation. Deceptive preference allocation to far right candidates is a clear ethical problem and this is why they’re given a red rating. Being up front about giving a preference to a party like One Nation is one thing, being deceptive about it is something significantly worse.

Citizens Party ⚠️

Rating: Yellow. ⚠️

Site: https://citizensparty.org.au/

Notable Values:

• Banks need oversight

Notable Policies:

• Make post offices into state banks
• Establish banks for public infrastructure and manufacturing/agriculture
• Increase medicare funding
• Force retail and investment banking to be separate
• Properly oversee banks and compensate people when they commit crimes
• Stop being a pawn for the USA and UK
• End long term refugee detention
• Moratorium on home and farm foreclosures
• Invest in family farmers
• Develop nuclear power
• Tax high frequency trading

Personal Summary:

Based on policies, Citizens Party seems to be a single issue party around banking regulation and using new banking startups to solve problems. Clearly, banking is a huge problem and needs fixing. I’m not generally a fan of single issue parties and particularly of single issue parties which have very thin policy documents. I do like their position of not being a pawn to the USA and UK as well as the general ideas expressed around banking. However, between being an almost single issue party and lacking sufficient detail in their policies, Also worth noting, their preferences mostly go to red rating candidates, which is never a good sign for where their sympathies lie for topics not covered by their public policies. It’s a clear yellow rating.

Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance ⚠️

Rating: Yellow. ⚠️

Site: https://www.democraticalliance.com.au

Notable Values:

• Distance Australia from China
• Build local

Notable Policies:

• Create a Federal Anti-Corruption Watchdog
• Ban politicians from becoming corporate lobbyists
• Diversify local manufacturing
• Repeal Australia-China free trade agreement
• Take a strong stance against China for human rights abuse
• A better funded social safety net
• Invest in local solar manufacturing and infrastructure
• Invest in high speed rail

Personal Summary:

The theme of the party seems to be to build local and use fear of China as a galvanizing force. The ideas are thin and populist, with policies only garnering a sentence each and no detail at all.

They’re clearly a yellow rating and just avoid a red rating due to not overtly crossing over any lines, possibly though the lack of detail on their site. I can’t see a reason to vote for them, there are others saying the same thing but putting a lot more thought and effort into it.

Federal ICAC Now ⚠️

Rating: Yellow. ⚠️

Site: https://www.federalicacnow.org

Notable Values:

• Anti corruption
• Transparency in politics
• Neutrality on the governing parties agenda if it is not corrupt

Notable Policies:

• Create a federal ICAC
• Real time political disclosure
• Ban politicians from becoming corporate lobbyists
• Ban politicians from becoming government employees for 5 years
• Limit donations to parties
• Strong whistle-blower protections

Personal Summary:

If you’ve gathered anything by now, it’s that I strongly dislike single issue parties. While I really, really, want to like this party, their policies are extremely thin despite the small number of them. There’s a lot of room for what it means to have an ICAC and there’s no detail at all on their website describing what one should look like.

They do offset some of the usual concerns around how single issue parties operate by describing their decision making process: reject if corrupt or against the UN declaration of human rights, otherwise refer to membership.

I really wanted this to be a green rating, but the lack of detail about what they believe an ICAC should look like, when it’s their main policy, drags them down to yellow.

FUSION: Science, Pirate, Secular, Climate Emergency ✅

Rating: Green. ✅

Site: https://www.fusionparty.org.au/

Notable Values:

• Secure a safe climate and environment
• Humanist society
• Free culture
• Science based decision making

Notable Policies:

• High speed rail connecting the east coast capitals
• Double funding for research, development, and commercialisation of new technologies.
• Increase funding for disaster response, including buying water bombers
• Treat cannabis like alcohol, harm minimisation for other controlled substances
• Cap media ownership by any one corporation
• Increase ABC and SBS funding
• Essential services, large IT projects and natural monopolies should be public services not private.
• Implement Gonski reforms to education
• Focus universities on education and research
• Create an anti-corruption commission at the federal level, with retrospective powers and open hearings.
• Reform tax system to remove loopholes and poverty traps
• Change tax incentives to encourage housing as home ownership rather than investment ownership
• Improve building accessibility and energy efficiency requirements
• Universal basic income
• Focus justice system on rehabilitation rather than punishment
• Separation of church and state
• Replace school chaplains with youth counselling
• End tax exemption for religion
• Remove censorship and blasphemy laws
• Allow voluntary assisted dying (euthanasia)
• Wind down fossil fuel extraction
• Revise copyright and patent laws to encourage new work rather than profiteering from monopolies
• Increase diplomacy and foreign aid, to secure alliances
• Focus military on defence
• Develop local industry to ensure that defence is self sustainable
• Treat climate emergency as a war and mobilise society to fix it
• Investment in new technologies and industries to get to net zero in 10 years
• Become a regional exporter of clean energy
• Move to electric vehicles and build the national infrastructure necessary to make that viable.
• Invest in alternative, zero emissions fuels for heavy vehicles and flight

Personal Summary:

A group of single issue parties all joined together to make a workable party. Also, the party values and policies are well thought out and, while there could be more detail, what’s on their website is sufficient to believe that they’re not just winging it.

