#ausvotes22

Tomorrow, 21 May, is election day. If you are unsure who all these parties are on your ballot, I’m here for you. I’ve reviewed all parties registered with the Australian Electoral Commission except for the most widely known ones: Labor, Greens, One Nation, and the Liberal/National coalition parties. I have also reviewed all independent candidates in Western Australia and a selection of others from around the country, including a number who represent unregistered parties.

You will get two ballots. The smaller green one is for the House of Representatives, the lower house; whichever party/ies command a majority on the floor of the House forms government. You must number EVERY SQUARE on the small green ballot for the House. Ignore the “no preference” in the recommendations below; that applies only to the Senate.Many seats have independent candidates; make sure you look into them as they vary substantially in their platforms and competence. View your candidates here.

The larger white ballot is for the Senate, the upper house. This is the house of review. We are voting for roughly half the Senate, as state senators serve six-year terms. This means each state elects six senators, requiring 14.3% of the vote to be elected; each territory elects just two (who serve terms aligned with the House), requiring 33.3% of the vote to be elected. On the Senate ballot you can vote above the line for PARTIES or below the line for INDIVIDUALS. Above the line you must give at least six preferences; below the line you must give at least twelve; beyond this point, you can do what you like. You can stop preferencing entirely or you give as many more preferences as you want. I recommend you preference as far as possible because this increases the power of your vote.

I posted a cheat sheet with my recommended preference categories earlier. If you want to vote below the line in the Senate, you can make your own custom How to Vote card by using this site. Print it off and take it into the booth with you! And do you need to find your nearest democracy sausage? This website has you covered.

If you want my pithy takes rather than full reviews, see this Twitter thread. If you want NSW-focused reviews, see b_auspol; if you want Victorian-focused reviews, see Something for Cate; if you want a Tasmanian overview, see this blog entry by Kevin Bonham.

The index below is alphabetised and ignores “the” at the start of a name (the AEC’s party register alphabetises parties without ignoring “the”). If a party has a Senate candidate in a state, I have named that state—i.e. wherever you live in the state, you can preference this party on your Senate ballot. It might or might not have lower-house candidates in that state too. I have only named a lower-house electorate if a party is standing a candidate there but has no Senate candidates in that state. If the party name is in the form of “party name—state Group XYZ”, this means it is an unregistered party that you will find in column XYZ of that state’s Senate ballot.

Key: party name (ideology / where running)

Animal Justice Party (animal rights / all states + ACT)

Australian Christians (Christian fundamentalism / WA)

Australian Citizens Party (conspiracy theorists / NSW, NT, QLD, SA, WA, VIC)

Australian Democrats (centre-left / NSW, QLD, SA, WA, VIC)

Australian Family Party—SA Group E (Christian fundamentalism / SA)

Australian Federation Party (antivax lunar right / all states)

Australia One (antivax lunar right / see entry for seats in NSW, QLD, SA, VIC)

Australian Progressives (centre-left / ACT, VIC, Ryan [QLD], Sturt [SA])

Australian Values Party (right-wing veterans’ rights / NSW, QLD, VIC, WA)

Centre Alliance (centrism / Mayo [SA])

David Pocock (green social liberalism / ACT)

Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party (tough-on-crime cult of personality / VIC)

Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance (Sinophobic centre-left stupol / QLD, SA, Bennelong [NSW])

Federal ICAC Now (single issue / NSW, QLD, WA)

FUSION: Science, Pirate, Secular, Climate Emergency (centre-left / NSW, QLD, SA, VIC, WA)

The Great Australian Party (sovereign citizens / NSW, NT, QLD, SA, VIC, WA)

Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia (Indigenous rights / NSW, QLD)

Informed Medical Options Party (antivax / all states + ACT)

James Bond (left-leaning joke candidate / VIC)

Jacqui Lambie Network (centre-right populism / TAS)

Katter’s Australian Party (cult of personality / QLD)

Kim for Canberra (left-leaning social progressivism / ACT)

Legalise Cannabis Australia (single issue / all states and territories)

