2016 Election Preferences

General
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It is at that time in the election cycle where we have to determine our preferences for the upcoming election. Unlike other Parties we do this democratically and transparently.

Our report on the preference flows from the last election can be found here:

The report from the WA Senate re-run can be found here:

The report from the Canning By-Election can be found here:

No report was made for the Griffith By-election

Below is a list of registered political Parties and their websites, have a look and post opinions below.

Sustainable Australia http://www.votesustainable.org.au/
21st Century Australia http://21stcenturyaustralia.com.au/
Animal Justice Party http://animaljusticeparty.org/
Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated http://australiafirstparty.net/
Australian Antipaedophile Party http://www.australianantipaedophileparty.com/
Australian Christians http://australianchristians.com.au/
Australian Country Party http://countryparty.org.au/
Australian Cyclists Party https://australian-cyclists-party.org.au/
Australian Defence Veterans Party http://www.advp.org.au/
Australian Equality Party (Marriage) http://www.equality.org.au/
Australian Greens http://greens.org.au/
Australian Labor Party (ALP) http://www.alp.org.au/
Australian Liberty Alliance http://australianlibertyalliance.org.au/
Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party http://www.australianmotoringenthusiastparty.org.au/
Australian Progressives https://www.australianprogressives.org.au/
Australian Recreational Fishers Party http://www.arfparty.org/
Australian Sex Party http://www.sexparty.org.au/
Bullet Train For Australia https://bullettrainforaustralia.com.au/
Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group) https://www.christiandemocraticparty.com.au/
Citizens Electoral Council of Australia http://www.cecaust.com.au/
Consumer Rights & No-Tolls http://www.no-tolls.org/
Country Liberals (Northern Territory) https://countryliberals.org.au/
CountryMinded http://www.countryminded.org.au/
Democratic Labour Party (DLP) http://www.dlp.org.au/
Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party http://www.justiceparty.com.au/
Drug Law Reform Australia http://www.druglawreform.com.au/
Family First Party http://www.familyfirst.org.au/
Glenn Lazarus Team http://senatorlazarus.com/
Health Australia Party https://www.healthaustraliaparty.com.au/
Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party https://australianhempparty.com/
Jacqui Lambie Network http://lambienetwork.com.au/
John Madigan’s Manufacturing and Farming Party http://www.manufacturingandfarmingparty.org/
Katter’s Australian Party http://www.ausparty.org.au/
Liberal Democratic Party http://ldp.org.au/
Liberal Party of Australia https://www.liberal.org.au/
Mature Australia Party https://themap.org.au/
National Party of Australia http://nationals.org.au/
Nick Xenophon Team https://nxt.org.au/
Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting) http://www.equalparenting.org.au/
Online Direct Democracy – (Empowering the People!) http://www.onlinedirectdemocracy.org/
Outdoor Recreation Party (Stop The Greens) http://www.orp.org.au/
Palmer United Party https://palmerunited.com/
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation http://www.onenation.com.au/
Pirate Party Australia <--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That’s us
Renewable Energy Party http://renewableenergyparty.com.au/
Rise Up Australia Party http://riseupaustraliaparty.com/
Secular Party of Australia https://www.secular.org.au/
Seniors United Party of Australia http://www.seniorsunited-nsw.com/
Science Party http://www.scienceparty.org.au/
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party http://www.shootersandfishers.org.au/
Smokers Rights Party http://smokersrights.org.au/
Socialist Alliance https://socialist-alliance.org/
Socialist Equality Party http://www.sep.org.au/website/
The Arts Party http://www.artsparty.org/
The Australian Mental Health Party http://www.thementalhealthparty.com/
Voluntary Euthanasia Party http://www.vep.org.au/
VOTEFLUX.ORG | Upgrade Democracy! https://voteflux.org/

With the abolition of Group Voting Tickets (GVTs), we will most likely preference just six Parties. If members wish to make the case for preferencing a major (I.E. ALP or Coalition) in the sixth spot, they should start a separate thread because it would require re-jigging the voting process. This is just to have a chat about all of our competitors.
Voting will commence some time in the next week.