Their policy is for a rapid end to fossil fuel extraction, which I believe is too optimistic and is the only significant thing I disagree with them on. The focus on investing in developing new industries to replace fossil fuels is an excellent one and I believe that this is the correct direction for Australia. There’s a lot of opportunity in the climate emergency to create jobs for the long term future while we make the world a better place. Heavy investment now will pay off handsome dividends for future generations.

While I do have concerns about the realistic nature of the proposed timeline for ending fossil fuel extraction, this is somewhat tempered by their FAQ which acknowledges that the Green Party is insufficiently pragmatic. We need rapid action and we need to be pragmatic, not dogmatic, about implementing those changes and this is part of their platform. Belatedly, their policy on nuclear power is that they’ll invest in fusion research but not building fission power plants. I believe this is short sighted and conflicts with their zero emissions goals. I don’t see either of these as being sufficient to bump them down to yellow.

This party gets a green rating.

Great Australian Party ❌

Rating: Red. ❌

Site: https://www.greataustralianparty.com.au

Notable Values:

• All laws should be rooted in their interpretation of the constitution
• No laws against victimless crimes
• Separation of church and state

Notable Policies:

• Replace income tax with corporate taxation
• Replace GST with an electronic debit tax
• Banking should have a public safety net
• Eliminate local government
• All judicial offices should be elected
• No broad pubic health measures such as vaccinations or fluoride
• Replace the family court with mediation counselling
• Elected officials must pass a constitutional law test
• Jury trial in the federal court
• Import US style Chapter 11 bankruptcy laws.
• Improved biosecurity through banning certain (unlisted) processed foods
• No fracking
• Anti treaty
• Anti carbon tax
• Water should have its own portfolio and Australia should make use of grey water
• Redirect money spent on private health to the public health system to increase wages.
• Support for quack “medical” schemes such as homeopathy
• Focus on local rather than international tourism
• Opposed to free trade and globalism
• Zero net immigration, withdraw from UN treaties on migration and refugees

Personal Summary:

There’s a lot to like here, from corporations paying their fair share to a strong separation of church and state. I find the idea of them basing everything on the constitution to be weird (this is, after all, the job of the Governor General), but I do certainly like the idea of making the Australian constitution something that is specifically taught in schools. I think we have a lack of understanding of the hows and whys of government (US media is so pervasive that many Australians don’t understand that we don’t use first past the post here so you can’t “waste” a vote) and this would be a minor step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, the positives are marred by some really quite severe negatives. Strongly limited immigration (only those rich enough to buy a business), no treaties and anti-vaccination. Anti-vaccination and immigration are both show stoppers for me.

Also, to put icing on the cake, the founder of the party has plead guilty to larceny and has been charged with breaching quarantine, among other things. He’s clearly not fit for public service and I question the judgement of those who would align with him.

Greens ⚠️

Rating: Yellow. ⚠️

Site: https://greens.org.au

Notable Values:

• Ecological sustainability
• Grassroots democracy
• Social justice
• Peace and non-violence

Notable Policies:

• Climate emergency
• Phase out fossil fuels
• Investment in new industry and re-skilling workers from fossil fuel jobs
• Ban donations from fossil fuel companies and limit other political donations to $1,000/year
• Subsidise upgrades from fossil fuel to electric alternatives
• Increase funding for disaster preparedness
• Invest in building new renewable industries and become a world leader in this technology
• Require government to buy local and green where possible
• Build affordable, sustainable housing
• Phase out negative gearing on investment properties beyond the first
• Significant investment in universities and R&D centers such as the CSIRO
• Free school, at all levels (including university and TAFE)
• Phase out single use plastics
• Implement a right to repair to minimise electronic waste
• Ban factory farming and live export
• Create a federal integrity commission
• Ban ministers from taking jobs, in industries they were responsible for, for 5 years.
• Invest in ABC and SBS
• Break up media monopolies
• Provide casual and contract workers job security and entitlements
• Create an independent workplace commission to enforce labour laws
• Set the minimum wage at 60% of the median wage
• Invest in Australian arts and entertainment, including the local screen industry
• Require 20% of money spent on streaming services by Australians to be invested in Australian content.
• Create a public power utility to create competition in the power sector
• Build extensive public housing
• Increase public sector pay to make it more competitive with the private sector
• Limit outsourcing to labour hire firms and the Big Four
• Remove gag from public sector workers
• Move funds from private health insurance rebate into public health system investments.
• Make telehealth permanent
• Make dental part of medicare
• Treat drug use as a health rather than criminal problem
• Legalise cannabis and tax it like similar recreational substances
• Create a center for disease control
• Create independent police and prison oversight
• Invest in local vaccine manufacturing
• Large investment into public transport
• Hight speed rail connecting east coast capitals
• Encourage freight to move from trucks to rail
• Create a livable income guarantee
• Return pension age to 65
• Require parliamentary approval for war
• Close foreign military bases
• A 6% tax on billionaires
• Create a super tax to ensure huge corporations (over $100 million) pay tax
• Support a global minimum corporate tax rate of 25%

