STATE ELECTION 2022 PT.2 Well it's half an hour into election day and I've run out of time again to even cover all the parties that I missed at the federal election. But I've had about enough. I haven't found any new ones that I particularly like, which isn't all that surprising. I'm very tired so I'll upload this and then go to bed, where I can dream about making enough money that I can buy a private island somewhere and live there in my own personal dictatorship, never needing to worry about the state of Australian/Victorian democracy ever again. ============================================================================== Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews Party https://viclabor.org/ * This party seems to be spearheaded by one "Mx Tosh-Jake Finnigan" (Mx?). Their policy document seems to be overshadowed by Finnigan's personal story claiming she(?) was involved in the exposure of the Labor party's red shirts scandal. This is somewhat compelling, but certainly doesn't imply much in the way of policy. * The page goes on to list some policies, which are basically all about fixing things by getting rid of Daniel Andrews. It seems the only real policy there besides a general de-Danning of Victoria is digging up the Red Shirts scandal again and increasing oversight of the govenrnment bodies that investigated it before (which are supposed to be independent already). * As Finnigan claims to have been a "staffer" for Labor at the time, it may be fair to assume that she(?) basically stands by traditional Labor policies without the influence of Andrews. Still not really what I'm looking for, but certainly an improvement on the present Labor party nonetheless. * One surprising thing is that they seem to be based in rural victoria (the same town where "spokesperson" Finnigan is also listed at as as candidate). * But then maybe they don't exist at all! One of Victoria's "preference whisperers" has been claiming he invented it as a way to harvest preferences to direct at other parties paying him for those votes. According to Finnigan though, Mr Druery had "f**k all involvement", and that indeed seems quite likely. https://www.6newsau.com/post/glenn-druery-reveals-the-sack-dan-andrews-party-is-one-of-mine-in-a-leaked-video https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-17/calls-for-group-voting-ticket-reform-victoria/101663588 * This party apparantly believes "if you can't beat 'em, domain poach them". The viclabor.org domain is for sale on their store page, for $388,000.00. "the same amount Victorian Labor corruptly rorted from the Victorian taxpayer under Dan Andrews in the Red Shirts scandal". That page also suggests some further bad blood with Labor over a mis-handled compaint. I certainly don't like Dan Andrews, and agree with much many of the points this party makes against him. Also assuming it's true, I quite respect the pure bitterness of this story from Finnigan, who certainly seems to be spearheading all this. The idea of someone leaving an office screaming "I'll go set up the sack Dan Andrews party then!", and actually doing it, appeals to me in a certain way. But they don't really have aby policies, so it's hard to make a rational argument in their favour overall. ----------------------- New Democrats https://www.newdemocrats.com.au/ * They really are "new" - established only last month. * Policies are pretty boring and lightweight. The party is apparantly headed by a former Labor MP who resigned over bullying claims, and they seem to be fairly center-left. Their dot points are more like general aspirations than anything deserving to be called a real policy though. * They do claim to be "formed on the foundation of accountability and transparency", so I guess anti-corruption is something they put particular weight on. * The policies and the group photos suggest that supporting multiculturalism is main priority for them as well. They're very eager to bow to the Aboriginals too. They've only got the thinnest layer of policy. the general vibe isn't especially appealing to me. If anti-corruption is their foundation, then that's nice. But then the fact that they haven't even come up with a solid policy dealing with that point alone doesn't suggest much competence. ----------------------- Transport Matters https://www.transportmatters.org.au/ * As a pretty typical single-issue party, they didn't stand out much to me at the last election, but as it turns out they got a seat in a melbourne electorate, possibly through preferences deals. * Their policies touch on a few peripheral topics, but are generally true to their name. Or at least they are if you only ever expect to be transported around Melbourne. There's remarkably little interest shown in rural roads and transport. As someone who almost never goes into Melbourne but has strong opinions about poor management of major regional road projects, this is very frustrating. * They're very big on supporting the taxi industry, fed up as they are with ride-sharing services cutting into their market without the same level of regulation. * They're into renewable energy and electric vehicles. * They also have a bit of a plan for improving healthcare with a long-term focus on prevention. * They've got a strong policy on increased transparancy in government, which is nice. In particular about publishing more government documents openly. It's hard to get past my frustration with a party that's all about transport, but seems to have forgotten that there are roads outside of Melbourne too! Outside of transport their policies don't seem to bad, but one can only presume that they're likely to forget about rural Victoria on points like healthcare as well. ----------------------- Companions and Pets Party https://companionsandpetsparty.com.au/ * Another new party. * They sound like another animal rights party, but actually they're more of an anti-animal-rights party in that they seem simply to oppose the policies of the Animal Justice Party and simialar. To a large extent their policy is to keep treatment of animals the same as it is, and I'm entirely fine with that. Only I feel like that's already represented just as well by my not voting for the Animal Justice Party, without much need for an alternative animal party. * Besides domestic pets, they're quite vocal about protecting horse and greyhound racing, which probably is under more threat than most of their other concerns. * Their other policies start off with lots of health-related stuff, clearly taking cues from the major parties. There isn't much in the way of real ideas there though, they basically just talk about pumping in more money. * Their energy policy puts a lot of weight on home batteries as part of the