Category: politics (Page 13 of 42)

Victorian State Election 2018 – Meet the Australian Country Party/Give it Back!

November 12, 2018 / Catherine / 9 Comments

I don’t have time to read all of this!
The Basics

Website: https://australiancountryparty.org.au/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CountryPartyVic
Victorian Campaign Page: https://australiancountryparty.org.au/policies/victorian/
Themes: Pro-regional Australia, pro-personal responsibility, pro-guns. Deeply suspicious of environmentalism in any form. Clearly positioning themselves to take over from the Nationals.

Update January 26, 2019: I’ve been advised that the ACP has undergone a complete reorganisation since November, including an overhaul of policies. I’ll be covering them again ahead of the next election, but if you want to know more, please see the comment below from Glenn O’Rourke, which includes a link to a press release and the new website.

With friends like these…
The Group Voting Ticket

The ACP is pretty good friends with conservative and libertarian parties who like guns. Their top five spots always include the Democratic Labor Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Australian Liberty Alliance. Other favoured parties are the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, Sustainable Australia, the Health Australia Party, and Hudson for Northern Victoria. The Aussie Battlers and the Transport parties appear occasionally.

The Liberal Party sits right at the middle of their ticket, with Labor usually a couple of parties behind them. The last four places on their tickets are always the Voluntary Euthanasia Party, the Victorian Socialists, the Animal Justice Party, and last of all, the Australian Greens. These are not people who like environmentalists very much.

The Body Politic
Policies, Snark, Terrible Theme Songs and Other Observations

Victorian State Election 2018 – Meet the Aussie Battler Party!

November 12, 2018 / Catherine / 11 Comments

Update, November 15, 2018: Well, they certainly have developed. I don’t know when it happened, but the Aussie Battlers have made sweeping changes to their policies. No longer do they want to feed roosters to the starving and house the homeless in shipping containers, and now it appears that they are Tough On Crime and don’t like Immigrants. I haven’t had a chance to look at them again properly, but will do my best to review them before the election. In the meantime, you can read an article about the new policies here. But be wary. This is definitely a bait-and-switch, and I’m wondering how many of their candidates were aware that this would happen.

I don’t have time to read all of this!
The Basics

Website: https://www.aussiebattlerparty.com.au/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheAussieBattlerParty/
Current leader: Stuart O’Neill
Themes: Common sense, Aussie Battlers, affordable housing and homelessness, ‘the real Australia’. Patriotic and focused on regional Victoria. Pro mouthguards!

With friends like these…
The Group Voting Ticket

Oh, this is one hot mess of a party. They have completely different tickets in each region, and the only real common ground is that they always put Labor, Liberals and the Greens last. But always in a different order. Their top five varies wildly with the Animal Justice Party taking top billing in Northern Metropolitan, and the Shooters and Fishers getting it in Western Metropolitan. In South-Eastern Metropolitan, alternate anti-family-violence candidates with the LDP and the Shooters and Fishers.

Their favourite party to support is Sustainable Australia (another party who I find very hard to read), which makes their top five on 7 out of 8 tickets. Derryn Hinch gets into the top five in 6 out of 8, and the Shooters and Fishers and Liberal Democratic Party both get there 5 times. Transport is also important. But honestly, everyone seems to turn up in their top five at least once, except for the Voluntary Euthanasia Party and the Victorian Socialists. Even the Australian Liberty Alliance is in there.

It feels to me like the pro-gun parties are getting a higher than statistically-probable level of top billing, if this were all random, but there are kind of a lot of pro-gun parties this year, and I don’t know how to do statistical analysis, so take that for what it’s worth.

There is some evidence that they might be preferencing the small parties that they expect to be popular in that region – the Shooters and Fishers or the ACP in regional areas, Hudson for Northern Victoria in the north, the Animal Justice Party in the vegan-friendly northern metropolitan region. But it could also be that they have no clue what they are doing, and I find it unsettling that I can’t tell.

Basically, if you are going to vote for this party, do it below the line. You don’t know where your vote might end up otherwise.

