Alternative names for the Party

Party Improvement
21
  • Social Libertarian Party

Sounds more inclusive without alluding to the Left Vs Right. We are living in the Social age enjoying a level of connected-ness via the Internet previous generations have not experienced. I think there is a chance for the word Social to be re-purposed and marketed to take on a new meaning, that we are an all-inclusive party, using evidence-based, data-driven decision making for the good of all.

  • New Deal Party / New Deal For Australia Party

A lot of our policies are about creating a fairer society where everyone truly can have a fair go at having a high quality of life. Whether used as the new party name or as an over-arching name for policy, the concept of a New Deal For Australia reflects some of our “revolutionary” policies such as Basic Income and may also appeal to a wide cross-section of the population who feel like the status quo doesn’t provide a fair go at a decent life for them.

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22

I like the idea of having “progressive” in the name as I think its a word a lot of people could get behind and one that isn’t currently associated with any other major party name.

To be honest (and I know from reading the above comments a lot of you won’t agree with this), I think having the word centre or centrist in the name would be a good thing. It makes us sound like moderates who just want to improve the situation using evidence based policies and aren’t beholden to any particular ideology like the liberals, labor or greens.

I also think using the word libertarian may confuse less informed people with the liberal party and could confuse the more informed people with right wing groups in the US.

My suggestion would be something along the lines of “Progressive Center Party of Australia” - or PCA for short. I think that sounds moderate enough that it won’t turn people who identify as slightly right or left off from considering voting for us but also makes it clear we are more progressive than conservative.

My second option, if people feel the word centre isn’t such a good idea, would be “Progressive Libertarian Party of Australia” - or PLPA

In summary, if we want a name that actually describes our political philosophy, I would suggest:

  1. Progressive Centre Party of Australia - PCA
  2. Progressive Libertarian Party of Australia - PLP

That said, if we just ant a catchy name, some of the other ones listed above sounded ok too:
-Australian Growth party - AGP
-New Deal For Australia Party - NDA

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23

Strong agreement with the entirety of the text and the detailed proposal.

Suggestions suggested for names:

NGO - “Guardians Of The Internet”

Political Party - “Merits Independent”

24

Let’s be guided in names by what actually works. Here is a list of all the currently elected minor parties in each state parliament:

NSW
Shooters party
Christian Democratic Party
Animal Justice Party
Victoria
Local Jobs Party
Democratic Labour Party
Shooters Party
Sex Party
South Australia
Family First
Dignity for Disability
West Australia
Shooters and Fishers

There’s a very obvious theme here: every successful minor party has a name which is a “resonant phrase”. All of the names appeal to an easily-understood cause and avoid reference to generic ideology or vague buzzwords (yes there is the Democratic Labour Party, but that begun as an offshoot from a major party rather than something which had to grow up from the ground).

We’ve an evidence based party, so if we’re changing anything we need to be guided by the evidence. We need to find a name that invokes a cause, is easy to understand, and punches through with a clear message.

Some cause-based names could be:

  • Digital Rights Party (though I suspect the voter base for this is low, and probably knows of us already)
  • Basic Income Party (this movement is rising rapidly, and providing a political outlet for it could bring new volunteers and votes).
  • Or others (start thinking now).

If reflecting the breadth of the platform is important we can also append extra ideology words (a la “Christian Democratic Party”), but the cause needs to be up-front so we can be easily found amidst the fug of generic political terms that fills a typical ballot paper.

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25

One of the arguments for a name change is that the new voting rules are going to make parties more dependent on primary votes, there wont be as many preferences available as votes will exhaust.

To succeed in the new system minor parties will have to move closer to the centre, so parties that only appeal only to special interests are going to find it a lot harder.

The desire for a more generic name is the motivation for change AFAIK

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26

http://project.wnyc.org/party-name-generator/#

Libertarian Agitator Party should resonate with some. My personal preference is the Libertarian Riff-Raff Party.

Or Federalist Agitator Party. I can just see the FAP billboards in my mind. :sunglasses:

There are no parties with Freedom in their names. I was just musing on the FAP thing when Freedom For All popped into my mind. Freefall? Freedom? Free Stuff for All?

