Breaking up the 3 horse race

So the impression I get is that most people are starting to see Liberal and Labor as bad as each other with the Greens acting as the stand in opposition and people tend to vote “so the other guy doesn’t get in”.

How do we place ourselves as the an alternative to the greens and a real contender against the big two.

I have been thinking that we can present ourselves as standing for what people appreciate about the main parties so people don’t have to choose for the lesser of 3 evils.

We want a strong economy and to provide jobs like the Liberals.
We want protection for workers and the less fortunate like Labor
We want to protect the environment and promote sustainable energy and protect refugees like the Greens.

How can we condense this idea and get it out to everyone, maybe even put it on the back of the HTV flyers?

We need to pace ourselves. It is deluded to think we even have 100th the organisational capability of the Greens let alone the ALP / Coalition.

I would recommend focusing on core message, building our membership and improving the ability of members to be part of and contribute to the party. Wanting to solve world peace and deep debate about something no one ever is going to ask our opinion on is wasted resources, and the clock is already ticking.

The only place we can play at present is to get close to maybe a Senate seat. A win for us is an uptick in votes and increased interest in membership. Planning how to vote in the Senate is not a useful way to spend your time IMO.

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I think that trying to be all things to all people like you suggest would just make us sound like a “me too” party with no original ideas of our own. Even worse, with no track record people will just assume we are merely spouting empty platitudes because we think it’s what they want to hear.

My approach is to “go meta” and present ourselves as a better overall approach to all of these questions of governance, referencing our principles like science based policy, libertarian and egalitarian ideals and direct democracy. We shift the debate to discussing the principles upon which we make decisions, we talk about HOW the decisions should be made, rather than what those decisions are. I think this is a basis for building a level of credibility that has been sorely lacking from politics for a long time. I also think it would quickly expose the illogical, flawed and seemingly paradoxical approach to issues that other parties take.

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This is what I am suggesting. We do actually have policies on all of the things I mentioned above and as you say we have a better approach to achieving them.

We need to let people know we stand for all of the things that they are concerned about and that a #1 vote for us means they don’t have to choose jobs over the environment or refugees over education etc.

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