The Body Politic
Policies, Snark, Terrible Theme Songs and Other Observations

Victorian State Election 2018 – Meet the Animal Justice Party!

November 12, 2018 / Catherine / 8 Comments

I don’t have time to read all of this!
The Basics

Website: https://www.ajpvic.org.au/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ajpvic/

Themes: A voice for animals in politics, and the party for people who think that the Greens don’t go far enough on animal welfare. Left, slightly lunar. Veganism can fix all the world’s problems.

With friends like these…
The Group Voting Ticket

The AJP has different voting tickets in each region, but there are some common themes. At the top of the ticket, you either get the Aussie Battlers, Sustainable Australia, or Health Australia. Fiona Patten’s Reason Party, The Voluntary Euthanasia Party, and Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party usually come next, and either Transport Matters or the Victorian Socialists will also be in the top five.

After all the left-leaning parties, they generally put the Greens somewhere around 21 on the ticket, directly followed by Labor, the DLP and the Liberal/National Parties.

The last four slots on the ticket are always the Liberal Democratic Party, the Australian Country Party, the Australian Liberty Alliance, and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, in that order. If there are independents, they usually fall somewhere between the ALA and the Shooters and Fishers, regardless of their actual political views – I’m guessing the AJP didn’t have the time or inclination to do the research on them.

Basically, this is the portrait of a decidedly left-leaning party that really doesn’t like guns. Nobody is surprised by this. They don’t seem to hate the Greens as much as they used to, but putting them directly before the other major parties sends a clear message – you sold out.

The Body Politic
Policies, Snark, Terrible Theme Songs and Other Observations

Victorian State Election – And we’re off!

November 12, 2018 / Catherine / 4 Comments

I’ve been madly reading up on political party policies all week, but haven’t wanted to post anything yet, because I was waiting for the group voting tickets to come out. But they are here now, so it’s time to get started!

As always, I will be reviewing all the minor parties and independents who are running for the Legislative Council, and if I have time, I’ll also look at my local ballot and see what’s going on there.

I’ll be working my way through the parties in alphabetical order this year, with occasional breaks to write about some independents. Since independents are often late bloomers in campaign terms, I’ll try to do all the independents for a particular region on the same day, so that nobody gets disadvantaged.

The main page where I list all the political parties and independents and their websites, as well as links to my reviews can be found here.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Post-Election Blues…

November 7, 2018 / Catherine / 0 Comments

I’m not going to comment on the US mid-terms here. I’ve seen people who are very happy about the results, and people who are really disappointed and unhappy, and while, as always, I have plenty of opinions, I don’t feel sufficiently well-informed about US politics to comment on what this result means. So I’m going to leave analysis to commentators who are more directly affected, and probably more knowledgeable.

I was going to post here today about how shocking and mindboggling I find the way elections are run in the US (how is it that a candidate for election can be responsible for running that election? I asked one of my Professors, who is from Georgia, how this can possibly be legal, and he just threw up his hands and laughed ruefully), and write another hymn of praise to our lovely Australian Electoral Commission, but that felt like unseemly bragging.

So instead, I’m going to go somewhere completely different with this post.

To me, this result looks cautiously hopeful. But I’m not American. The results don’t affect me directly, and I know there were a LOT of things on the ballot that weren’t just about picking a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t know what will be the last straw for someone who is already struggling. The 2016 election was the last straw for a friend of mine (TW: suicide), and I would hate to see anyone – on any side of politics, frankly – succumb to this one.

So here are a handful of resources for people in the US who may be finding things difficult right now.

Stay well, everyone.

CRISIS SUPPORT IN THE USA

The US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 (24/7)
Crisis Text Line – text GO to the phone number 741741 in the US, or 686868 in Canada
IMAlive – Online crisis chat! Support in a crisis for people more comfortable with online chat than phone or text. (I completely love that you can now chat to counsellers via text or computer, not just on the phone. Sometimes, a real live person on the phone is just too hard.)
Everything is awful and I’m not OK – Self-care checklist
Suicidehotlines.com – a list of crisis hotlines and services for a wide range of demographics.
LGBTQ Crisis Hotlines – a list of crisis hotlines and resources specifically for LGBTQIA people

(Thank you to Kit Fox for finding so many of these links and sharing them earlier today.)