Help me out here.

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27

‘Superior Liberal Party’ might get a few votes.

28

Two very successful names internationally have been Syriza and Podemos.
According to Wikipedia, Podemos means ‘we can’ in Spanish, and Syriza means ‘from the roots’ in Greek (but is also an acronym). However, I don’t have any clever suggestions along this line.

29

Hi Mark

I think that’s a good point. Many people just look at the name of the party on the ballot and that’s the extent of the research they do prior to voting! I had some experience with this when I was involved with pushing for daylight savings in Queensland. Our party at that time was called “The Daylight Savings for South East Queensland Party” - or DS4SEQ. The problem we found was that even that was too long for some people and we eventually worked out we would have done much better simply calling ourselves “The Daylight Savings Party”. So I think simplicity is key.

The other problem for us is we really aren’t a single issue party. Its going to be hard to find a name that captures all our policies - Digital rights, basic income, fairer taxation, etc. I think we should pick one main area and base our name on that to get peoples attention and then once they’re interested they can look at our other policies.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about basic income internationally and also tax reform domestically and both major parties seem to by shying away from large scale reform.

What about “the Basic Income and Fairer Tax party” - or BIFT for short.
Or “the Basic income and Tax Reform party” - TRBI

My preference would actually be “the Tax and Welfare Reform party” - or TWR. I think tax and welfare are two areas that get peoples attention from both sides of the political spectrum. Could even add in Digitial rights as well if party members felt strongly about it - “the Tax, Welfare and Digital Rights Reform Party (TWDR)”. As I say above, the trap smaller parties fall into seems to be trying to explain their policies in their name when really they just need to have the overall area they are focusing on in their name and let people find out the detail for themselves if they want.

Summary: I would suggest “Tax and Welfare Reform Party (TWR)” +/- Digital Rights. I think this would get the most attention on the ballot paper.

30

The Egalitarian Party
Or maybe
Egalitarian Australia

Personally prefer the first one.

I have been feeding words into a thesaurus to see if any good ideas could be sparked and this one was. It was a synonym of libertarian (I don’t know if it actually is, but thesaurus.com thought so).

From Wikipedia:

Egalitarianism (from French égal, meaning “equal”)—or, rarely, equalitarianism or equalism —is a trend of thought that favors equality for all people. Egalitarian doctrines maintain that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or social status, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the term has two distinct definitions in modern English: either as a political doctrine that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights; or as a social philosophy advocating the removal of economic inequalities among people, economic egalitarianism, or the decentralization of power. Some sources define egalitarianism as the point of view that equality reflects the natural state of humanity.

It covers the ‘vibe’ of the Party, it speaks to Australians; Australian culture is often portrayed as egalitarian and I think a lot of people point to that as an aspect they love of Australian culture.

It hasn’t been damaged by others using the term for political parties with questionable ideologies.

It is short, easy to remember, self-explanatory and motivating. All good features to have in a name.

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31

I really like Jenna’s suggestion of using the word Commons as a nod back to our copyright reform roots, while at the same time also invoking other positive connotations
Preserving our common/public spaces - freely accessible national parks, keeping our waterways healthy etc
Doing things for the common good - basic income, universal healthcare, public education
Representing the common folk - not representing vested interests.

A few brainstorming suggestions to go with Save Our Commons and The Protected Commons
Common Tomorrow
Progressive Commons
Common Sense
The Commons Party
Common Equality
Future Commons
Common Rights
Commons Wealth
Civil Commons
Democratic Commons
Social Commons
Common Freedom
Liberty & Commons

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32

+1 for Egalitarian Australia Party (EAP) / The Egalitarian Party (TEP) - the word Egalitarian hasn’t been used & abused by previous parties before, and is different enough from other party names that it might provoke people’s curiosity. It may also resonate with Australian’s general concept of a fair go for all. Also like ideas with Commons/Common in them. A few more potential names:

  • Fair Go Party (FGP)
  • Common Wealth Party (CWP)

If history is anything to judge by, Australian voters overwhelmingly respond to small, easy to digest soundbites and 3-word acronyms/slogans (“stop the boats” etc…).