Personal Summary:

There’s a lot to like here. The policies seem to be well thought out and are very detailed. Despite scaremongering by other parties, the Green party policies include investment to replace jobs currently held in fossil fuel industries. As with other parties who have climate emergency policies, the Greens policies seem to be aimed towards growing Australia into a powerhouse of energy efficient industry.

I particularly like setting the minimum wage as percentage based on median wage. This means it doesn’t fall behind, as so regularly happens. Similarly, requiring 20% of money spent by Australians to be invested in Australian content is excellent. Similarly, their anti-corruption policies and reducing media monopolies are solid (although I’d like to see a stronger media monopoly policy).

Given their policies, one might expect it to be an easy rating of green. However, the Green party has a history of being inflexible and letting perfect be the enemy of better. So, while the ideas are excellent, the ability to implement them is much less so. As such, they’ve got a yellow rating.

Indigenous - Aboriginal Party of Australia ❌

Rating: Red :cross_mark:

Site: https://www.indigenouspartyofaustralia.com/

Notable Values:

• Indigenous recognition

Notable Policies:

• End indigenous incarceration
• End juvenile incarceration
• Indigenous control of indigenous schools
• Indigenous control of sacred sites
• Indigenous land management
• Treaty and constitutional recognition
• Better housing

Personal Summary:

A single issue party focussed on improving the lives of indigenous Australians. While there are some decent ideas here, there’s little depth. Also, the focus on indigenous problems often leads to ignoring the wider problem. For example, stopping indigenous incarceration for all but the most serious of offenses misses an opportunity to fix the criminal justice system for all. Yeah, I understand that it’s a bigger problem for indigenous Australians but there’s really no reason to fix one and not the other.

I’m also not a fan of the constitutional amendment idea or of having purely indigenous control of schools. Yes, Australia needs to do a lot more for indigenous Australians. No, I don’t believe that amending the constitution or otherwise creating an apartheid country will help this. All Australians can benefit from integrating indigenous ideas into schooling.

We can also benefit from understanding why indigenous people have such a low representation and fixing the underlying problem rather than putting on a simple bandaid that stokes racial resentment. We have enough of a white supremacist problem without giving them ammunition. If we actually want to solve the problem, a constitutional amendment to move to multi-member proportional elections where possible would certainly do a lot to improve the situation. Similarly, we could draw boundaries in such a way as to create seats in areas which are primarily lived in by indigenous Australians. An seat where 70+% of the population is indigenous should be able to field a reasonable indigenous candidate.

Separation of church and state is also a huge show stopper for me and this is what comes to mind when I see preserving sacred sites. I simply can’t get behind it using religion as a basis. Either it’s a historical site and belongs to the people, to be studied for its historical value by archaeologists, or it should be considered for use like any other land. I believe this should be based on the needs of the environment and the country as a whole, not on religion or tradition.

Traditional land management is not well described or thought out. What does it really mean? What would it look like in practice? None of this is answered. It also implies that traditional ideas are an unalloyed good, there’s no critical though into what is and is not worth taking up. Split it out into specific ideas and I’m sure there’s some policies we should be adopting, this just isn’t it.

Overall, I can understand why someone with an indigenous background might vote for them just to increase representation, but the platform provided doesn’t go into enough depth and isn’t inclusive enough for me to recommend the wider population vote for them. If not for the separation of church and state show stopper, they’d be a solid yellow.

Informed Medical Options Party ❌

Rating: Red. :cross_mark:

Site: https://imoparty.com

Notable Values:

• Anti vaccination
• Anti abortion
• Pro pseudoscientific non-medical treatments

Notable Policies:

• No vaccination mandates
• No fluoride in water
• No abortion
• Legalise cannabis
• Promote unproven non-medical treatments.
• Leave World Health Organisation
• No 5G mobile service
• Promote home schooling
• Limit foreign ownership
• Phase out all chemicals

Personal Summary:

It’s basically a single issue party, one specifically built around one of my show stopper ethical boundaries. Their policies are simply a list of grievances and there’s no depth. The listed policies are also are poorly researched, at best and are clearly written by someone completely uneducated about any of the topics mentioned. Alongside the show stoppers like being anti vaccine, we have halting 5G roll outs. Clearly whoever wrote this has ingested deeply from the depths of the anti vaccine swamp.