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(Attempting to sort and classify them, will try and more details later, much guesswork, let me know if im wrong)
Legend
P = Progressive
C = Conservative
? = I dont know

Current Major Parties

  • [P] Australian Greens
  • [P] Australian Labor Party (ALP)
  • [C] LNP: Country Liberals (Northern Territory)
  • [C] LNP: Liberal Party of Australia
  • [C] LNP: National Party of Australia

Current Minor Parties

  • [?] Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party
  • [C] Family First Party
  • [?] Glenn Lazarus Team
  • [?] Jacqui Lambie Network
  • [C] John Madigan’s Manufacturing and Farming Party
  • [?] Katter’s Australian Party
  • [?] Liberal Democratic Party
  • [?] Nick Xenophon Team
  • [?] Palmer United Party

Previously Success Parties (State or Federal)

  • [P] Australian Sex Party
  • [C] Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
  • [C] Democratic Labour Party (DLP)
  • [C] Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
  • [?] Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party

Previous Campaigns

  • [P] Animal Justice Party
  • [C] Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated
  • [C] Australian Christians
  • [?] Australian Country Party
  • [P] Australian Cyclists Party
  • [?] Bullet Train For Australia
  • [C] Citizens Electoral Council of Australia
  • [P] Drug Law Reform Australia
  • [P] Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party
  • [?] Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting)
  • [?] Online Direct Democracy – (Empowering the People!)
  • [?] Outdoor Recreation Party (Stop The Greens)
  • [P] Pirate Party Australia
  • [C] Rise Up Australia Party
  • [P] Secular Party of Australia
  • [?] Science Party
  • [?] Smokers Rights Party
  • [P] Socialist Alliance
  • [P] Socialist Equality Party
  • [P] Sustainable Australia
  • [P] The Arts Party
  • [P] Voluntary Euthanasia Party

New Parties

  • [?] 21st Century Australia
  • [C] Australian Antipaedophile Party
  • [C] Australian Defence Veterans Party
  • [P] Australian Equality Party (Marriage)
  • [?] Australian Liberty Alliance
  • [P] Australian Progressives
  • [?] Australian Recreational Fishers Party
  • [?] Consumer Rights & No-Tolls
  • [?] CountryMinded
  • [C] Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party
  • [P] Health Australia Party
  • [?] Mature Australia Party
  • [P] Renewable Energy Party
  • [?] Seniors United Party of Australia
  • [P] The Australian Mental Health Party
  • [P] VOTEFLUX.ORG | Upgrade Democracy!
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3

The List is good idea but when you contact the party’s re their political position you get some big variations. The question is - should the legend be updated to reflect the Pirate Party’s view or the view of the actual party’s view? I’m in the process of asking every party where they think they fit in and will update the list as I go.

Legend idea…

PL - progressive left
PR - progressive right
CL - conservative left
CR - conservative right

Just thoughts - not rocking the boat…

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4

Side note: there’s not really any undeniably good way to classify parties, and depending on the schema chosen, parties like us can jump around a lot.

The two main competing methodologies to my mind are ‘left-right, progressive-conservative’ (purpose of state control) and ‘economic/social anti/authoritarianism’ (magnitude of state control).

Economically they map OK, mostly because for the right-wingers ‘lower tax’ is a mantra.

Socially, not so much, because progressives are plenty authoritarian about a number of issues, it’s just that their objectives differ from the conservatives’. Classic example is Prohibition, modern example is 18C.

The reason we can jump around so much is that we hold progressive values, we’re just much less interested in using the State to achieve those values [^1]. So depending on whether your schema privileges magnitude of State involvement, or direction of State involvement, we end up alternatively near the LDP or the Greens, respectively.

[^1] side, side note: if we are on average, as measured by our policy, interested in using the State to achieve our values, we’re firmly in the Progressive side of town and should make friends accordingly.

