Vic State Election

[Culprit]

[HAL]

Oh. Not one person?

[swoop42]

[David]

If you’re voting below the line (and you really should), you’ll want to know who the microparties are and what they stand for (and what else to do once you’ve put the Libs last). I’ve prepared a handy, totally non-partisan () guide to who they are and what they stand for.

MINOR PROGRESSIVE PARTIES:

Greens: They remain the most effective progressive force in the state and the country, and that's something to cherish. Ignore the accusations from true believers that they're bourgeois sell-outs; their platform is as unashamedly progressive as ever, and they are certainly the only chance of any serious left-wing agenda getting any traction on a national level. I'm choosing to give my top preference to a smaller progressive party, but I otherwise think it's important that as many Greens as possible get re-elected this time around.

Fiona Patten's Reason Party: The (perhaps questionably!) rebranded Sex Party. Why, oh why, did they change their name? Anyway, I am a huge fan of these guys, and Patten has achieved a great deal of impressive stuff in her first term in the upper house (including euthanasia, abortion clinic exclusion zones and safe injecting rooms), and they're the only party that consistently supports sex worker rights and also have by far the most progressive criminal justice agenda. Will get my top vote in the upper house.

Victorian Socialists: An umbrella party of various socialist groups with long-time Yarra councillor Stephen Jolly as their figurehead. It would be amazing to have a socialist in a deal-making position in the upper house, but I hesitate a little with these guys because, while their policies all sound great, some of them seem a little utopian (free public transport for all, for instance). Perhaps a more orthodox option for left-leaning voters, but do they have the pragmatic political skill of Patten or the Greens? I'll have them in my top three and I certainly think all progressives should have them at or near the top of their ballots, but if it comes down to Jolly vs Patten for the last Legislative Council seat I'd prefer the latter.

MINOR RIGHT-WING PARTIES:

Australian Country Party: Perhaps the least odious of this bunch, although they have an anti-Safe Schools rant in their key policies. Mostly concerned with better deals for farmers, etc., with a little bit of right-wing culture-warrior stuff thrown in.

Labour DLP: May as well rebrand themselves as the 'Catholic Small-Business Party', because that pretty much sums it up. Hardcore anti-abortion (perhaps the most so of any party standing in this election; oddly, all of the other Christian minor parties seem to have disappeared – maybe same-sex marriage finally killed them!?) and pro-business, but will sometimes offer a sensible policy or two around mental health funding or workers' rights.

Australian Liberty Alliance: You know how I said put the Liberals last? Actually, maybe put them second-last, because you'll want these guys holding up your ballot paper: the party for polo shirts, sunglasses and racism, which thinks we already are (or very soon will be) a Sharia state, reckons homosexuality is decadent and probably has a copy of Mein Kampf close by (just for research, you know).

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers: Right-wing rural culture warriors who've actually achieved some electoral success in various states, which is a great pity. They really like guns, as the name suggests, and hate the Animal Justice Party + Greens. Not the most extreme group out there, but they still have no redeeming features whatsoever.

Liberal Democrats: Easy to hate, and give us ample reason to, but credit where credit's due: they've consistently opposed Peter Dutton et al's Orwellian "national security" overreach, and occasionally back the odd progressive cause. But you know, they also want us to all have guns, and I think it's possible that they're all card-carrying MRAs now. I think there are (precisely five?) worse parties on the ballot, but put them where you see fit.

SINGLE-ISSUE / 'CAUSE' PARTIES:

Voluntary Euthanasia: What it says on the tin, more or less. I've always found their cause a fairly sensible and inoffensive one (and one that even the Greens and Labor have sometimes been reluctant to pursue), so will give them a fairly high preference.

Animal Justice Party: A good party if you're passionate about animal rights, and their other policies are mostly progressive. I have to admit that animal liberation is a fair way down my list of pet progressive causes, but I have no beef with these guys. (I'll show myself out.)

Aussie Battler Party: Okay so I looked at their website a week ago, and they were all about helping the homeless and mental illness funding and stuff. Sounds good and all fairly inoffensive, I thought! Anyway, turns out that they’re far-right ogres who want to put immigrants on probation, think Safe Schools is a plot to turn the frogs gay and so on. The party name should have tipped me off...

