An Opinionated Guide to the 2022 Victorian Senate Election

Merger of Sex Party & Cyclists Party.

Economic left, socially libertarian.

• Reduce tax exemptions for religions
• Four day working week trial
• Paid Parental Leave @ 80% of regular pay capped at 70k
• Free childcare
• Decriminalise drugs, legalise marijuana
• More on climate

Anti vax/conspiracy party headed by ex-Neighbours actor most famous recently for going viral protesting at an op shop that was following government covid restrictions and being schooled by a homeless woman sticking up for the work the Salvation Army do

• Without cash we'll be Communist China
• The government is going to put you in prison if your kid doesn't have a sex change
• The globalists are going to control everything
• We can't trust the "science" (scare quotes!)

Centrist party that held the balance of power on & off in the senate for 20 years until they didn't block the GST and outraged supporters decamped to the greens.

Policy platform is voted on by members & has moved a bit further to the left since then but still more pragmatic than ideological

• No nuclear subs
• Address climate change
• Don't deport criminals
• More funding for healthcare, education etc
• No EV or driver's license fees; instead 0.7% electricity tax

The current government.

An unholy union of inner urban liberals, hardline conservatives, accounting executives LARPing as coal miners and pork-barelling inbred tomatoes knocking up their staff.

• We saved you during covid
• Lowest unemployment since 1974
• Dog whistling about trans people
• Carbon neutral by 2050. But that might change depending on whether you're in a National Party or a Teal Independent electorate.
• Use your superannuation to help drive housing prices higher
• Don't talk about the NBN. Or female staffers.

Legalise Cannabis.

• Legalise Cannabis. That's quite explicitly their only policy

Interventionist government greens opposed to overpopulation. Which means no immigration.

• Cap Australian population at 30 million
• Citizen-initiated referenda
• GDP is a bad way to measure things
• Cap foreign ownership
• Renegotiate all free trade agreements
• Government guaranteed jobs

A slightly more right version of the Liberal party

• No covid mandates
• Support veterans
• Nuclear Power Plants ("our proposed model ... is ... France")
• Water down gun laws
• Stronger anti-drug laws, including drug testing for their own staffers
• Anti-abortion -- but not an explicit outright ban, just make it harder to access and push people towards adoption

Personality-based party from ex-A Current Affair host.

One of only 2 parties to get both Labor and Liberal preferences

• Tough on crime, especially paedophiles
• Animal rights
• Voluntary dying
• Family Court lawyers suck
• Trains for rural areas

Animal rights party

Everything relates to animal rights, eg their education policies are all about teaching students to love and respect animals.

• Don't do anything to harm animals
• Don't kill feral animals
• Jobs Guarantee & Universal Basic Income
• No defence policy. But they have a Wombats policy!

Alternate universe version of the Greens.

Seem slightly happier with capitalism than the Greens (eg happy to do an ETS)

• Lots of generally left policies
• Yes to Emissions Trading Scheme
• Prevent privatisation of Medicare or NBN
• 100% renewable energy by 2025

The opposition.

After an ambitious (and losing) policy agenda in 2019 they've now settled on the strategy of "copy the Liberal party, but be just slightly more progressive in order to get preference flows"

Key advertising message is that their leader is not Scott Morrison.

• Not the liberals
• Carbon neutral by 2050. But this time they definitely mean it
• Free childcare
• Finish the NBN properly

Mining billionaire Clive Palmer's way of spending $80m to influence the election

A grab bag of populist policies that he thinks will appeal to enough people to give him some clout. Some policies are the complete opposite of those he took to the 2019 election.

Celebrity candidate is ex-Liberal ivermectin spokesperson/anti-vaxxer Craig "renewable energy will kill people" Kelly who thinks that climate change doesn't exist. He also doesn't realise that if you're going to use a 100 year old photo as evidence that sea levels aren't rising you might want to check first whether one comparison photo was taken a high tide and another at low tide.

• Tax iron ore exports (but not all mining exports -- that might impact Palmer personally)
• Cap home loans at 3% (not explained how exactly this harebrained scheme could work)
• Mobile phone SMS spam is fine if it comes from the UAP
• Superannuation is not allowed to invest overseas and must bring all capital back onshore (in the running for the single dumbest economic policy this year)
• Nuclear power
• No more FBT
• No lockdowns or movement restrictions in pandemics. Ivermectin is good
• Freedom is good. Unless you're a social media company in which case the government will ban you from taking down Nazi content

End capitalism

Like the Victorian Socialists but not as committed

• Overthrow the capitalist system and replace with a democratic socialist society
• Nationalise mines, banks, energy companies under workers' control
• Big increases in taxes, big increases in govt services

Wanna-be libertarians opposed to big companies and vaccines, with policies all over the place

• Big companies are bad, break them up and control them
• Tax breaks for companies with high employee ownership
• Hemp is the main answer to environmental problems
• No lockdowns/vaccines/border closures etc
• Australia is unapolagetically Christian. But no offense to other religions
• Animals are (almost) people too
• Bring back corporal punishment
• "Diametrically opposed to ... late-term abortion" (notably silent about other trimesters other than that we should "protect life")
• "Education is about the expansion of knowledge and developing one’s ability to think critically". And that means banning any discussions of gender
• In favour of STEAM [sic] education
• Abolish mandatory superannuation
• Dig up gold and sell it at a 30% discount to the US in exchange for nuclear weapons (!!!)
• Go back on the gold standard

Shooting and fishing and pseudo-libertarians.