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Using one axis for social freedom (progressive vs conservative) and a second axis for economic freedom (free markets vs state control) seems to be the most common system, e.g. used in ABC Vote Compass, PoliticalCompass.org, etc.

This would follow the suggestion from @pault4

PL - progressive left
PR - progressive right
CL - conservative left
CR - conservative right

(Disclosure: I am a candidate for the Liberal Democrats)

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Wouldn’t Progressive Republican be more suited for PPA? Like the American party but far more progressive when it was founded as they fought big business and won.

The name “Republican” was chosen, alluding to Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party and conveying a commitment to the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Grand Old Party

I think it is rather interesting that the party has back flipped on its roots in its current state being as conservative as it is. Roosevelt would be rolling in his grave

When Roosevelt made his third-party run, he borrowed a host of ideas from La Follette and other progressive members of Congress: “tariff overhaul, workmen’s compensation, child labor laws, direct Senate elections, voter referendums and recalls, minimum wages, maximum workweeks, workplace safety regulations, physical valuation of all corporations, graduated income and inheritance taxes, environmental conservation, and public disclosure of campaign donations.”

Book Review: Unreasonable men on progressive politics

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But the big issue is working out what are our actual drivers for the decision. If you think the answer to that is obvious, I’ll tender that you are almost certainly completely missing the value available to the party in choosing Preferences, meaning we have not optimised our outcome.

Optimal solutions when in a non dominant position rely on counter-intuitive strategies - i.e. pursuing asymmetric value. In Judo terms, using your enemies weight against them. I’m not seeing any Judo master moves yet.

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I think the following might work better
PA - Progressive Authoritarian
PL - Progressive Libertarian
CA - Conservative Authoritarian
CL - Conservative Libertarian

(Dont think i know them all well enough to classify them to the extra level though)

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The Australian Liberty Alliance is another new arrival with a name which belies its stance in opposition to those principles. For instance, it has a policy of banning abortion after a mere 12 weeks and is yet another case of promoting liberty, but only for middle aged white men.

In other words, fascist scum.

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Up here in Queensland my best-realistic-case scenario right now is 6 LNP, 4 Labor, 1 Green and Lazarus, with Hanson/KAP/whoever shut out. This means we might need to think about lesser evils with our recommendations.

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I think that Sustainable Australia should have a big fat asterisk next to their name. While they have some progressive views, they are racists. I don’t think we should preference them.

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I cant edit it anymore for some reason…

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We have to be thinking that anyway. But we can also use our preferencing disclosure document to give our views on what each party stands for and how it conflicts with ours as required.

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I’ve run up a brief analysis of the parties. Now I need to put my brain in a sling. :dizzy_face:

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I’ve seen nothing to indicate anything of the sort. Can you link to what prompts you to think that?

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They explicitly want “lower immigration”

They explicitly discriminate re ownership of property. Why?

“According to the International Monetary Fund, seven out of the top
ten per capita GDP countries have populations under 10 million.” What does this even mean? Australia is already over double that, so how does it help by mentioning it?

Australia is environmentally and geographically lucky. Contemporary white Australia is lucky by virtue of how colonialism has played out. Our immediate neighbours - Indonesia, the small pacific island nations - are not so much. Being anti immigration to this level is quite literally the epitome of having your cake and eating it too. The lifestyle that we have enjoyed over the last 200 years has significantly contributed to the state of the world - be it via colonialism, cronyism, war, or consumption.

To subsequently turn your back on those who are in need of help, directly because of the world we created, because you are worried about your own back yard is, frankly, racist. This economic, environmental and democratically unstable scenario that other countries are facing are a direct result of the policies that our government has made on our behalf. To turn our back on these people at this point can only be because we do not want to share the misery we have caused. And that is, to my mind, racist.

The PPAU has decided to preference five parties on the HTV (I think). There are easily five others we can choose that doesn’t include the #sustainability party.