Katter’s Australia Party ❌

Rating: Red. :cross_mark:

Site: https://kap.org.au/

Notable Values:

• Christian Values (no mention of which sect of Christianity)
• Freedom of speech and political expression. Call out against “political correctness”.
• Respect for all talents, skills and occupations, regardless of the level of formal education required to acquire them.
• Exercise appropriate stewardship and development of our resources
• Have checks on foreign ownership to avoid undermining Australia’s independence and sovereignty
• Maintain a strategic defence industry and be self-sufficient
• Restrict non-governmental monopoly power and limit market concentration
• Property rights are to be enshrined and respected by government.
• Marriage is between a man and a woman.
• Finance should be available to all Australians
• Encourage high birthrate
• Limited immigration

Notable Policies:

• Encourage collective bargaining
• Make home ownership attainable for all Australians
• Government ownership of essential services, such as airports, water and electricity.
• Allow firearm ownership
• Split Queensland into North and South. The thinking here is to give more say to Northern Queensland rather than having it be “the South’s poor cousin”.
• Australian ownership of public infrastructure such as the Galilee rail line.
• Incentivise the use of the Townsville to Mt Isa rail line.
• Make organ donation opt-out rather than opt-in.
• Legalise vaping.
• Make ride share comply with the same standards as taxis.
• Higher compensation for the impact of vegetation management schemes on land owners.
• A higher proportion of royalties from mining and similar activities should be invested in the regional areas where the royalties come from.

Personal Summary:

A party built around the rural/urban divide and bringing more economic opportunity to rural areas. This can be seen most easily in their environmental policies, which talk about ethanol, crocodiles and flying foxes rather than carbon or breathable air.

I like their values around collective bargaining, wealth distribution, organ donation, ride share standards, respect for talent, limiting market concentration and being self-sufficient defence wise.

Religion is an utter show stopper. It should never enter politics. Also, I’m really not a fan of the limited immigration stance, any desire to limit marriage or permitting vaping.

Legalise Cannabis Australia ⚠️

Rating: Yellow. ⚠️

Site: https://legalise.org.au/

Notable Values:

• Recreational cannabis should be legal

Notable Policies:

• Cannabis should be legal for personal use in all forms.
• Require licensure for commercial cannabis use

Personal Summary:

It’s a single issue party. While it doesn’t cross any of my show stoppers, it’s simply not worth spending a parliamentary seat on. There’s also no indication of the positions that someone from this party would take on other issues, which strikes me as quite dangerous.

Liberal Democrats ❌

Rating: Red. :cross_mark:

Site: https://www.ldp.org.au/

Notable Values:

• Personal responsibility

Notable Policies:

• No COVID controls
• Implement US style recall elections
• Cut government spending by 10% (except defence)
• Flat 20% income tax, first $40,000 tax free
• Voluntary superannuation
• Make crypto currency an official currency
• Unregulated energy
• Privatise education
• Add a right to free speech to the constitution
• End government run mass surveillance

Personal Summary:

I’ve lived in the USA and had the unfortunate experience of seeing some of these policies enacted first hand. Their policies are thin and, from experience, extremely damaging to the functioning of society. Recall elections make for nasty populist politics and unstable governments (among other things, if a government is fighting to survive elections too often, they can’t govern). A flat 20% tax rate is a surefire way to make billionaires richer at the cost of everyone else. The poor need the 80% they keep to survive, the rich don’t notice the difference between earning $100,000,000 and $110,000,000. Making superannuation voluntary and effectively defunding it leads to a significant percentage of the elderly being poor. Blockchain based crypto currency is a waste of energy (literally, wasting energy is the basis of how it works), which not only makes electricity more expensive for everyone but also badly affects climate change. It directly conflicts with their goal of having cheep energy. Privatised education leads to the rich getting educated while the poor do not.

The only policy I can say is actually good is the one to end mass surveillance. Other than that, this party is certifiably insane. Clearly a red rating.

Liberal National Party (LNP) ❌

Rating: Red. :cross_mark:

Site: https://www.lnp.org.au/

Notable Values:

• Low taxes
• Anti union

Notable Policies:

• Fuel excise cut for 6 months
• Lower PBS medicine co-payment by $10
• Melbourne to Brisbane inland rail
• Significant investment in rail, including links to Melbourne and Sydney airports
• More affordable private healthcare
• Invest in recycling modernisation
• Build a gas fired plant in the Hunter Valley
• A strong stance against recreational substances
• Increase military spending, including nuclear submarines
• Minimise industrial action
• Increase spending on NBN
• Increase spending on roads, rail and airports

Personal Summary:

Digging through the LNP website, it’s mostly claims about what they believe to be highlights of their time in government. Unfortunately, a lot of the claims area long the lines of “electricity costs are the lowest in 8 years”, ignoring the fact that they’ve been in power for almost 10 years. It’s taken them 8 years to drive down the cost of electricity from where they pushed it up to in their first 2 years in power.

We can also look at the things they’ve done in that time, including a complete lack of leadership around natural disasters. The LNP government was completely unprepared for the 2019/2020 bushfire season, despite bushfires being a regular occurrence. This also happened with the 2022 floods. The LNP government has regularly left the states in the lurch when it comes to disasters and seems unable to learn from experiences.