Liberal Democratic Party (right-libertarian / all states and territories)

The Liberty Party of Australia—ungrouped independent Glenn Floyd (fringe antivax even by antivaxxer standards / VIC)

The Local Party (centrism / SA and TAS)

Max Dicks (left-wing / VIC)

Nick Xenophon—SA Group O (centrism / SA)

No Mandatory Vaccination Party—WA Group P (antivax / WA)

Reason Australia (centre-left civil libertarian / NSW, QLD, VIC)

Reignite Democracy Australia—VIC Group R (antivax far-right / VIC and see entry for sympathetic indies in all states)

Rex Patrick Team (centrism / SA)

Seniors United Party of Australia (right-wing seniors’ rights / NSW, WA)

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (anti-environmentalist gun nuts / NSW, TAS, VIC, Maranoa [QLD])

The Silent Majority—QLD Group A (really niche right-wing / QLD)

Social Justice Independents—WA Group K (left-wing / WA)

Socialist Alliance (socialism / NSW, QLD, VIC, WA)

Socialist Equality Party—NSW Group F, QLD Group I, VIC Group Y (cantankerous socialists / NSW, QLD, VIC)

Sustainable Australia Party–Stop Overdevelopment/Corruption (anti-immigration NIMBYism / all states and territories)

Teal Independents (mostly centre but variation / NSW, SA, VIC, TAS, WA)

TNL aka The New Liberals (social liberalism and Modern Monetary Theory / NSW, QLD, Sturt [SA], Aston and Hawke [VIC])

United Australia Party (antivax far-right populism / all states and territories)

Victorian Socialists (socialism / VIC)

Ungrouped independent candidates for the Senate in Western Australia (too little info or antivax or otherwise problematic)

Running where: VIC

Because these are both ungrouped independent candidates, you can only give them a preference if you vote below the line

I do not have time to review all twelve(!) people standing as ungrouped independents for the Senate in Victoria. Happily, Something for Cate has you covered there. I have previously reviewed Glenn Floyd of the unregistered Liberty Party. Joe Toscano, anarchist and serial candidate, is running again; I reviewed him all the way back in 2013.

But I absolutely cannot resist writing reviews of the two candidates with the best names on any ballot in the entire country.

James Bond (website)

The name’s Bond, Senator James Bond. Or at least that’s what he hopes to be able to say. For now the name is Bond, Dr James Bond: his about page says he holds a PhD in geography and legal studies. He completely leans into the humour of his name: his campaign launch video is chock-full of references to the James Bond films. He urges you to vote for him because he’s on a top-secret mission and a crucial part of that is being elected as an Australian Senator, because a “bad guy” (cue image of Morrison) is “going to explode the world, probably your place too”. If you don’t vote for him, he’ll be “shaken… but not stirred”.

Yes, this is a bit of a piss-take, but he's not one of those joke candidates without an platform. Of his seven policies—sorry, “007 policies”—the leading one is a Boomer Tax. Yep, a Boomer Tax. He defines this as an umbrella term for abolishing negative gearing and halving the capital gains tax discount, in order to make it easier for first-home buyers to enter the market and boost government revenue. Under other subheadings (actually six, not seven), he indicates support for more wildlife sanctuaries, an emissions trading scheme, net zero by 2035, a wage increase for those in nursing and childcare, and equity and respect for all genders (yes, an openly trans-friendly candidate). Bond states that a federal ICAC is “a no brainer and well overdue … Don’t let the Prime Minister gaslight the country into thinking that we dont need a federal ICAC.” Honestly I wish other parties would be this straightforward and to-the-point.

My recommendation: He might be a joke candidate, but he deserves a decent or good preference depending on the extent to which you appreciate his comedy (it's not always high-brow).

Max Dicks (website)

Max is fully aware he has the funniest name on the ballot, but he also has a serious platform. Every clip I’ve watched has made me think he seems like a good guy and that he badly needs to have a running mate next time so that he can have a square above the line. His climate policy is refreshingly straightforward: “climate action—come on guys”. He takes the need for a more substantial response as simply a given. He supports a properly funded NDIS, better funding for research (particularly the CSIRO), and more public transport. He demands a federal ICAC and greater government transparency with one of the best calls to action I’ve seen from any party on this topic: “Trust is something built. Help me start building.”

