This is a cross post from a Medium article I wrote about this, I thought it might be interesting as the state election is next week.
The NSW State election is approaching. I decided it was time to find out what each of the parties had to say about their policies. What follows is a brief summary of all the independents and political parties running stand for. I have done by best to provide a good faith reading of these parties and, when relevant, have attempted to clearly notate any editorial comments.
Legislative council parties:
Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers
The Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers are an agrarian, social conservative, and libertarian party whose
policy platform is based around
ending the government regulation of environmental protections and standards, as well as laws about maintaining native biodiversity which often conflicts with crop plantings. Their main goal is to remove the ability of external forces (governments, courts, or activists) from interfering with the direct commercial goals of land owners as they prize individual property rights which they believe as violated by land reform legislation. Beyond this, they also aim to assist NSW farmers by pushing for drought assistance to combat the current prolonged drought, as well as pushing for further tax cuts aimed at farmers.
Like many other current right-wing groups, they have
coalesced behind supporting the end of renewable subsidies and pushing for the building of more coal power stations. Uniquely, they also want to end the interconnection of NSW power to other states in a pseudo-isolationist move. This also means that they oppose many policies about regulating carbon and other pollutants, however as they also support deregulated fishing they are currently signalling their difference from the NSW National Party by wanting to prevent further mass fish deaths in the Murray Darling River.
As part of their right-wing libertarian streak, this consists of ending most
government regulation of gun control, whilst also signalling support of ‘tough on crime’ policies and supporting the
police and
prison guards.
Socialist Alliance
The Socialist Alliance is a traditional socialist political party who are focused providing a more
egalitarian society where wealthy individuals and corporations pay aggressively higher taxes to fund re-distributive policies increase the standard of living for lower income peoples. They also want to expand public transport along with taking privatised assets back into public ownership.
They also want to switch to a renewable energy economy and make NSW explicitly anti-racist and a safe haven for refugees. They also believe that our current electoral system is flawed so they wish to introduce a series of electoral reforms to introduce electoral recalls at all levels, and make all levels of government proportional instead of our current mix of representative and proportional government.
Sustainable Australia
Sustainable Australia is focused on what they see as the issue with our current immigration rate. Under their ideological view, having a
high immigration is detrimental to Australia as it causes “over-development”, as their website claims, as well as increasing housing costs, and environmental damage. Whilst not explicitly stating it, they appear to be planning on addressing the predicted losses in economic growth from their policies through diversifying the economy. This anti-immigration view covers
refugees, as whilst they will allow them to enter the country they believe they should stay around their local region and work be done to improve safety there.
From their
policy platform, it appears as if Sustainable Australia wants to limit overseas trade as they have policies on
restarting Australian manufacturingjobs, which would assist our economy if we were no longer utilising low cost overseas manufacturing sources. However, they appear to be on-board with the current environmental consensus as they want to transition to a
renewable energy economy and want to protect natural lands.
Greens
As one of the minor major parties, most of their policy platform should be somewhat known. It is dominated by their positions on the environment where they want to rapidly transition towards an
entirely renewable energy sector, as well as more general policies about reversing environmental pollution of air, land, and water-bodies. Broadly, they are the most prominent socially and economically progressive party in NSW at the moment. However, they are
anti-genetically modified crops [
Ed. note — this is due to a flawed belief that ‘organic’ food is better than modified, which is not supported by any current research consensus.]
Of note is a current “
civil war” within the NSW Greens between the two faction which respectively believe that the Greens should be focused entirely on the environment, and the other who believe that they should be a vehicle for
broader democratic socialist policies. However, there has yet to be any noticeable policy arguments (publicly at least) around this, so the factional struggle may be personality based.
Animal Justice Party
The animal justice party is a leftist political organisation based strongly around
broadening animal rights and protections. The majority of their policies are to do with ending the killing, or harming of animals in any way. Seem to want to end the use of
companion animals (pets) in general but are addressing that bit by bit by limiting how you can adopt animals. They also view
population growth as bad for animals and the environment and thus believe we should keep growth at replacement rate, which implies limiting immigration. However, limited policy detail on
environmental and climate action policies, broadly says we need a carbon tax and to shift to a renewable power economy.