We can also look at the COVID response, which has been appalling. Slow to get vaccines. Minimal support for individuals and business during lockdowns. A quarantine system that could be best described as a sieve. Australia has gone from among the fewest infections in the world to the most in just a few months. The re-opening was poorly planned and, despite months of time to prepare, failed to include basic controls such as making PCR testing easy and free or requiring masks. We’re also way behind on vaccination, the 4th booster only being available to those 65 and over, while the USA is on their 6th, despite knowledge that boosters are only good for a few months.

On top of the other foreign policy failures, Australia has also been an anchor on climate change progress. We have a massive opportunity to invest in the future and plan for when our mineral assets run out, yet the LNP government has steadfastly held the world back during climate change accords. When I was young, we lead the world in solar. Now we’re behind the rest of the world and trying to drag them backwards.

Under LNP, we’ve also moved closer and closer to a US style healthcare system. I’ve lived in the USA and I can tell you from personal experience that it’s worse than you can imagine. Medicare is a huge, huge, benefit to our society. We don’t want to lose it and we really don’t want it being reduced in favour of private health.

As a technologist, I also remember the LNP scuttling of the NBN. Now they’re claiming they should be praised for spending more money on trying to fix up the mess they created.

Overall, the LNP government can be characterised by a lack of leadership. No ICAC. A lack of preparedness for known disasters. An inability to react to new disasters. An inability to conduct quality foreign policy, including being pushed around by the US and UK.

Clearly a solid red rating.

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation ❌

Rating: Red. :cross_mark:

Site: https://www.onenation.org.au

Notable Values:

• Anti immigration and anti multiculturalism

Notable Policies:

• Anti abortion
• No Voice to Parliament
• Encourage full time rather than casual work
• Increase apprentice wage subsidy
• Reduce immigration
• Withdraw from UN Refugee Convention
• Abandon free trade agreements
• No foreign ownership of critical infrastructure or property.
• Anti recreational drugs
• Stringent restrictions on public safety nets
• No death duties
• Increase taxes on multi-national corporations
• Anti vaccine
• Anti climate policy

Personal Summary:

As can be seen in the name, the party is a cult of personality. Reading through their policy pages showed a lack of depth or forethought. At best, their policies are flimsy. None of this points towards a serious party which has well thought out and researched policies. Also, some of their listed policies are show stoppers for me: specifically being anti vaccination, anti abortion, anti climate, anti immigration and anti multiculturalism. Particularly as Hanson’s own family is multicultural immigrants, this stinks of hypocrisy at best.

What good ideas are in there (such as encouraging full time rather than casual work, limiting foreign ownership of strategic assets and ensuring multi-national corporations pay their taxes) are not well thought out or sufficiently fleshed out to be actionable.

Reason Australia ✅

Rating: Green. ✅

Site: https://reason.org.au

Notable Values:

• Evidence
• Compassion
• Separation of church and state

Notable Policies:

• The decriminalisation of all drugs and the legalisation of cannabis.
• Separation of church and state
• Remove tax exemption from churches
• Urgent action on climate change, including net zero by 2030
• Red tape reduction for small business
• Civics and political literacy in school
• Fast electrification of transport at all levels
• Rapid reductions in gas emissions
• Facilitate energy access, particularly in rural areas
• Transition coal to green energy production and make Australia an exporter of green energy
• Fund development of accelerator and innovation hubs linked to universities and regional communities.
• Invest in medical technology, pharmaceuticals and bio-science
• Remove barriers to entrepreneurship
• End the war on drugs
• Free childcare and early childhood education
• Replace chaplains with mental health professionals
• 4 day work week
• Support ICAC
• Prevent politicians from having industry jobs in the same industry they were responsible for, for 3 years
• Electoral and donation spending caps, with a long term goal to end private donations to political parties
• Fund ABC/SBS and require media diversity.
• Expand content development requirements for commercial television and streaming
• Establish a right to privacy with strong sanctions for breaches
• Reduce out of pocket healthcare expenses and invest in primary/preventative healthcare including dental
• Dismantle offshore immigrant detention
• Allow all genuine refugees to settle in Australia
• Government guaranteed superannuation contribution for low income earners
• Create a small business innovation research fund.
• Unified tertiary education
• Bring Income support payments above the poverty line
• Federal jobs guarantee

Personal Summary:

Reason has some solid policies and some interesting vision. In particular, I like the idea of Australia transitioning to green energy and being an energy exporter to the region. It’s also good to see them specifically call out facilitating clean energy access in rural areas. There’s a lot of concern in rural areas about not being considered when it comes to large scale changes such as this.

They also specifically call out some of my show stopper issues, including separation of church and state. I particularly like the idea of replacing school chaplaincy with mental health professionals and ending church tax exemption.

I do have some concerns around the lack of detail in their policies. A lot of potentially good ideas where the detail could make or break them.