He’s also concerned with improving voter literacy, which as a below-the-line candidate is obviously a practical concern for him; given I’m writing this blog, you can imagine it’s something I am passionate about too. The only thing I was lukewarm about—besides the fact a lot of his “policies” are motherhood statements, which is fairly inevitable for an ungrouped indie—is that he would prefer to make cars safer rather than reduce speed limits. I don’t quibble with safer cars, but this isn’t an “either/or”, it’s a “both/and” if we want streets with good multi-modal choices that are safe for all users. (I suppose this is the point where he directs me to his “think I'm a dick” page: “Unfortunately I can’t be everything you might like in a politician”, so he gives tips to “help you on your journey into politics”, although he advises that “It's not cheap and it's sometimes a rough time, so think wisely.”)

Oh yeah, and he also has a theme song. It is as good as you would expect. “If you are sick and tired of members screwin’ politics / well, now it’s time for Dicks!”

Running where: Group A (Len Harris and Debra Yuille) on the QLD Senate ballot

Prior reviews: None, this is a new (and unregistered) party

What do you expect when you see two grouped independents with a website under the unregistered party name The Silent Majority? You might expect they are racist cranks claiming to bravely say what you allegedly think. You might also assume they are antivaxxers, a la Group P in WA being the No Mandatory Vaccination Party. Now, both are probably true, but what we have here is simultaneously the most boring and baffling unregistered party I’ve encountered so far.

Lead candidate Len Harris was formerly a Senator for One Nation, 1999–2005, and he has been motivated to seek a return because of… property deeds of ownership. No, really. He's going around the state whipping up anxiety among the homeowners who will listen to him too.

In the past decade, Australia’s states and territories have shifted their property conveyancing from paper systems to online conveyancing via each state and territory adopting an Electronic Conveying National Law. This follows the practice of jurisdictions overseas. It means that paper title deeds are now of historical value only and the legal deed is kept, communicated, and exchanged electronically. Now, admittedly, I neither know an awful lot about this nor does it interest me an awful lot, but it’s something industry groups in banking and law seem to think is a good idea—for the legal sector, for instance, documents are now simpler and more accurate, and communication delays and resultant miscommunications are largely obviated. The sky certainly has not fallen in and people aren't suddenly finding they are landless.

Len Harris, however, has decided that the Queensland government, in implementing this system, has “cancelled all title deeds” and that Queenslanders now have “no legal way of providing homeownership documentation”. He’s campaigning so that “we can once again have Guaranteed Deeds of Ownership to our Homes in our own safe custody, which is in our own hands”. Yep, he seems to think that without physical deeds, Queenslanders do not have secure ownership of their own homes.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Sorry Gramps.

Also, The Silent Majority’s other policies suck. Harris's running mate Debra Yuille claims to "live by the Libertarian Creed". The party stands for “libertarians and freedom lovers” who want to permanently abolish pandemic powers, oppose digital ID systems, don’t like genetically modified food, and are anti-abortion. Their how-to-vote card gives the highest preference to covid conspiracists and antivaxxers at the Great Australian Party and Informed Medical Options. They suggest you preference far enough to get to Legalise Cannabis, but not to either of the majors. One of the slogans on the HTV also urges you to “keep cash alive”—yep, here's another example of the conspiracy theory that cash is being banned or eliminated. All in all, it’s a bit of a grab-bag. The Silent Majority’s demands for transparency in government seem to largely come back to the electronic conveyancing thing and a belief that governments have sneakily and with no-one noticing robbed people of security of property ownership.

(I also can’t help suspecting that if you raised native title with Len Harris, you’d immediately get some tirade that people must be secure in their homes or else Indigenous peoples will take their backyard.)

My recommendation: Give Group A (The Silent Majority) a weak or no preference.