Advance
Advance is actually a
coalition of the Advance Australia Party and the Motoring Enthusiasts. Their policies goals seem to be
addressing housing affordability, increasing Sydney’s desirability as a
tourist destination, anti-gambling — specifically
Barangaroo, desiring the return of the Sydney
Monorail — which appears to be driven by their
distaste of the Light Rail,
pro-electric cars, and “
fixing the roads”. Not sure on their political alignment, appear to be a centrist neoliberal party without a social justice platform or any re-distributive policies.
FLUX
Ah, FLUX. FLUX is not a political party in the traditional sense as they have no actual policies in of themselves. They’re a
single issue party, which wants to more or less end our Representational Democracy model and replace it with an electronic platform which is a mix of Direct, Representational, and Delegate Democracy where you use ‘
an app’ to either directly vote, or nominate someone to vote for you on every piece of legislation in parliament. Legislation, which I assume is also crowd sourced?
[
Ed. note — INTERESTING.
Meow-Ludo Meow-Meow (real person) who has been a candidate for the Science Party (formerly the Future Party, now running as the James Jansson group) for the last couple of elections has moved to FLUX and is the candidate for Willoughby. You may know him as the dude who put the
OPAL chip inside his hand.]
LaboCountry Labor
NSW Labor has a
typical modern centre-left policy platform. However, of note is their recent moves to
ban single use plastic bags, phase out single use plastics, invest ~
$140 million into local recycling projects, and of particular note they claim to want to seek a
treaty with the NSW indigenous peopleswhich would replicate similar treaties in Canada and New Zealand. This treaty would cover: recognition of historical wrongs, addressing health and education services, and language rights.
This election, NSW Labor is trying to differentiate themselves from the Liberal Party by emphasising their goals to decrease
housing and
hospital costs, as well as addressing industrial concerns, such as
wage theft and underpayment, as well as providing increased services such as more education facilities and
free public transport for children. Another policy difference is their goal to divert the currently allocated funds for stadium redevelopments towards other policies such as renewable powered
air conditioning for public schools.
They also wish to legislate
10 days paid domestic violence pay, in addition to investing $158 million towards building new domestic violence and sexual assault courts, increased victim compensation, and increased funding to shelters and advocacy groups.
Liberal/The Nationals
The Liberal/National coalition will be running this campaign based on their record over the last eight years which has constituted increased building of private toll
motorways as well as the building of more commuter lines, specifically the
light rail and
North-West Metro. The party however has been dogged by their more draconian policies around
nightlife and
music policiesin general. This has been paired with their alleged failures on environmental policies based on the recent spate of
mass fish deaths in regional NSW resulting from widespread
rorting of water resources by the large commercial cotton farms.
Australian Conservatives
The Australian Conservatives are a factional splinter of the Liberal Party of Australia. They were started by Cory Bernardi who left the party because of his views of the “
corrosive left” of the Liberal Party. As such, they are an extremely conservative party. Their policy agenda does not meaningfully move away from
orthodox right-wing business politics, and government regulation, as they are libertarian on this front. Their main focus is on ‘
white resentment’ politics. This is as their most detailed policy statements deal with ending “
gender reassignment” and “
political indoctrination”. Their main goals is to realign Australian with their conservative views on what it means to be an Australian, that is to be white and hetero-normative [
Ed.]. Broadly they are quite similar to the
current Republican party in American in terms of their social and economic views. This party is part of the
current wave of populist(whilst not actually being populist as their policies will
benefit the 1% primarily) “Western Civilisation” politics based around
Nationalism and anti-leftism.
Keep Sydney Open
Keep Sydney Open appear to be a civil libertarian party based around getting the government and its regulation out of the music scene and Sydney nightlife. Their main party agenda is the
end the Sydney Lockout laws and the current government’s policies around policing music festivals. Have no really stated political goals outside of this niche beyond some language around a stronger ICAC, and introducing 24 hr public transport. Of note, not actually running a candidate in the Seat of Sydney, where the lockout laws apply.