Overall, the party seems to provide a solid platform and earns a green rating.

Socialist Alliance ❌

Rating: Red. :cross_mark:

Site: https://socialist-alliance.org/

Notable Values:

• Democratic socialism
• People and planet before profit
• Pro union
• Working class solidarity

Notable Policies:

• Scrap GST
• Make tax system much more progressive
• Introduce wealth tax for super rich
• Ensure big companies pay tax
• Remove negative gearing on investment properties
• Free universal health care
• Nationalise mines, banks and energy companies
• Reverse privatisation of public assets and services
• 100% renewable energy in 5-10 years
• Ban new coal and gas projects
• Guaranteed jobs
• End fossil fuel subsidies
• Ban old growth logging
• Propositional representation at all levels of government
• US style recall elections
• No corporate boards or lobbying for ministers and senior public officials
• Separate of church and state
• Dismantle Border Force
• End mandatory detention and boat turn backs
• Close offshore detention
• Abolish ASIO
• Community policing
• Support voluntary assisted dying
• Scrap anti-union laws
• Set minimum wage to $25/hour
• Make wage theft a crime
• Promote secure work rather than casual work
• Pension supported retirement at 55
• 30 hour work week
• Index all welfare payments
• Abolish imprisonment for non violent offences
• Decriminalise recreational substances and treat addiction as a health issue
• Free public education at all levels
• Abolish existing HECS debt
• State backed low interest home loans
• Large investment in public housing
• Free healthcare, including dental
• End vaccine patents and make vaccines free
• Make RAT and PCR testing for COVID freely available at scale
• Free comprehensive public transport
• Increase ABC and SBS funding
• Fiber to the premises NBN
• End live animal exports
• Replace shark nets with non-lethal alternatives
• End trophy hunting
• End foreign military agreements
• Cut military spending by at least 50%
• Withdraw from trade agreements that allow corporations to sue governments

Personal Summary:

The Socialist Alliance leans heavily into socialism and creating a global alliance at the worker level. There’s no depth or detail in any of the policies listed on their website and it’s not clear they’re researched so much as a collection of utopian ideals.

There are a lot of great ideas across everything from healthcare to education. I also generally agree that critical infrastructure should be a national rather than private asset (even if I disagree with extending it as far as the Socialist Alliance would like). I’m also definitely on board with replacing shark nets with something non-lethal and ending trophy hunting (generally, my philosophy is kill for food, not for fun). A strongly progressive income tax system would also be a huge boon to the country.

Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of utopian ideas that just don’t work unless the entire world is on board. For example, scrapping ASIO and reducing military spending by over 50% would be fine if we didn’t live in the world we do.

While there’s no ethical boundaries tripped over here, too many of their policies require a utopian world. As such, I’m rating them as red.

Sustainable Australia Party ✅

Rating: Green. ✅

Site: https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/

Notable Values:

• Sustainable economic and social progress
• Prioritise the broader public interest, integrity and stopping corruption
• Innovation and sustainable development
• Help other national develop sustainably

Notable Policies:

• Swiss style referendums
• Create a federal anti-corruption commission
• Ban politicians and senior staff from lobbying for 4 years
• Ban foreign political donations and those from some industries
• Move to publicly funded elections
• Make political pensions look like general population pensions
• Increase support for the art, including local film and television
• Link foreign aid to sustainability programs to reduce resource based wars
• Focus the military on defence
• Build any military necessities in Australia
• Public ownership of natural monopolies and critical infrastructure such as power
• Switch from GDP based economics to a broader measure of success
• Increase wages rather than importing low skilled workers
• Incentivise manufacturing in Australia
• Increase taxes on companies as the monopolisation and market concentration in the industry increases
• Increase funding for the ACCC to enforce truth in advertising, competition and de-monopolisation
• Free university and TAFE and abolish current HECS/HELP debts
• Invest in university R&D as well as CSIRO, BoM, space and medical research
• Increase public school funding
• Provide affordable childcare
• Migrate to energy efficient energy supplies
• Ban new coal mines and fracking
• Establish an environmental protection agency
• Create a national job guarantee program
• Provide assistance for farmers migrating to more sustainable agricultural practices
• Move from old growth logging to long term rotations of native forest plantations
• Implement a super profit tax for non-renewable resource extraction
• Ensure domestic supply of resources is protected
• Limit foreign ownership of natural resources, property and media to 25%
• Promote exercise by making it more accessible
• Ban junk food advertising to children
• Dental and reproductive health included in medicare
• Treat recreational substance use as a health rather than criminal issue
• Adjust tax law to make housing more affordable
• Increase public housing
• Prioritise rehabilitation in the criminal justice system
• Increase ABC funding, especially for regional services
• Dismantle media monopolies and control cross media ownership
• Implement development policies which limited urban sprawl
• Ban development in flood prone areas
• Re-nationalise critical public assets such as ports, water, energy, transport
• Increase agricultural R&D funding
• Encourage investment in regional development by superannuation and capital funds
• Replace live animal export with local abattoirs
• Limit population growth through lower immigration and better family planning, with a target of no more than 30 million by 2050
• Address skills shortage through better training and wages rather than visa workers.
• Make limiting population growth part of foreign policy
• Replace superannuation with an aged pension
• End multi-national tax avoidance
• Tax incentivise local manufacturing
• Tax excessive income and profits
• Phase out payroll tax
• Remove ability of global corporations to sue Australia in foreign courts
• Significantly increase public and sustainable transport
• Focus freight on rail
• Ban single use plastics

