HUB’s guide to NSW senate candidates

Copper experiments with online democracy

A new minor party is hoping to entice the public by operating solely online, with users voting for the issues they want heard in the Senate.

Wes Bas is Senator Online’s (SOL) NSW candidate in the upcoming election. Shifting from his job as a police officer in Surry Hills, Mr Bas is hoping to give the community a greater voice through online voting.

“Having a party based online is a great opportunity to interact with a large cross-section of the community,” he said.

“It’s also a great way of giving people a voice in the early stages of policy making as it passes through the Senate.”

At least 100 000 votes need to be registered online for a Senator to be bound to representing that issue in the Senate.

“We are looking at a range of measure to ensure that the voting system will be secure and accurate,” he said.

SOL campaigned in the 2007 election receiving 8000 votes across NSW, South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland. Mr Bas is confident that more votes will be secured in the upcoming election.

An example of how their website would look can be found at http://senatoronline.org.au/

No place for God in politics

The Secular Party emerged during the days of the Howard Government when its founders felt religion was playing too much of a role.

NSW Senate candidate for the Secular party, Ian Bryce, says he strongly believes in separation of church and state.

“There’s so many ways that favouritism to the church is tied up in our present laws, for example the financial loss to government because churches don’t have to pay taxes,” Mr Bryce said

Issues important to the party include funding students at religious schools only to the extent they would be in a secular government school, tax breaks for religions to be made applicable only for genuine charity work, not the religion simply promoting itself and the legalisation of gay marriage.

“Secularism is based on universal principles, in respect for human beings, compassion, honesty justice and freedom,” Mr Bryce said.

Mr Bryce says that as vice-president of the Secular Party he constantly is in touch with his god, who he calls the Flying Spaghetti Monster – while he practices the religion of “Pastafarianism”

“When religious people ridicule my god, I say ‘Well, he is just as real as your god.’” Mr Bryce said.

The voice of hunters, shooters, fishers

Hate them, or love them, all agree that the Shooters and Fishers Party is one of the most controversial groups to be on the ticket in the upcoming federal election.

“[Shooters and Fishers] is the voice of hunters, shooters, fishers, rural and regional Australia and independent thinking Australians everywhere,” reads their website.

Basically, they represent good old’ fashion right wing, pro-gun, family values.

The group achieved notoriety in NSW after winning a seat in the 2007 state election, a position they have used to cut deals with the State ALP gaining support over their proposal to allow hunting in national parks, and the creation of the NSW Game Council.

If elected their policies include; liberalising fire-arm legislation; amendment of the law to remove the rights of third parties to take legal action under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act; removing the Federal Government’s veto powers on State infrastructure projects such as water or power utilities projects; and placing an immediate moratorium on all new immigration applications, until an audit has been carried out on Australia’s natural resources, and until a referendum is held to set the optimum population levels.

Who are the Citizens Electoral Council?

A look at the 2007 preference lists would have you believe they’re the most hated party in Australia, generally ranking last on every form.

On their website the group claims to structure their proposed policies in ideology “based on achieving peace through economic development, both for Australia, and for all regions of the world.”

You probably know them better for their slogans such as, “Enivronmentalism is a Mental Illness”.

The group has heavy ties to America’s LaRouche movement, led by self-styled economist Lyndon LaRouche. Members of the group regard him as a political leader in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, but others warn that he a cult leader, fascist, and anti-Semite.

If elected the CEC will campaign for; large scale economic reforms – including the implementation of a global Glass-Steagall banking standard; and international credit system with fixed exchange rates; an Australian Republic; repealing of laws which threaten civil liberties; a moratorium on the foreclosures of family homes and farms; elimination of the GST; a rapid upgrade of State and Federal infrastructure with nuclear energy as its centrepiece; and the establishment of “generous” immigration quotas.

Reds on the street and in the workplace

In the past two decades Socialist Alliance NSW Senate candidate Rachel Evans has been an outspoken advocate for feminism, the environment, refugee rights, and active in the campaign against homophobia.

“I think it’s important to have a radical voice and to build a grassroots democracy movement to challenge corporate power,” Rachel said, explaining her decision to run for the Senate.

She was critical of the way refugees were being used as an election issue.

“The 3000 people who come here by boat escaping war and persecution are being demonised by the major parties,” Rachel said.

“We need money for services and the politicians are blaming refugees for taking places up place in buses.”

While campaigning for Senate, Rachel has not put aside her grassroots activism and is building a refugee rights rally for August 7.

“We need more people in this country; we have this huge continent and different waves of migration have enriched Australia,” Rachel said.

“We have the capacity to be generous.”

Rhiannon pushes for broader Green’s influence

After serving 11 years in the NSW Legislative Council, Lee Rhiannon has resigned from her seat to contest the upcoming election.

Last week the NSW Greens conducted their preselection ballot for the Senate, with Lee Rhiannon chosen for the first position on the ticket.

“While it will be tough winning a Senate seat, with the Greens needing to win 14.3 per cent of the vote to gain a Senate quota, I am hopeful that we can regain a Senator for NSW,” Rhiannon said in a public statement.

Hoping to pick up more seats in the Senate, the Greens say are hoping to have more power to pursue the issues climate change, restoring social equity and protecting the natural environment.

A possible Greens balance of power in Senate may see both Labor and the Coalition compromising on a range of policies.

In the second week of campaigning, the Greens have put the issues of climate change, population, international aid and economic sustainability at the forefront of their campaign.

Democrats: Just a footnote in Australian politics?

“I thought they were a footnote in Australian political history?” That’s the reaction of most people towards the news that the Democrats are still in business. But the party which famously strove to ‘keep the bastards honest’ has been in the midst of a painful rebuilding process over the past few years, looking to reclaim its former status as an influential party in the Senate.

“The end goals are, we want to make sure that when we campaign for elections such as this one, that we have a strong group around us,” said NSW Senate candidate Fiona Clancy. “[We want to] make sure our policies and procedures are going to be democratic and still in tune with our core principles, but something more capable of meeting the needs of the 24-hour news cycle and the views of the electorate.”

Although in many respects they retain similar policy positions to The Greens, Clancy makes the case for voting for the Democrats as voting for the hand of experience in dealing with the balance of power. “We feel we have the flexibility to look at individual issues on their merits, rather than from an ideological viewpoint,” she said.

Sex Party wants politicians out of the bedroom

Huw Campbell, a physicist currently working on “the band structure of phosphorus in silicon delta-layers” and their application in “nano-tech and quantum computers”, isn’t the kind of person you expect to hear of running as a senatorial candidate for the Australian Sex Party. Then again, it turns out that while the Australian Sex Party might use humour to get it’s message across, it isn’t the joke party you might have expected.

ASP was started in 2008 by lobbyists and activists who had worked on sex policy issues following the announcement of the governments planned internet filter, which has remained one of their key issues, along with legalising Gay Marriage, X rated video aong with X and R rated video games. They also call for the introduction of a universal classification and the decriminalisation of personal drug use, arguing that while dealers should still be locked up, drug addiction should be treated as a health issue.

When pressed as to how his party is distinct from the Greens, who have similar policies on most issues, Huw says, “the big difference is focus.”

Huw says that while the Greens may have solid civil liberties policies, “We are a civil liberties party.”