Running where: Group E (Bob Day and Pat Amadio) on the SA Senate ballot

Prior reviews: none, this is a new party, but see Family First reviews for federal 2013, VIC 2014, federal 2016

What I said before: “There is not much to like about Fundies First. If you want to see your freedoms wound back and expert opinion dismissed so that a small group of people can entrench their conservative religious views as the limits of what is permissible, then this is the party for you. Otherwise give Fundies First a wide berth.”

What I think this year: I regret to inform you that Bob Day is back. He won election in 2013 as a Family First federal senator—initially thanks to Group Ticket Voting, then he retained his seat in 2016 because of the low quota of the double dissolution. He resigned later that year under a bankruptcy cloud. The High Court ruled in 2017 he was ineligible for election under section 44, so he would’ve been rubbed out even if he had not resigned. His replacement, Lucy Gichuhi, ended up joining the Liberals, but most of the party merged into Cory Bernardi’s now-defunct Australian Conservatives.

The Australian Family Party is, strictly, not a revival of Family First. Some socially-conservative former state Labor MPs in SA got hold of its former database from Cory Bernardi and are registered with that name at state level (if you guessed they’re from the Shoppies, a leading contender for the title of worst trade union, congratulations). So, Bob Day created a new party, the Australian Family Party, which is also registered at state level, and currently has the slogan “putting the family first!” As this party is not registered federally, Day has stood as a grouped independent. Second on his ticket is Pat Amadio, ex-Democratic Labour Party, which in its final iteration before deregistration was simply a conservative “family values” political vehicle too.

So, what’s Bob Day all about? Same old, same old. He’s running on a “family values” campaign that narrowly focuses on the Western nuclear family and Australia’s “Christian heritage”. He’s so hung up on the sanctity of one particular type of conservative nuclear family structure that he’s not simply anti-abortion but also anti-surrogate pregnancy. The policies keep going with what he would restrict or ban: euthanasia, pornography, stem cell research, and so on. He frowns on divorce and he’s keen for a return to single-income families through tax concessions so that wives stay at home raising children—feel that 1950s vibe coming through strongly yet?

The more you read, the more you realise he’s not just a religious ideologue who wants to impose extremely restrictive personal views on everyone, but that he’s also a small-government libertarian. One obvious expression of this is that he’s aligned with the anti-lockdown crowd opposing any public health intervention, despite the fact many of them were necessary prior to the wide uptake of vaccination and some are still beneficial now. He also has strange policies about allowing people to “opt out” of the workplace regulation system to take jobs for under minimum wage and without enterprise bargaining or protection from unfair dismissal. He seems to think this would be a choice freely made to take odd jobs rather than an exploitative practice employers would coerce vulnerable jobseekers to accept. This is a particularly severe delusion given how much gross malpractice goes on despite regulation.

In sum, Bob Day will protect your precious eyes from boobies but he won't protect you from covid or unethical bosses. Priorities, eh?

Oh, and he appears to be the only person left in the country still ranting in support of Group Ticket Voting. He thinks it was a good thing parties could band together to undemocratically determine voter preferences because “minor parties came to arrangements with each other to combine their votes to get ahead of the Greens”. This guy’s really paranoid about the Greens. They’re living rent-free in his head, which I think is lovely.

My recommendation: Give Group E (Australian Family Party) a weak or no preference.

Running where: 6 out of 8 states and territories—not NT or QLD. Most are in specific lower house seats; see full list below.

Prior reviews: None, this is not a party

(This entry is a bit long. The first section covers the rise of the indies this past decade and what they stand for. If you are primarily interested in whether a teal is standing in your seat and a recommendation if so, scroll down to the candidate list and recommendation sections.)