Personal Summary:

Sustainable Australia focusses on limiting population growth as more people is the number one contributor to climate change. Importantly, the policies here are based on research into the effects of population growth rather than race and the party goes to some length to point out that refugees make up less than 5% of our population growth.

On the positive side, the policies are generally well thought out, well researched and detailed. Strong anti-corruption, good ideas around ecological improvements tied with education and jobs guarantees to ensure that no one is left behind by the shift in economic focus. They’re also taking a much more centrist approach by grandfathering in existing arrangements in most cases. The social policies also seem pretty solid to me, with improvement around healthcare and returning to a pension rather than the disastrous superannuation program we’ve had for the last few decades.

On the negative side, I have lived with peoples initiated referendums and, while they sound good on paper, they’re easily abused. Even the Swiss have had their referenda co-opted by racist groups. California regularly has ethically concerning ballot measures and tax system is a mess due to referenda. I believe that changing the incentives for politicians to focus on the public good is more effective than having referendums. Also, people do even less study on referendum topics than on politicians and the outcome is often decided by who has the better advertising budget. While I really like returning to an old age pension, I strongly suspect the proposed amount is too low and there’s no supporting information that I could see for this figure, other than it matches their tax-free threshold.

Overall, a solid green rating

TNL ✅

Rating: Green. ✅

Site: https://tnl.net.au

Notable Values:

• Policies of incentive, not subsidy
• Economic development through research and development
• A just tax system
• The environment and good business practice are complementary, not mutually exclusive.
• Education is the bedrock of a great society
• Ensure health and wellbeing to all
• Guarantee of fundamental human rights, financial safety nets, access to justice

Notable Policies:

• Treat the climate emergency like a war.
• A living wage and government funded retraining for anyone put out of work due to climate change policy
• Put solar on all school buildings
• Support ICAC covering judges and bureaucrats as well and including the power to imprison
• Federal jobs guarantee
• Foster home grown arts and reverse brain drain
• End refugee detention, close overseas refugee camps
• Revitalise country towns with refugee farmers
• Add a charter of human rights to the constitution
• Science and education are sources of economic growth not cost centers.
• Deficit spending should be for investments in the nation
• Significantly increase investments in education, including free tertiary education and teacher pay increases.
• Increase funding to university research programs
• All new road vehicles shall be electric by 2030
• Government vehicles shall be locally produced
• Develop EV manufacturing in Australia
• Encourage companies to share profits with employees rather than shareholders through tax incentives.
• Establish Australia as a middle ground between the USA and China. Growing relationships with both.
• Increase medicare rebate to encourage more doctors to bulk bill
• Include dental in medicare
• Remove subsidies for private healthcare and redirect that money to improving the public system
• Prohibit media monopolies and cross-media ownership
• Require media to clearly designate fact vs opinion
• Ban mass media advertising for political campaigns
• Create an Australian public bank.
• Ensure large corporations, especially multi-nationals, pay their share of taxes
• Improve water conservation and management to ensure water security for rural areas

Personal Summary:

TNL seems to be everything I expect out of a well run party. Their values are clear and concise and their policies are extremely detailed (to the point where some of them need better summaries). Their “treat it like war” approach to climate change is spot on.

I’m not sure how to feel about their plan for economic reset. It is, however, clearly written by people who have put some serious thought into it and are experts in their field.

Overall, it seems like a solid party with a well designed platform.

United Australia Party ❌

Rating: Red. :cross_mark:

Site: https://www.unitedaustraliaparty.org.au/

Notable Values:

• Anti-vaccine
• Low taxes, especially for those who are already rich
• Oligarchy

Notable Policies:

• Cap home loan interest rate at 3%
• Export tax of 15% on iron ore
• Process Australian minerals in Australia
• Build nuclear power plants
• Abolish HECS debt
• Companies only pay tax at the end of the year
• Abolish fringe benefit tax
• Lower taxation for regional communities, to encourage decentralisation
• Anti-vaccine
• Encourage pseudo-scientific unproven treatments
• Limit ability of lobbyists to be involved in political parties
• Be a reliable ally to the USA and purchase their military hardware

Personal Summary:

A cult of personality party based on Clive Palmer. What’s missing from the UAP policies is as important as what’s there. There’s nothing on the environment, as one can expect from a mining billionaire. He’s also done self serving deals such as abolishing mining tax and carbon tax. He’s also pushing for lower taxation in general and seems to believe that lower taxation will solve all ills. As we can see from the USA, this causes many issues and only seems to achieve the creation of a tiny number of billionaires at the cost of millions of people making poverty wages.