A thought regarding party names around specific issues, eg “Basic Income and Tax Reform Party” - what happens if we get elected, implement basic income and fair tax reform for all, and those things are no longer an issue - change the party name again?!

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33

Some very good ideas are coming out of this thread. I’d like to make a few observations about what’s being proposed.

In my mind, the Pirate Party has always been about freedom and equality. Freedom without equality isn’t fantastic, and equality without freedom is possibly worse. The result of freedom and equality is participation. Participation in society, culture, the economy, politics and in civic life. And participation means democracy, ultimately.

So what I think we need to capture in a name is at least freedom and equality, and possibly participation if we can stretch that far. I think we should also avoid meaningless words that don’t add to the ‘honesty’ of the name. We also need to avoid words that are narrower than ‘Pirate’.

‘Libertarian Left’ captures freedom and equality, so finding acceptable alternatives for those two words is what we’re after, I think.

Words for freedom: civil liberties, human rights, libertarian

Words for equality: fair go, equity, commons, common, 99/99ers, collective, social, left, egalitarian

Words to avoid because they are either meaningless, narrow or inaccurate, or all three: progress, progressive, future, Internet, open source, open, democracy, raising standards, people, next, tomorrow, growth, digital, privacy, transparency, government, freedom of speech, anti-censorship, evidence-based, 21st century, copyright, reform, new deal, Australia, centre, merits, independent, basic income, agitator, federalist, roots.

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34

Choice is a synonym for liberty

Common Choice, has a popularist ring to it, its not a scary ideological name, but its also very generic (too much) on the surface.

35

Transparency Party - We have nothing to hide.

People’s Party of Australia - PPAU

Party for Ethical Government - PEG

Just throwing a few more random ideas into the mix. And yay - they are all listed in Mozart’s WORDS TO AVOID.

Fcuk it - let’s be the Silly Walks Party. Python will never die.

36

This will probably sound a bit pompous but hey;

I’d avoid words like “Egalitarian” as there are sectors of the community who will assume you’re “intellectual elitists” and ignore you based on that, I’d be keeping key words in the name to two syllables or less.

That being said the best I’ve come up with so far is the “Don’t Be A Dick Party” because it resonates reasonably well with the party platform, and whilst I’m sure we’d get some votes out of it, I suspect that it wouldn’t do a lot for us in the “not sounding like a joke party” stakes (and I gather this is the main reason we are having the discussion at all).

Alternatively we could disregard the idea of making our name align with our platform (because let’s face it, there aren’t many other parties in AU whose name has any real link to their platform. The only one I can think of is the Hunters and Fishers party, but as a single-issue party, it’s pretty easy for them) and just go with something (and I feel dirty for saying this) with “zing”.

The other option of course is to retain the Pirate name and try to educate the electorate on the fact that we are NOT a joke party, but I haven’t the foggiest idea where we’d start with this, any PR-ish people care to weigh in on whether this would be feasible and if so how we might go about it?

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37

It has been eight years. No.

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38

Has there been any direct attempt to dispel this misconception in the past?

If there has not been any direct attempt I think it is an option which warrants exploration.

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39

Yes, but that’s not the first problem. The problem is notability of minor parties in Australia. You cannot dispel that which nobody even knows exists in the first place. Before you have the opportunity to correct the record, the ball has already rolled onward.

It’s a chicken-and-egg problem, or at least was, as it’s now empirically evident that the name is working against us in many ways.

Please, do read my proposal and the following discussions, as it goes into various experiences of people directly “correcting the record” and nothing coming of it. It doesn’t get more direct than me as the Party’s Secretary telling high level executives of companies and NGOs who we are and getting laughed out of the room.

To be honest, upon reflection, I’m not sure why I didn’t request a name change sooner.

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40

So long as the option has been thoroughly explored.

As noted, I’ve no specific objection to changing the party name. But I’m yet to see what I’d consider to be a viable option. This would seem to argue for the alternative mentioned above, wherein we abandon the attempt to encapsulate the party in a name and instead go for something (for want of a better term) “marketable”.

There’s still the possibility that somebody will find the magic words but given how heavily loaded most of the terms in the political sphere are, I suspect it’s a fool’s errand.

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