Australia has seen a resurgence in independent politics the past decade. In 2010, the only indies in the House of Representatives were men who had been first elected to public office as Nationals MPs and since left the party. At that year’s election, Andrew Wilkie ran a successful independent campaign for the Division of Denison (now Clark): in a remarkable four-cornered contest, he came third on first preferences and won after the distribution of preferences. Next, in 2013, Cathy McGowan ran an impressive local campaign to unseat Sophie Mirabella, a terminally unpopular Liberal who had steadily turned one of the safest seats in the country into a loss. As a friend with relatives in Indi quipped to me, “every time Mirabella met a voter, she lost a vote”. McGowan in 2019 then successfully handed over to another local indie, Helen Haines, the current Member for Indi, while Zali Steggall defeated Tony Abbott in Warringah. Kerryn Phelps also briefly held Wentworth after winning as an independent at a 2018 by-election but she narrowly lost to Dave Sharma in 2019.

This election, independent campaigns have been especially well organised, receiving significant funds from clean energy activist Simon Holmes à Court’s organisation Climate 200. There are plenty of indies not funded by Climate 200, including a couple of competitive ones (e.g. Dai Le in Fowler, Rob Priestly in Nicholls), but by and large the indies getting attention are those with Climate 200 backing. These indies have become known as the “teal indies” for the colour many use in their branding or as the “climate indies” for their policy focus. Holmes à Court had formerly participated in Liberal Party fundraising activities for Josh Frydenberg, but was expelled after writing an opinion piece in support of closing the Liddell coal-fired power station. He promptly began supporting independent and minor-party candidates with more progressive climate agendas than Liberal MPs.

Because this is not a party as such, the teal indies are a diverse bunch. Some are running on distinctively local issues, and if you are in one of their electorates you probably know them and the issues much better than I do. I would largely define the teals as centre to centre-right. A few clearly lean left (e.g. David Pocock, Kim Rubenstein) while some belong to a lost generation of Liberals: professional women who two decades ago would have been moderate Liberal candidates, but who have been put off by the party’s notorious sexism problems and its inability or refusal to act on climate ()e.g. Allegra Spender, Sophie Scamps, Kate Chaney).

Three issues unite the teals. They want much stronger action on climate change, guided by scientific advice. They want integrity in politics—you can read this as a federal ICAC. And, as implied by the end of the last paragraph, they want gender equity. The specifics of exactly what sort of policies they support on climate, integrity, and gender vary between candidates and each campaign has been resolutely focused on their electorate’s expectations—and on tying incumbent Liberals to Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce, no matter how nice and moderate the local incumbent might be.

Climate 200 has contributed to twenty campaigns this election. Four are candidates from parties I have reviewed: Leanne Minshull of The Local Party (TAS Senate), David Pocock of his eponymous party (ACT Senate), Rebekah Sharkie of the Centre Alliance (Mayo), and Kim Rubenstein of Kim for Canberra (ACT Senate). Of those four, only Sharkie is the incumbent; the other three are challenging for Senate seats. Three more people in receipt of Climate 200 support are incumbent independents who are likely to be re-elected: Helen Haines (Indi), Zali Steggall (Warringah), and Andrew Wilkie (Clark).

The remaining thirteen are independents challenging sitting members for a seat in the House of Representatives. They are varying degrees of competitive. I think Zoe Daniel should win Goldstein over toxic cesspit of a person Tim Wilson, and Monique Ryan (Kooyong), Allegra Spender (Wentworth), and Kylea Tink (North Sydney) are all in strong positions too. I would suggest 2–3 of those four will unseat the incumbent. I am also tipping one other indie, not necessarily a teal, to unseat an incumbent somewhere in the country. There is buzz around Kate Chaney here in the west for Curtin, although I’m not yet persuaded it’s enough to get her over the line. I suspect David Pocock is going to fall just a few percent short of defeating Zed Seselja for the second ACT Senate seat.

The following are the candidates to whom Climate 200 has contributed funds. They are alphabetised by seat contested, which is named in brackets. In square brackets is party affiliation, if they have one. Italicised candidates are sitting incumbents.

