The FREE Party offers an ethical, fact and reason based alternative to Australia's party political duopoly, says Roger Brisbane.
WITH A Federal election looming, is democracy is alive and well, or has it been subverted by ideology, polls, personalities and factional interests?
Politicians in Australia are largely partisan; they often represent their parties before their constituents whilst maintaining the myth of accountability, that we can vote them out at the next election — but can we?
When an expert panel is set up to review all the evidence and formulate recommendations in the best interest of the country, why are their recommendations so often ignored? Marriage equality, drug law reform, education funding and tax reform to name a few.
Spin, lies, deception and vested interests can be hidden behind a veil of personality politics. But how can we affect meaningful change?
Notwithstanding revolution (that we shall discount out of hand), there are a few ways to instigate policy change in Australia's domestic political scene, the most obvious being:
- Grassroots movements.
- Lobbying existing political parties.
- Joining a political party and/or changing it from within.
- Facts and evidence informing policy making;
- Reason, unbiased and professionally informed, is used to assess policy;
- Ethics of policy is assessed to ensure outcomes of greatest good / least harm; and
- Engagement of policy in the public arena where interested parties and relevant professionals are invited to comment.
Many people have tried the path of joining the minor and major parties to affect change within them. Some are satisfied with the party representing part of their policy opinion; some find policy compromises excessive, it being difficult and slow to affect change; and some become part of the party machine. I challenge you to find a party whose policies you can agree with 100 per cent, but should we be satisfied with 50 per cent?
I posit that affecting change is more effective and rapid when driven from the top than the bottom, particularly if the top is not so much about personality as facts, reason, ethics and engagement. I contend that joining a political party is the most effective way of affecting change in Australia's political landscape. I encourage all to research and join a party, any party, that you feel best represents your political positions, and if there are things you don't agree with, research the topic and make them known.
Many of us have tried some or all of these these options and met with futile dissatisfaction. My personal discovery is that I was yearning for a post-ideological version of policy formation and political discourse.
In the absence of a party that I could support without compromising my principles, a group of us founded the FREE Party Australia.
FREE Party stands for:
If, like us, you want policy created transparently using the best science and evidence available and you’re interested in Facts, Reason, Ethics and Engagement as the drivers of policy, FREE Party Australia may be the realistic alternative you’re looking for. We have a broad policy platform and is free to join.
We're serious about better policy for Australia and we want your help. We want your voice. We want your support. We need members.
Membership can be anything from “quiet membership” – simply supporting our aims and objectives so that we can share our voice – to being involved in administration or even standing as a candidate. When we have the required numbers, we’ll be calling for nominations for all administrative positions within the party.
Find out more about the FREE party here.
We have less than 2 weeks to get the 500+ members we need to register a political party with the AEC, so we’re asking you to consider joining now — remember, it’s FREE.
Best regards,
Roger C Brisbane
admin@freepartyaustralia.org
http://www.freepartyaustralia.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