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are an aggressively libertarian party whose only elected member is David Leyonhjelm. The main thrust of this party is promoting “individual liberty”, which is mostly expressed as reducing the ability of governments to enact
regulatory legislation, and letting businesses pay less tax. They see effectively no place for the government beyond
Defence, and maintaining
property rights.
Editorial: the Liberal Democrats use a very American strategy of campaigning, which is “
triggering the left”. They’ve also engaged in
sexist and
racist behaviours in their effort to gain votes from the same constituency of One Nation, Australian Conservatives, and
Men’s Rights Activists.
Voluntary Euthanasia Party
The VEP are a
single issue party, and that is enacting legislation for voluntary assisted dying. They appear to be a party dedicated to ensuring quality of life up until death through both allowing death to happen on your own terms, increasing palliative care, and improving access to medical cannabis. Beyond that, they claim to be a moderate progressive party and will vote on a case by case basis for all legislation under that framework.
Christian Democratic Party
Otherwise known as the Fred Nile Christian Democratic party. A Christian religious party aiming to “
glorify God in government”. Under that framework, are pro-business. Their main niche is ensuring that NSW remains a tacitly Christian state by
legislating SRE classes (they’re the ones who made SRE mandatory and that you have to specifically opt out, whilst also making information about that hard to find). This party is extremely conservative about sexuality and gender identity and believe that there is
only two gendersand you should only be heterosexual, and thus want to remove the
Safe Schools program.
Small Business Party
Another neoliberal business party whose policy focus is on
cutting business taxes and regulation, claiming they’re a drain on the economy. This extends to wanting to reduce housing Stamp duties and power prices. Also are anti-immigration as they claiming current NSW immigration is unsustainable and there is no place for them here. [
Ed. note — current immigration rate is reason we’re
not in a recession at the moment.]
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
One Nation is the most prevalent of the current Australian mainstream populist (whilst not being popular) ‘white resentment’ political parties. Under the NSW leader Mark Latham —
who has a
colourful past — the party has taken a specifically Men’s Rights Activist lens as it has explicit platforms on their idea that white men are being repressed in our society.
Outlaw the new Left-wing discrimination against men, boys, Christians and white people, including a ban on discriminatory ‘employment quotas’ and segregationist ‘safe spaces’ — One Nation policy outline
This platform extends towards
explicitly racist policies, and removing recognition of
transgender people’s rights. These policies manifest themselves through their anti-Islamist rhetoric, claiming that they’ll end “
Islamic Radicalisation in schools”, being
anti-multiculturalism, and putting forward a policy that only individuals who “pass” a
genetic test [
Ed. note — which is bullshit] can get Indigenous peoples specific social welfare.
These
policies around Indigenous peoples also extend to the Indigenous Land Reform Councils as they claim they’re hoarding billions of dollars which should be taken. Like other prominent white resentment parties, One Nation also supports pro-business reforms such as
protectionist policies to maintain monopolies, and cutting their taxes and regulations, as well as being anti-renewable energy and
fixated on coal power.
Seniors United Party of Australia (group G)
The Seniors United Party is pushing forward a policy agenda aimed specifically at senior citizens, such as being focused on increased funding and
undoing of Liberal/National cuts to superannuation. They also wants oversight and regulation of aged care providers. However, like many other parties running in this election, they are a anti-immigration party and wants to see reduced in overall migration levels.
Monaghan and Monaghan (group H)
This is a husband and wife duo from the northern beaches and the majority of policies appear to be focused on a “
not in my backyard (NIMBY)” agenda in regards to the Northern Beaches. However also wants to ban brothels and 24/7 gambling, and very specifically the
Woolworths in Mosman.
Jeremy Buckingham Greens splinter group (group L)
Buckingham is a former Greens MLC who
left/
got kicked out of the party over allegations he committed an act of “
sexual violence”* towards a staff member. This was investigated and dropped due to insufficient evidence to substantiate the allegation.