ACT: David Pocock (Senate) [eponymous party]; Kim Rubenstein (Senate) [Kim for Canberra]

NSW: Nicolette Boele (Bradfield), Kate Hook (Calare), Caz Heise (Cowper), Georgia Steele (Hughes), Kylea Tink (North Sydney), Hanabeth Luke (Page), Zali Steggall (Warringah), Allegra Spender (Wentworth)

SA: Jo Dyer (Boothby), Rebekah Sharkie (Mayo) [Centre Alliance]

TAS: Andrew Wilkie (Clark), Leanne Minshull (Senate) [Local Party]

VIC: Claire Ferres Miles (Casey), Despi O’Connor (Flinders), Zoe Daniel (Goldstein), Helen Haines (Indi), Monique Ryan (Kooyong), Alex Dyson (Wannon)

WA: Kate Chaney (Curtin)

My recommendation: In all instances I recommend you preference a teal above a Liberal or National candidate and the various far-right crackpots (this favourable recommendation applies to Rob Priestly and Dai Le too). Just how strong a preference you give them will vary based on individual, but it will be generally a decent or good one—especially given how many dire candidates are on some ballots.

I want to go into more detail than I usually do in giving a recommendation, as there are strategic considerations to make in some cases. If your priority is unseating the sitting Liberal, you should ponder who is likely to end up second and third as preferences are distributed. If there are three candidates left in the count and none has 50% (or, in the Senate, none has reached a quota), the third one will be eliminated. and their preferences will decide which of the remaining two wins the seat. Where will their preferences go? If the third candidate is Labor or Green, the easy majority of their preferences will flow to the teal and might get them over the line if the margin is close enough. If the third candidate is a teal, however, some of their voters will likely break back to the Liberals to give the Lib the win ahead of Labor or the Greens.

This means that if your main goal is defeating a Liberal and the count is likely to end up a three-way contest between the Liberal, a teal, and a party candidate you might otherwise vote for, consider your vote very carefully. In such a situation, if you decide that Labor or Green (or another desirable candidate) is likely to finish in the top three but cannot defeat the incumbent Liberal on preferences, while the teal is also likely to finish in the top three and could defeat the incumbent Liberal on preferences, then you might wish to give the teal a better preference than Labor/Green/other-desirable-party. I do not normally recommend tactical voting, and our system is designed to avoid it, but in this case it’s relevant.

Running where: one ungrouped independent in Victoria, Glenn Floyd

Prior reviews: None, this is a new party, although I did briefly review Glenn Floyd's previous tilt in 2016 in my summary of Victorian ungrouped indies

No, this is not the Liberal Party. Nor is it the Liberal Democrats. In fact, it’s not even a party! I don’t just mean that it’s not a registered party. Despite the fact it’s called the “Liberty Party” and has a PDF outlining “Party Principles”, the website for the Liberty Party of Australia proclaims it to be “An ASSOCIATION (Not a Party), Of Australian Totally Independent Federal Senate Candidates, Exposing COVID Lies”.

The punctuation, tone, and content should suggest to you this is not going to be the calmest or most reasonable party you’ve encountered this election cycle. And if you’ve been waiting for some total fruit-loops micro-party entertainment, well, get comfy, because HERE YOU GO.

Who are these “Totally Independent Federal Senate Candidates”? Well it appears there is only one candidate, not multiple people, and he is Glenn Floyd, an ungrouped independent on the Senate ballot for Victoria. The website fails to mention anyone else, although it does not help that every link from the homepage to other sites on their domain—About, News, Q&A and so forth—returns a 404 Not Found error. Good start.

Luckily (or otherwise), there is some indication of this party’s beliefs on the homepage. It begins with a lot of shouting about a “MEDICAL-MAFIA” forcing 7 billion “LETHAL, DANGEROUS VACCINES” on the global population for “EVIL PROFITS”. Not sure how the “MEDICAL-MAFIA” plans to keep making money once the entire planet is dead, but OK. The platform is usual covid conspiracist stuff about ending lockdowns, masks, and closed borders, coupled with a delusion I’ve seen from a few of these types that cash is being banned.