Sustainable Party: A population (and, thus, immigration) restriction party, but one that explicitly tries to distance itself from xenophobia (and their refugee policy is probably somewhere slightly to the left of Labor, not that that's anything to hang one's hat on). People were calling them racist a few years back, but, I don't know, are we cool with that now that Jacinda Ardern's effectively gone down that path in NZ? Depending on where you stand on that issue, the rest seems fairly centrist.

Derryn Hinch's Justice Party: I could write a whole essay on these guys (actually, I already have), but the deal is this: 80% of their policies aren't that bad, in some cases even progressive-leaning, and it can be easy to think that maybe crazy old uncle Derryn isn't that bad after all. But their criminal justice policies are $£$%^%%$ terrible, and they are both their priority and the one and only reason that the party exists: to extend prison sentences, destroy rehabilitation programs and override judicial discretion. Hinch hasn't been able to achieve a great deal in this regard so far in the Senate, but state government is where a lot of criminal justice policy is actually carried out, and the idea of these guys in some balance-of-power situation sends chills down my spine.

Hudson 4 North Victoria: A party structured around a random independent, Josh Hudson, who is an Executive Corporate Services Manager. His group basically sells itself a regional issues party for Bendigo and beyond, though Antony Green has fairly reasonably taken a dig at them for running candidates in metropolitan legislative council areas like my own. Fair question: what's that all about? The policy list is what you'd expect for a party like this: better sports and recreation facilities, grassroots representation, better targeted health/education funding for the region etc. etc. Could just be a vanity project, a preference-harvesting operation, or maybe Hudson's a quality independent in the making. Safe to say we'll never find out.

Transport Matters Party: Nope, no bullet trains here – this is the party for angry Taxi drivers who hate Uber. This is a tricky one for me, because I'm not a great fan of the gig economy either, but then I can't say I feel overly sorry for 13 Cabs and co. losing their monopoly. A plague on both their houses.

Health Australia Party: Just your everyday friendly naturopaths, who want to give you some Rescue Remedy, a shiatsu massage and ... their latest research on why you should not vaccinate your kids. Yikes! To be fair, they seem to have toned down the anti-vaxx stuff lately, but they do still think that fluoridation is killing us. And ... I dunno. You do you.

[HAL]

What happened to them?

[think positive]

And that’s why I hate the queues! Those $£$%^%%$ annoying read this waste of paper and resources pamphlets, how many people actually change their mind in the queue?? Just **** off I don’t want to even respond with no Thankyou! And well I’m too polite for **** off! I already know what I’m ticking, you want to change my mind, change yours on whatever put me off ticking your box. It’s not who I want, it’s who I don’t want.

(That’s how trump got voted in too)

[Jezza]

Thanks for outlining all the parties, David, despite the obvious bias.

I look forward to putting the Victorian Socialists and Greens last

[David]

No worries, Jezza! I was hoping that people of different political persuasions would be able to find some use in it.

[K]

David, you'll be pleased to know that, as an expression of his passion, Jezza intends to write "Go Pies!" on his ballot paper.

[David]

That’s still formal, isn’t it?

[Culprit]

Now the LNP want to bring in SS Type Boot camps for young offenders. That's never worked anywhere.

All their eggs in the Crime basket and hoping they are on a winner.

[Wokko]

SS? It's pretty ignorant and offensive to liken a boot camp to the Schutzstaffel.

A boot camp is meant to be an alternative to prison or just releasing these kids back into their shithouse environments like our current crop of activist judges like to do. Not sure on the merits of the idea, but the whole 'Nazi' thing is getting pretty tired.

[Dave The Man]

I don't Believe the Promises by Pollies Pr-Election as it's just Talk and not much else

[stui magpie]

The whole Boot Camp thing is tired and won't fly.

In the absence of details, the concept is hard physical training and enforced discipline. The term is used freely by personal trainers as a name for exercise groups but the origin I believe is from the US Marines.

It just sounds like a version of prison with enforced exercise, but I can't see it could have any teeth. What do you do with a 17 year old who says "far Kew" to participating once they're there?

Deprive them of food?
Put them in solitary?
Shoot them?

The concept of teenagers involuntarily participating in such things as a way to turn them into worthwhile citizens is straight from the 1950's and just won't work in 2018.

[Wokko]