- Racism – do they have policies to reduce racism and othering, and/or include the situation of aboriginal people
- Women – do they have policies to support women (eg improving family violence support, decriminalising abortion)
- Environment – do they have policies to address climate change (bonus points for something sensible on the Murray-Darling)
- Education – here in a state election, I’m focusing on properly funding public schools.
A few interesting conclusions:
- One Nation (by its website) is by far the worst in all my categories. Several policy categories were basically unhinged rants – eg multiculturalism:
Newly-arrived migrants can cluster in a single suburb if they wish, not learn English if its suits them and as for a strong work ethic, that’s optional too. To criticise this pattern of urban settlement is to invite a social media scream of ‘racism’. To talk about obvious issues like ‘white flight’ is to be howled down by the offenderati (as per Luke Foley’s experience inside the Labor Party).
- The Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile) appears to have cleaned up its policies so as not to be quite so appalling as last time I looked at it. I’m not sure if I trust them to follow through, but they have lost their iron lock on the last spot on my ballot paper
- There was very little on the Labor website dealing with racism, multiculturalism, and indigenous issues; which meant that I switched my preferences to the Greens
- The Liberal party was worse on my key issues than I expected. I hadn’t expected to vote for them, but their entire environmental policy was to invest $22m in Landcare. Also, they promised to clear “Labor’s school maintenance backlog” which after 8 years of government is a bit much.
- The Animal Justice Party really is a single issue party – their educational policy, for example, involves teaching students about vegetarianism.
- My most interesting discovery was the Science party (which is not even registered in NSW, so it is named after the top person on the ticket on the voting paper) – some great policies and one fabulously eccentric one:
Create a new city, called Turing:
Australia has a long history of creating new towns. We’re looking forward and building a new city between Sydney and Canberra, called Turing. Placed between Sydney and Canberra on a high-speed train line, Turing will be a place that is desirable for people who have family in either Canberra or Sydney, and may even have jobs in those cities.
Anyway, definitely a worthwhile exercise, and for the Federal election, I plan to do it a bit earlier and blog about it again.
Hi Jennifer, Can you please update my email address to the one cc’ed.I hope you are well.Thanks, Catherine
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