But old mate Floyd doesn’t stop his ranting there. There’s some Sinophobia and global-conspiracy stuff about voiding all arrangements with the UN, WHO, etc. He thinks Australia is no longer a common law jurisdiction and that corporations apparently own government departments (is he muddling privatisation, corporatisation of government organisations, and the public service?). To fix this, he wants to go back to the Australian constitution as it was in 1901. He also wants to end the printing of fiat money and “restore our real treasury and reserve bank and notes until a more sustainable method of currency can be established” (he expresses a suspicion of “international bankers” that is probably anti-Semitic).

It gets better still. Two of the three links on the homepage to a site called vaxrisk also work. And let me tell you, dear appreciator of strange micro-parties and indies, vaxrisk is incredible. One link is a PDF of the party platform. In this, we learn Floyd founded the party in October 2020—he keeps saying party for this "association (not a party)"—because of “the greatest Medical-Mafia fraudulent Ponzi-Scheme Covid-19 HOAX in human history”. I, personally, am curious about these previous lesser “Covid-19 HOAXES”. The platform decries “vaccines and psychotropic neurotoxin drugs that now KILL 80,000 Australians EVERY YEAR!”, linking to another PDF purporting to show ABS data from 2011 that psychiatrists are killing that many people annually. Suffice it to say the stat he uses is cherry-picked, wildly misinterpreted, and poorly sourced.

The other working link from the Liberty Party homepage takes you to the homepage of vaxrisk, which turns out to be Glenn Floyd’s own personal page. And this might be the most unhinged of the lot. Here, he proclaims that he is “THE-UNTOUCHABLE”. It’s clear he’s one of the few Australians yet to be vaccinated: “I will INCINERATE you and your family in your home if you FORCE me to take these LETHAL untested poisons!!!” There are further PDFs of covid ranting. His ultimate demand is to “Get rid of every state premier and the prime minister for DESTROYING our healthy economy !! GET RID OF THEM!!”

This guy clearly needs help, but he’s also provided me with completely unhinged Senate entertainment to fill the void left by John-John Romanous and his No Tax Free Electricity.Com not nominating this time around. Thanks Glenn, now please have a cuppa tea and a lie down, you clearly need one.

My recommendation: Give Glenn Floyd/The Liberty Party of Australia a weak or no preference.

Running where: Group R for the Senate in Victoria, and numerous sympathetic candidates in all states and territories—see below for list of indies

Prior reviews:  None, this is a new party

It’s never a good start when you need a prominent page on your website to beg your supporters not to break electoral law. Reignite Democracy Australia (RDA) failed to understand laws around electoral ad authorisation, got in trouble, and now they have a page urging followers to display an authorisation on all ads. It’s one of the first things you see when you visit the site of the organisation created by anti-vax agitator Monica Smit, who has been charged with incitement over Melbourne lockdown protests last year. Smit has led and spoken at plenty of so-called “freedom” rallies and hung out with Craig Kelly, so you can pretty safely assume her views and character. There are even more unsavoury individuals who’ve been involved with RDA.

RDA sought to register as a political party last year. This turned into a farcical process where they seem to have basically just ghosted the AEC. You can read the AEC’s rejection of their application here. Since then, they proclaimed they would join the United Australia Party, and then walked it back, deciding in February 2022 to be “non-partisan”. Smit is now quite mad at the UAP because some of its how-to-vote cards place the Liberals above other “freedom parties” (aka total cookers) like the Australian Federation Party, Informed Medical Options, or the Great Australian Party. Smit and her partner Morgan Jonas are standing as grouped independents for the Senate in Victoria (Group R), and the RDA now lists a range of ideologically-friendly people on its website—more on that below.

First, you might want to know about RDA’s platform. They pull the usual trick of racist anti-vaxxer groups, claiming to be neither. The second question in their FAQ asks “Is RDA a right-wing, racist, anti-Semitic or white supremacist organisation?” As I’ve said before, if you have to answer such questions prominently, it suggests you are either very bad at communication or the accusation is true. And RDA really are not that bad at communication: they deliberately choose to emphasise “liberty” and “choice” to appear more moderate than conspiracy theorists and have won a large following.