I’ve also made a list of small things you can do for self-care, which includes crisis lines for people in Australia specifically, as well as a link to a site with a lot of international crisis lines.

Or, alternatively…

FUN AND FRIVOLOUS THINGS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS

Colouring in for adults (some of the art ones are fantastic!)
The Great Museum Dance Off – you’ll have to scroll down to find the various videos, but basically, it’s an annual competition between museums for the best (?) dance routine. Here are five of my favourites
Three brilliant NetFlix shows:
- The Good Place – the funniest sit-com about ethics that I’ve run across. But don’t believe the Australian accents in Season 3.
- Nailed It – a baking competition for people who can’t bake
- The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell – a gothic baking show, with muppets. The cakes are astonishing. The plots are alarming. (My husband just likes the bloodthirsty muppets…)
Australian Firemen with cute animals. (You can buy the calendars, too, and they support charity!)
Tam Lin Balladry. If you like old folk songs and fairy tales and want to dive deep into a rabbit hole of stories, songs, reviews and history of the Tam Lin ballad, this is the website for you. It was Abby’s website, and it’s a truly encyclopaedic resource for all things Tam Lin.

Computer update: The lovely people at JMC were able to get my old computer up and running again, but it’s clearly nearing the end of its useful life. Thank you to everyone who ‘bought me a coffee’ using the link on the right – even though the need is now a bit less urgent, it’s clear that I will need to replace my computer before the end of the year if I want a reliable machine for the Federal Election, so I very much appreciate your support!

Wentworth, or, How to Hang a Parliament

November 6, 2018 / Catherine / 4 Comments

I’ve been meaning to do another ‘what the hell is going on in Australian politics this week’ post for a while, but I simply can’t keep up. The ridiculousness just moves way too fast for me to keep up.

But since my computer has just died, and trying to read and synthesise dozens of tiny party policies is an absolute pain on my tiny travel laptop (I like having all the policies open at once in separate windows, so I can group them more readily, and you need a big screen for that), and since I’ve wound up having a day off to take my computer to the computer doctor (two hours with no news is hopefully good news for my data, at least); and since my US friends could probably use the distraction of someone else’s utterly ludicrous politics right now, I feel like now is a good time to catch people up on the most recent installment of Australia’s most popular new soap opera – Pollies Behaving Stupidly.
Continue reading

A new Prime Minister – Lest we forget what he stands for

August 24, 2018 / Catherine / 4 Comments

I made fondant from scratch today. Then I flavoured it and dipped the results in choolate. I’m pretty sure this makes me more productive than the entire Federal Government put together this week. And probably much happier, too. (And definitely more hopped up on sugar!)

So, in case anyone missed the news, we have a new Prime Minister, and it isn’t Peter Dutton. Unfortunately, it is Scott Morrison, who, while marginally less appalling than Dutton, is not precisely a cause for celebration. But we’ll get onto why that is in a bit, because I think it is proper to finish recounting the events of the day before we get onto the evaluation.

No, but seriously, what the hell is going on in Australian politics this week?

August 23, 2018 / Catherine / 3 Comments

I have to say, this is not how I had planned to return to my politics blog.

But good God, Peter Dutton as Prime Minister? I mean, I don’t even know where to start with this. I’m torn between my personal revulsion and queasiness at the idea of someone who is this destructive and lacking in empathy as PM, and a certain awestruck astonishment at the sight of the Liberal Party apparently self-destructing before our eyes. I mean, we thought the ALP was self-destructive and stupid back in 2013, but this is looking less and less like a spill and more like an actual split in the party.