Teamed up with Alan Jones to help stop coal seam gas mining
His policies are a little hard to nail down as his content is limited on his website, but based around his previous statements it broadly aligns with the environmental aspects of his former party, the NSW Greens. Of note however, is his desired collaboration with American Tech Baron, Elon Musk, to
build a tunnel through the Blue Mountains from Western Sydney to Lithgow.
\allegation was revealed under parliamentary privilege by Newtown MP Jenny Leong. May have been done as part of the current NSW Greens civil war over whether or not they should be a climate action party or a more broadly socialist party.*
James Jansson (group S)
A
re-branding of the Science Party as they aren’t registered at State level. Focused on increased transportation, housing density, etc. Seem to be greenish Radical Centrist party with focus on changing regulation and increasing funding without really rocking the boat or doing anything substantial.
Various Independents
Tony Edwards: no clear policy directions stated, with more of a general anti-right perspective.
Ellie Robinson: Anti-corruption platform and wants to address climate change, disability rights, animal justice, indigenous rights.
John Brett: anti-national debt candidate, focus on removing foreign involvement and getting more people back into trade jobs.
Ron Bogan: pro euthanasia, helping out senior citizens, pro-National Energy Guarantee (therefore neoliberal on climate action), focus on the Shire and Western Sydney. Campaign slogan — “put a bogan in parliament”
John Hunter: no information online about him.
Bryn Hutchinson: “progressive independent” — focus on police accountability and a NSW Human Rights Act.
Danny Lim: this is the guy with the billboard hanging around Newtown and the city who’s billboard said “
Tony [Abbott] you cvn’t.” From what I can find, running principles of egalitarianism, anti-racism, broadly leftist, pro-renewable energy, investing in public healthcare, removing private healthcare insurance rebate, increasing refugee intake.
Andre Brokman: found his Medium blog — pro-Council amalgamations to increase centralisation and reduce ‘chaos’ in Sydney planning, appears to be a transportation enthusiast. His bio: “Andre Brokman is a full time city planning student and part time uber driver”
I voted liberal party at the State NSW since Barry O'Farrel as myself and I suspect many others were disgusted with State Labor Party on its backflips on public transport policy (500 million wasted on Rozelle Metro anyone?) as well as the corruption allegations which occupied a lot of the news at the time.
The thing now is that the State Liberal Party has become far too arrogant in their policies regarding pill testing, lockout laws, legislation on festivals as well as being far too 'in bed' with developers and as I see it they have burned far too much politcal capital and goodwill. Examples
- Making the Casino exempt from alcohol restrictions and lockout laws
- Closing train stations in Newcastle to sell of prime waterfront land for developers and replacing it with a slower less efficient light rail
- Closing the PowerHouse Museum
- reinstating expensive tolls on the m4 turning Parramatta Rd into a gridlock west of Concord.
I'm not a fan of labor either as I'm not convinced they have their act together and are ready to govern. Their policies just reek of playing political games. The big deal braker for me is cancelling the Bankstown line metro conversion. Regardless of what people think about the Bankstown metro conversion it is needed to improve reliability across the Sydney Trains network. The City Circle is a major bottleneck and one train delay on this line can easily impact about half of the suburban network. The whole advantage of this metro line through the city was to take existing lines off the City Circle allowing for more East Hills/Airport & Inner West trains. Cancelling the metro at Sydenham basically derails what is arguably the main benefit that having a new line would achieve for the rail network.
I agree that their are issues on this project that policy should be taken to election on - and that is the proposal for massive apartments along the entire railway line to Bankstown - I'm not convinced that this is a great solution for Sydney in the long term. Certainly we could use more density along a newly developed metro line but it should more be along the lines of medium density terrace townhousing such as exists in Europe rather than masses of 20-30 story Meriton apartments.
I'm already seeing the damage done to Canterbury road with poorly planned development proposals. That road should have been widened and turned into a proper Melbourne style boulevard - unfortunately it is already looking more and more like a wind tunnel with apartments build up to the edge of the road.
All in all I'm not seeing a party that is worth supporting? I favor the Liberal party a little in their public transport but what good is that if the state is going to have its nightlife/festivals and culture killed by a puritan politicians stuck in the 1950s?
Does anyone have any thoughts?
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