Of course, once you dig into this group and who they associate with, you realise this is just another anti-vax, anti-lockdown, anti-mask, anti-any-public-health-measure-that-might-slightly-inconvenience-me group. They’re the types who’ve disingenuously appropriated “my body, my choice” from women’s rights campaigners to encourage vaccine hesitancy. Their website has pages on how to wiggle out of public health laws and a “save our kids” initiative intended to sow distrust in vaccination for children—grossly irresponsible stuff at the best of times. There is also a business directory so you can patronise all the companies that don’t mind if you get covid. As this Crikey article sets out, RDA has claimed all sorts of things from calling contact tracing unconstitutional through to calling for chief health officers to be tried for crimes against humanity. As is all this isn't bad enough, Smit is virulently transphobic and thinks sex education about diverse gender and sexual identities is "perverted".

The website contains a Candidate Search feature that lists sympathetic candidates. Most are from “freedom” parties with very fringe views about public health, often peddling conspiracy theories and sometimes indulging in violent rhetoric. If you’ve been paying close attention to far-right cookers then you will recognise names. I was surprised to find Gilbert Wilson, Labor candidate in the Division of Wannon (RDA has targeted Daniel Andrews with extreme vitriol!), although he just spruiks the Labor party platform. Likewise, I was not expecting a Fusion Party candidate to crop up on such an anti-science site, but their candidate for the Division of Dobell, Geoff Barnes, is there. He too largely spruiks his party’s policies but his opening about how “obfuscation, misinformation and hidden agendas masquerade as news” will no doubt appeal to the more conspiracist types at RDA.

To have a profile a candidate has to respond to a questionnaire, which asks whether they will support permanent(!) removal of all pandemic powers, restrict the WHO’s influence, and investigate and repeal/replace the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation the Agency and Australian Medical Association. The questionnaire asks after a Bill of Rights and digital privacy, which aligns with the goals of more reasonable groups but you can safely surmise some of these candidates don’t support this for the finest reasons, and there is also a protectionist “revive Australian manufacturing” question.

The following independents feature on Reignite Democracy Australia’s Candidate Search. The extent to which they sympathise with the RDA’s dangerous agenda varies—Joanne Pearce in Lyne seems particularly confused by some of the questions and I’m not sure why she went ahead with submitting this. But being on here is concerning enough and most spout some pretty extreme or unhinged stuff. In brackets is the electorate for House of Representatives candidates:

NSW:

Senate: Julie Collins (ungrouped independent); William Laing (ungrouped independent) [links go to b_auspol’s NSW Senate profiles]

House of Representatives: Greg Butler (Eden-Monaro); Nina Digiglio (Gilmore); Stuart Bonds (Hunter); Joanne Pearce (Lyne); Matthew Sharpham (New England); Basil Paynter (Shortland)

QLD:

Senate: Len Harris and Debra Yuille (Group A), Steve Dickson and Rebecca Lloyd (Group H), Peter Rogers (ungrouped independent)

House of Australia: Alan Buchbach (Dickson), Thor Prohaska (Dickson), Sinim Australie (Fairfax), Barry Smith (Fairfax), Kelli Jacobi (Wide Bay)

SA:

Senate: Bob Day (Group E)

House of Representatives: Maddy Fry (Barker),* Vince Pannell (Barker)*

TAS:

Senate: Fenella Edwards (ungrouped independent)

VIC:

Senate: Monica Smit and Morgan Jonas (Group R)

House of Representatives: Steven J. Lončar (Gorton). Domonique Murphy (Chisholm),* Scott Robson (Melbourne)

WA:

Senate: Ziggi Marley (ungrouped independent),** Yunous Vagh (ungrouped independent)**

House of Representatives: David Archibald (Curtin)

*these candidates are affiliated with the unregistered party Australia One, who I have reviewed here

**these candidates feature in my review of WA ungrouped independents

My recommendation: In the Senate, give Group R (Victoria) and other independents sympathetic to Reignite Democracy a weak or no preference. In the House of Representatives, where you must distribute full preferences, give independents sympathetic to Reignite Democracy Australia a weak preference.