I’m not going to attempt a lot of analysis here. I have been at home with a nasty cold all week, my eyes glued to the ABC News channel and to Twitter, and I’m not sure how much analysis I am capable of. But I feel like the situation is getting so convoluted that it’s worth trying to take a step back and write out the timeline. Also, I’m feeling bad for all my overseas friends whose timelines have suddenly been taken over by Australians expressing visceral horror about potatoes, or incomprehensible glee about Section 44.

So this is going to be my attempt to disentangle the week’s events so far. I’m going to make it as complete as I can, but there is just SO MUCH going on that I am bound to miss something. And I’m fully aware that if this takes me two hours to write, I might miss a change of government, but hopefully this will not be too far out of date by the time I manage to post it.

Also, there will be links to sarcastic commentary because this is frankly a horror story, and I, for one, need a little bit of humour to cope. And, after all, this whole situation would be genuinely hilarious, if it wasn’t the actual government of our country which affects actual people, and the punchline wasn’t the potential installation of a racist, conscienceless, cruelty-embracing, right-wing politician as our next Prime Minister.

Phew.

Now, this has all been brewing for a while, but I think I’ll start with Monday. Because God knows, there is enough that has happened since then to keep us all on the edges of our seats. But first, a little background.

On 2017, national identity, fear, and hope

December 31, 2017 / Catherine / 5 Comments

Well, hasn’t this been an interesting year?

I don’t think I’d even know where to begin with a proper recap of all the madness that has appeared on the Australian political scene in the last twelve months. And really, why would I need to? We’ve all lived through it. Most of us have no desire to relive it. And if we do, well, there are many excellent blogs that can help you with that (did you know that Andrew P. Street now has a blog on Patreon? It’s pretty fantastic, and this post here seems like a good place to start, though he’s pretty reliably witty and interesting at all times.).

So I’m not going to do that.

Instead, I want to write about something that has raised its head in a variety of ways this year, and has, I think, almost been a defining theme of politics in this country. It’s a question which has been around for a while, and which seems to be being asked a lot at present – or perhaps it would be truer to say that it is a question that is continually being answered, with great forcefulness, even when nobody is asking it. And it’s a question which I think is going to be part of the political discourse for a good long while yet.

That question is, of course, what it means to be Australian.

The sky is not falling: How marriage has changed in Australia over the last two and a bit centuries

December 9, 2017 / Catherine / 1 Comment

The people have spoken, the Parliament has done its job, and marriage equality is finally law in Australia. For my LGBTIQ friends – I am so very pleased that we are finally doing the right thing by you. And you know that I am just *itching* to make wedding cakes at the earliest opportunity. (Just don’t all get married on January 9, because there really are only so many cakes I can make in one day…)

Back when this whole debate started, a friend of mine commented that the Marriage Act had certainly changed plenty of times before, and it would be interesting to see how, and who had objected. I started compiling a list of changes (objections were harder to research), but the whole project got so enormous that I never did manage to finish it before I went overseas, and then I came back and was sick for weeks, and by the time I had any brains to speak of, the vote was over and done with.

Still, with Marriage Equality finally signed into law, it seems to me that the time has arrived to take a quick look at all the ways marriage has changed in Australia since European settlement. This is not going to be as carefully referenced as my usual post (December is bedlam when you are a singer, an event organiser, and the person who organises the charity drive and the choir at work), though I will link to all the articles that informed this list at the bottom of the page, so that you can delve further if you are interested (I’m sorry, but referencing often takes longer than the post itself, and December is a busy month for me).

Category: politics (Page 13 of 42)

Victorian State Election 2018 – Meet the Australian Country Party/Give it Back!

Victorian State Election 2018 – Meet the Aussie Battler Party!

Victorian State Election 2018 – Meet the Animal Justice Party!

Victorian State Election – And we’re off!

Post-Election Blues…

Wentworth, or, How to Hang a Parliament

A new Prime Minister – Lest we forget what he stands for

No, but seriously, what the hell is going on in Australian politics this week?

On 2017, national identity, fear, and hope

The sky is not falling: How marriage has changed in Australia over the last two and a bit centuries

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