Lots of ranting against covid policies that no longer exist

• Develop nuclear weapons & delivery systems to stop China (are these parties copying each other's homework?)
• No vaccine mandates -- unless from your employer
• Climate scientists are "extremist groups", no carbon restrictions
• Government intervention to stop big business' market dominance
• More guns. Also make it easier to claim self-defence when shooting people
• No marine parks, allow fishing anywhere, protectionism for the fishing industry
• More mines & fracking but restrict Natural Gas exports
• Nuclear power
• Allow commercial use of national parks

Personality-based party most famous for constant infighting and regular meme production: please explain", I don't like it", we are in danger of being swamped by Asians, testing the patience of Rear Admirals at Senate Committees, rejecting Halal snackpacks, telling Aboriginals that it's "good to see that you're actually, you know ... working, I don't hate asians, I just don't want to see Australia become asianised, "I haven't flip-flopped. I said no originally, then I said yes. Then I have said no, and I've stuck to it."

• No lockdowns. Anti vaxxer: "I'm not putting that shit in my body". But happy to take Ivermectin instead
• No vaccination "discrimination" from any government or organisation (notably including health insurance premiums)

Citizens Electoral Council renamed.

Anti-globalisation followers of Lyndon LaRouche, who saw plenty of international conspiracies and rarely met a problem that nationalisation of 20th century industries couldn't fix.

For good measure he also threw in a bunch of conspiracy theories (eg the Queen controls the international drug trade. And our politics behind the scenes. Doesn't hate jews, just jewish bankers who control the world)

Surpsisingly positive towards China.

• Create a national bank & break up the existing banks
• Create a national mining company financed by the above bank
• 0.1% financial transaction tax
• Climate change is a hoax, but build nuclear plants anyway because of coal mining accidents.
• Lots of tariffs
• Lots of government infrastructure projects
• Government intervention in agriculture markets (inc some very random and specific things like fertilizer price controls)

Actually Reignite Democracy Australia, but they couldn't get enough members to be a registered party.

Basically every stereotypically alt-right policy you would expect.

Two Facebook heroes from the fight against the now-finished covid lockdowns still running on an anti-lockdown platform.

Most famous is failed reality TV hopeful Monica Smit who publicly violated covid rules and then live streamed her arrest as part of her "independent news" show. She deliberately refused bail and then appealed to anti-lockdowners' sense of injustice. The true believers dug deep and gave her $300k in donations to offset her (pro bono) "legal fees".

Apart from thinking their feelings create medical reality, they're also not too good with facts (eg "Australians are among the most heavily taxed in the world" -- actually we're in the lowest 25% of industrialised countries)

• End the (already-ended) lockdowns. Remove all government powers relating to pandemics
• Subsidise Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine and whatever else their Facebook group decides is a cure for covid
• Any member of the public can start impeachment proceedings against MPs
• Elections for anyone who might have crossed them during the pandemic (Governor General, Governors, Judges and CMOs)
• Cut back on free trade
• Cut back on environmental regulations
• More culture war / anti trans posturing
• More coal, more nuclear plants
• "Separation of State and Media". By which they mean forcing social media companies to carry speech under terms that the government sets.
• More guns, including at school for years 10-12

Merger of five micro parties. Priority is evidence-based policies.

The Reason party if they had a UBI.

• No nuclear power. Unless it's fusion
• Don't privatise natural monopolies or essential services (health care, education, job services)
• Stronger media diversity laws
• Vaccine mandates for health/aged care workers
• Drug legalisation (copy Portugal)
• Optional voting from 16yo
• UBI of $26k/year, flat tax rate, top-up payments for disadvantaged
• 10 year transition to zero carbon, then negative carbon to offset past emissions
• Double science/research funding
• Stop all fossil fuel extraction within 2 years (why will it take 10 years to net zero carbon then?)

A Teal Independent for the senate.

Only has policy statements in limited areas.

• Action on climate change
• Anti-corruption commission
• Support NDIS recipients, indigenous australians
• Disaster planning
• Be non-partisan

The third largest party.

Internally split between the "hard greens" who won't compromise and the pragmatists.

Mostly the green left policy positions you would expect.

• Minimum tax rate for top 1% of individuals, 40% super tax on Company profits above $100m
• Transparency in corporate structures & tax rulings
• A government-owned electricity retailer to compete with private retailers
• Allow dual nationality MPs
• Anti-racism training for MPs (does ensuring every Greens senate candidate in Victoria is a certain race count as racism? culture war to follow)
• 26 weeks of paid parental leave at 100% of the carer's wage
• Wipe student debt, make uni/tafe free
• 1 million govt funded homes, shared ownership scheme for first home owners
• Ban hate speech
• End horse/greyhound racing
• Ban mining & resource Co donations to political parties

Party headed by Rob Culleton, ex-One Nation who was elected to the senate in WA before a criminal conviction got him kicked out.