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When i described them as Progressive, i just took a bit of a guess…

I dont care where we preference them, but i think you have wrongfully accused them as being racist. Racism is when you discriminate against people based on their race, if they had said lower immigration of a particular race, then yea that is racist, but they didn’t do that.

Such discrimination is a bad thing because it judges people unfairly, for the same reasons its wrong to over use such terms.

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[quote=“datakid23, post:16, topic:789”]
They explicitly want “lower immigration”[/quote]
As I wrote, the focus of the party is population control. Population control inevitably involves the rate of immigration.

[quote=“datakid23, post:16, topic:789”]
They explicitly discriminate re ownership of property. Why?[/quote]
As I read the policy, it’s intended to discriminate in the real estate market, in favour of buyers who will live in the property. To what extent that will ease pressure on the residential market bubble, I’m not qualified to say.

[quote=“datakid23, post:16, topic:789”]
“According to the International Monetary Fund, seven out of the top
ten per capita GDP countries have populations under 10 million.” What does this even mean? Australia is already over double that, so how does it help by mentioning it?[/quote]
Bigger is not necessarily better. I think you’ll find that sentiment expressed in various forms repeatedly by the party.

Your racist interpretations imply that you’re not thinking rationally.

[quote=“datakid23, post:16, topic:789”]
The PPAU has decided to preference five parties on the HTV (I think). There are easily five others we can choose that doesn’t include the #sustainability party.
[/quote]I’m guessing that your attitude stems from an objection to population control. It’s a difficult field and easily misrepresented.

I live on the land. I’m all too familiar with the consequences of poor management. Overstocking can work in the short term, but it inevitably damages the land. Extended overstocking degrades carrying capacity. A good farmer will destock to allow the land to recover. If that isn’t done, then the land will continue to degrade until the population crashes.

In my view, Australia and the planet have been in the degradation phase since the middle of last century. Ignoring the issue is the most anti-human thing we can do. We either control our population or nature will do it for us. In my experience, nature is neither kind nor gentle.

[quote=“bug1, post:17, topic:789, full:true”]
When i described them as Progressive, i just took a bit of a guess…[/quote]
I reckon you guessed right. From their web site:

Sustainable Australia is a centrist (not ‘left’ or ‘right’) community movement committed to a prosperous, inclusive, democratic and sustainable Australia.

Whatever their aspirations, I’d say ‘Progressive’ accurately describes their policies.

The issues have been obvious since well before the Club of Rome released Limits to Growth. Malthus published in the eighteenth century, after all.

The current generation can probably get away with ignoring the problems and leaving it to those who come after us. Is that really the Progressive way?

In the final analysis:
Progressive? Yes.
Racist? No.

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As a counterpoint to this, their registered logo for the election ballot is literally just “Lower Immigration”, so the first thing that the average voter sees is this:

They could have chosen “population control” or “sustainable growth” or any other phrase to represent their party. But instead they chose something that will play off current anti-immigration/refugee sentiments. They might not be racist but they are clearly courting racist votes, and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

A bit off-topic but this is very condescending. I felt that @datakid23 raised some valid points about Australia’s responsibility to other countries. Telling him he is not thinking rationally or only disagrees with the party because he doesn’t understand population control is rude and doesn’t contribute to this discussion. I would rather see an actual rebuttal to his points than a dismissal because you have personal experience with land management and overstocking (which, while an interesting comparison, is only barely relevant to immigration policy).

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Sustainable Population Party were the most iffy party in the (now defunct) Alliance for Progress IMO. I was never comfortable with their inclusion because the do court the racist vote. Having had to interact with them, I found them to be trying to walk both sides of the fence, angling for progressive preferences by not being overtly racist, whilst appealing to the racists by being anti-immigration. Consequently I will be preferencing them quite a long way down when we vote on preferences.

We all share the planet. I don’t see how being anti-immigration addresses climate change, unless you are arguing that because Australia is a terrible polluter per capita, people shouldn’t move here (which is logical). If that is your stance, you should also be encouraging everyone else to leave too.

We are all in the same Party. Please treat everyone with respect, we are your comrades.

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