transition to renewables. They want to "ensure that every household in Australia has access to solar power, backed up with battery storage". My problem with this is the waste of needing to replace those batteries every 5-10 years, but it might be a practical option for lack of alternatives. * They're big on supporting farmers. Their ideas about bringing water down from the north of the country for more widespread agricultural use is harly a new idea though, and one that's hardly gone smoothly so far. Pipe dreams, probably quite litterally. * They want to speed up court cases with "instant sentences" for some cases where offenders plead guilty. Sounds a little vague, but I don't know enough about the legal system to comment intelligently on that. They're a bit of a nothing party. They could be described as animal rights conservatives, but beyond other minor parties I don't feel like many of the conventions that they want to preserve are under threat. It's possible that I'm unaware of animal rights groups gaining power though because I tend to completely ignore anything to to with them. Anyway there's nothing I object to significantly about their policies, so they'll certainly go a lot higher than the Animal Justice Party in my preferences. ----------------------- Liberal Democrats https://www.ldp.org.au/ * I skimmed over them very quickly before the federal election. They seem to have put plenty of work into the state election, with a well-written set of state policies. * There's a bit of venting over the lockdowns and government's response to corresponding protests in their first policies. They want a bill of rights to protect individual freedoms, and a list of "safeguards" covering the government's capacity to use emergency powers. In principle some of this might be good, but I doubt it would really have much practical effect. * They want to boost the powers of the IBAC anti-corruption body. They're also keen that it takes on the role of investigating misconduct complaints against Victoria Police, with a curiously specific funding boost of $43.1 million between 2022-26 just for policing the police. I'm not entirely sure where they're coming from on the latter stuff, but increased power and transparancy for IBAC would be good. * Without attempting many specifics, they want to "End the Nanny State" by repealing laws against "victimless crimes". Cannabis possession and vaping, as well as some increased speed limits, are their two examples. Hard to say how much I'd be with them on this based on what little they say, but those two aren't big things for me either way. * Their favour of personal liberties extends to energy, promising to remove bans on gas extraction and nuclear energy while scrapping renewable energy targets and subsidies. They'll get their electricity however they damn well choose, and they ain't choosing renewables. * Housing costs will be brought down by scrapping stamp duty tax, plus easing planning and zoning regulations. I think things like the recent floods suggest developers may be getting away with too much already regarding these regulations. * One of their big points is small government, and they've got a fairly brutal plan for achieving it. 10% off the budget of all State departments immediately, excluding critical frontline workers. Then 1% cut per year until state government debt is repaid. Without adding extra oversight into the use of current funding, I expect departments would react to such a hardline policy by simply cutting services while maintaining existing wasteful practices, but at least I agree on the underlying problem. I do fully support their scrapping Labor's Suburban Rail Loop project. * They want more spending in regional victoria, as well as 25% of the public sector workforce working there by 2026. I certainly like the sound of that. Though I wonder whether it would really trickle down to the more rural areas, or would it mainly just involve a few big cities ouside of Melbourne? On personal freedoms, many of my strongest views apply to topics like internet censorship and privacy which are mainly federal topics (and not obviously represented by them there either). They're another party that's big on broad aspirations, and from their few specifics I don't find much that particularly enthuses me. ----------------------- Democratic Labour Party https://dlp.org.au/ * Also a victim of the AEC's stricter party requirements which prevented them from running in this year's federal election, the Labour-with-a-"u" party is back for Victoria. * A pretty long list of policies, apparantly tailored to Victoria as well. * Quite a wide variety of policies about housing affordability. Capped taxes, more houses, disincentives to foreign owners, "family rent assistance", etc. Some may be good ideas, but I'd question the cost vs benefit of many. * They're big on supporting co-operative housing projects, even establishing a bank to serve them. I don't really know much about these, I think I've only ever heard about them overseas, but it sounds nice. * They want to turn around the shift to renewables and build new coal power stations, as well as repealing bans of gas fracking. Further yet they actually want to pay people who _haven't_ installed solar panels $500 compensation for higher energy costs which they blame on renewables, while ending subsidies on installing new solar systems. They also want to double registration costs for electric vehicles to help pay for their halving the rego cost for petrol and diesel vehicles. They're about as far against renewables as you can get short of prominsing to come over to your house and tear the solar panels off your roof. * They're very much against the animal rights stuff, even introducing a law against "politically motivated trespass" to keep those sorts from turning up at farms. * Against abortion and euthanasia. Religious conservative undertones. * Like Family First, they've got annoyed about gay rights and equallity stuff. Along with symbolic concessions to the Aboriginals, they basically want to hear no more about any of it. * Tough on crime, except for protestors who would be protected by "a charter of citizens rights". * Business policies aim largely to help small retail businesses compete with the big guys, basically by countering a number of specific advantages held by the latter through a list of policies. They're conservative to the extreme, but at least they're not ashamed of themselves, their policies are as plain, clear, and brutal as you could want. They've got more of an economic focus than some other right-wing parties, especially for the benefit of people on lower incomes. Overall they're a curious mix, but not really one that I'd like to try out.