I cannot stress enough how utterly stupid and incoherent the policies here are. They make UAP's look great.

This is exactly what you would expect if a baby boomer sovereign citizen anti vaxxer who feels threatened by change was to write a policy platform based on everything he learned from his conspiracy minded Facebook feed.

I started summarising their policies but ran into the usual problem trying to address cargo-cult sovereign citizen thinking: they have literally no idea at all how our legal system works so you have to start from first principles to explain why their theories are so far off base that they're not even wrong. I cannot summarise most of their policies because there's no rational policy to make sense of. If they get anywhere near power it truly will be the Darkest Timeline. I did what I could with the policies that could be distilled.

• More guns
• No vaccines
• Climate change is a hoax, but they support "true renewable energy" anyway
• Early education of children should start when the mother is 6mo pregnant (!?)
• Engineers & nurses shouldn't go to uni, they should learn on the job and the ideal age for vocational training is to leave school at 15-16, "an age receptive to discipline and learning"
• Government setting of fuel prices and forced reduction of propane prices to encourage use by trucks
• No fracking, higher resource extraction royalties and ban uranium exports "at this time"
• Some random and surprisingly specific trucking regulations because "Rob Culleton use [sic] to own his own fleet of trucks"
• Zero net immigration, and some completely unworkable asylum processing policies
• Strong on animal rights. Someone different wrote this section, it has a coherent train of thought and correct grammar
• There's plenty more in this goldmine, but there's not enough cyanide on earth to extract it all

The party for those who long to return to 1890s government. Anything the government does other than defence and the justice system is tyranny. (Particularly defamation cases brought by Greens senators!)

Really should be called Libertarians but that name was taken, so they chose something close enough to one of the major parties that uninformed people would be confused but different enough to survive Howard's attempt to force them to change their name in 2006.

Libertarianism often turns into a faith-based ideology and if science ever conflicts with their beliefs then the science must be wrong; thus covid is "no worse than the flu" and climate change isn't real.

Despite their radical policies, have demonstrated a propensity to negotiate compromises when actually elected and have both labor and liberal preferences

• No government funding for schools, childcare, ABC, SBS or paid parental leave
• Completely silent on healthcare, although their previous senator advocated for private healthcare savings funds instead of government funded healthcare
• HECS is ok, but it should cover the full cost of universities (no more govt subsidies)
• No cash bans (Don't they know that privately issued money was common in the 19th century? Why are they accepting government issued currency at all?)
• Nuclear powerplants
• No more minimum wage
• No more licensing or certifications
• No more trading hour restrictions (this is somehow good for mum & dad retailers)
• Allow small businesses to ignore eg food safety regulations as long as they put a sign up in your store
• More guns
• Employers should be able to fire employees without needing a reason
• No more regulations on insurers or banks, also no more bank deposit guarantees
• No govt funding for election campaigns
• No government vaccine mandates. Employer mandates are ok
• No more lockdowns
• Govt out of private affairs: same-sex marriage, repeal drug laws, allow assisted suicide
• The Laffer Curve peak is at 20%, so we need a flat 20% tax. In their fantasy land this will be revenue neutral (because almost every economist in the world is wrong: the LDP's modelling says it will work, and Reagan/Stockman's failed experiment in the 80s doesn't count because reasons). While almost all of the savings would flow to the rich, this is a good thing.

The party for people who Did My Medical Research on Facebook

For your stereotypical Byron Bay hippie

• Anti-vaxxers
• Anti-fluoride
• Medicare funding for healing crystals, reiki, shiatsu, cupping, homeopathy and anything else that experiments demonstrate don't work
• GMO is bad, organic good
• The WHO is evil; also "investigate the negative legislative impact of Australia's membership of the United Nations"
• Anti-abortion (sort of: they want to remove the section designed to allow late-term abortions if the mother or twin's life is at risk)
• Pesticides, insecticides, herbicides are bad
• Mining and fracking is bad
• 5G towers are bad
• Encourage people to subscribe to newsletters and forums
• Alternative and home schooling is good
• Stop being mean to animals

The serious communists. Used to be the Socialist Equality party but ran out of members.

They "stand on the lessons of the political fight waged by Leon Trotsky" and are "irreconcilably opposed to every other party", including the "pseudo-left" Socialist Alliance and Victorian Socialists

• Overthrow the capitalist system
• True believer Trotskyists: communism would have worked if it wasn't for Stalin ruining everything

End capitalism

Like Socialist Alliance but with more nationalisation & taxation

• Overthrow the capitalist system
• Stick with covid-zero (unclear if their policy is just out of date or they're still going with it)
• Emergency rollout of vaccines (yeah, when was this written?)
• Nationalise all banks, transport, communications, energy sectors
• Big taxes (up to 90%) on income
• Really big (up to 99%) taxes on millionaires starting at $10m