Reading through his “Vision for Australia” is a sobering reminder of how out of touch he is. He says things like “Australian workers don’t have a second job because of the high rate of taxation. We need to give them an incentive”. Rather than paying a fair wage he proposes that the government collect less revenue as a way to encourage people who are on the edge to work their entire lives. I’ve lived in the USA and we really don’t want to be copying their approach to paying people slave wages and encouraging working 100 hour weeks just to survive. Let’s also remember that Palmer is notorious for not paying staff and copyright theft.

There are parts of his platform which are decent, we absolutely do need a free tertiary education system and to build nuclear power plants. There are several show stoppers in there though, including being a cult of personality party, being anti-vaccine, tax policies which direct wealth to the already wealthy at the cost of those less fortunate and being anti-climate. The bill boards where I live falsely proclaim that net zero carbon will cause massive unemployment; clearly retraining people and investing in new technologies to transition industries is something he’s never considered. On top of all of this, it’s run by a billionaire who seems to think that people might not have noticed that oligarchs have destroyed Russia and the are in the midst of destroying the USA. This is an obviously red rating.

Voting

The voting preferences I express below are based on party, then person. I don’t care how good the person is, if they’re aligned with an ethically untenable party then I’m not going to give them a good position as it shows a major character flaw.

As a reminder, we do not have a US style election system here. Preferences matter and there’s no such thing as a wasted vote as long as you fill in your ballot correctly.

House

As well as the parties, we have one independent: Duncan SCOTT. His platform seems to be that he’ll work well with others, which doesn’t really cut it. He’s also anti-vaccine, which is a show stopper.

There’s no good options here. I’m preferring Green over ALP as their policies are more progressive, even if their ability to communicate their positions is so awful that many people will reject them without consideration and they’re known for being somewhat inflexible. Having said that, interviews with BAMBRICK suggest that he’s well aware of how the party is viewed and is focussing on looking after people rather than a purely ecological position. In particular, he’s mentioned wage subsidies and retraining to ensure environmental changes don’t leave people behind.

Given the choices, it really looks like it’s going to be an ALP vs LNP race and given how incompetent the LNP is, I’m rather hopeful we’ll have an ALP candidate at the end of it.

1. Paul BAMBRICK - Greens ⚠️
2. Matt BURNETT - ALP ⚠️
3. Colin BOYCE - LNP ❌
4. Duncan SCOTT - Independent ❌
5. Carla SVENDSEN - The Great Australian Party ❌
6. Sharon LOHSE - Pauline Hanson’s One Nation ❌
7. Tanya Maree WIEDEN - United Australia Party ❌

Senate

There are way too many people involved for me to dig deeply into each candidate. As such, I’m going to be voting above the line. For those who want to vote below the line, I recommend Cluey Voter to sort your preferences. As a reminder, we need to provide preferences for at least 6 candidates above the line (and 12 if you decide to vote below the line).

After sorting through the good bad and ugly, we have the following parties which rated green:

• Australian Democrats
• FUSION
• Reason
• Sustainable Australia Party
• TNL

Given that this neither meets the minimum of 6 spots nor does it include any major parties as fallback positions, I’ll have to consider the yellow rated parties:

• ALP
• Citizens Party
• Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance
• Federal ICAC Now
• Greens
• Legalise Cannabis Australia

So, now the question is, how do I rank these?

Within the green rating parties, TNL seems to have the most comprehensive platform and I didn’t notice any concerns. Sustainable Australia Party also has a relatively comprehensive platform and the disagreements with their platform seem both minor and unlikely to get into law. They beat out Australian Democrats by having a more aggressive approach to net zero and a better tax policy. Reason comes in next because their policies are lacking the detail I’d prefer and they’re ahead of FUSION because I believe that their goals around fossil fuels are too aggressive.

Within the yellow rating parties, we only need a few to get to the minimum of 6 plus the major parties as fail safes. As such, the first step is to cut out the nearly red parties Citizens Party and Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance. Legalise Cannabis Australia gets cut out as they’re both single issue and lack detail. Federal ICAC Now is at the top of the yellow ratings as we need an ICAC and, while their policies are a bit thin, having a party focussed on anti-corruption is healthy for democracy. Finally, we’re left with Greens and ALP who get their relative positions by the progressiveness of their policies.

This leaves me with the following likely senate ballot. It’s not final as new information may come to light, but it’s the direction I’m inclined towards.

1. TNL ✅
2. Sustainable Australia Party ✅
3. Australian Democrats ✅
4. Reason ✅
5. FUSION ✅
6. Federal ICAC Now ⚠️
7. Greens ⚠️
8. ALP ⚠️