#future party

Source: Club Penguin Times, issue #446

DHJFHJDHF YES-

Running where: All states except TAS

Prior reviews of the:

Climate Emergency Action Alliance: Vote Planet (formerly Save the Planet): federal 2013, VIC 2014, VIC 2018

Future/Science Party: federal 2013 (Future Party), federal 2016 (Science Party), NSW 2019 (James Jansson “Team for NSW”), federal 2019 (Science Party)

Pirate Party: federal 2013, federal 2016, federal 2019

Secular Party: federal 2013, federal 2016, federal 2019

What’s going on here, you wonder? When the party membership threshold was increased from 500 to 1,500 last year, one thing I hoped would happen is that parties with similar missions would recognise it’s better to work together. It turns out a bunch of loosely left-of-centre parties realised this as well!

This party is a merger of five parties: the four named above, who I reviewed to varying degrees of positivity, and the Climate Change Justice Party, which had only been registered in the ACT. I should say that the unregistered Save the Planet had, after the 2019 election, merged with One Planet (who were also unregistered but had a candidate running for ICAN in 2019) under the name Save Our One Planet Alliance. They then changed their name to Climate Emergency Action Alliance: Vote Planet, and technically Fusion is a continuation of Vote Planet, as it was their active registration that had the name changed.

Anyway, Fusion promises to be “something more powerful than the sum of our parts”. What might that be? “A party determined to secure a safe climate and environment, a humanist society, and free culture, held together by science.” Look, I can get into that. So, what sorts of policies do they offer? I’m gonna skate past some of the more cringe rhetoric and take their platform seriously.

It's pretty much a grab-bag of the key issues of the constituent parties, and fortunately these are mostly complementary. Reflecting the explicit climate focus of two of the five fused parties, and the fact most other constituents also had strong climate policies, there are not one but two climate policies: one about the Climate Emergency and another for Ecological Restoration. They demand implementation of a ten-year plan to get not simply to net zero, but to negative emissions. In the view of Fusion, there is no longer a gradual path to net zero, but a need for drastic action—one policy is for Australia to produce 800% of its energy needs with renewables so that it can become a major exporter of clean energy and energy-intensive products. Unfortunately, the transport policy is too narrowly focused on electric cars rather than a more holistic policy for modal shift to accessible and efficient active and public transport. Rail, after all, has the OG electric vehicles.

Other policies reflect the interests of other parties within Fusion. You won’t be surprised to see policies in favour of a federal ICAC, whistleblower protections, or euthanasia. You can tell the Science Party (and others, but Science is most notable here) contained people who work in academic research because Fusion has a policy to fix Australia’s hopeless and time-wasting research grants system. The civil and digital liberties policy reprises the Pirate Party’s demands for net neutrality and reforming copyright law so that it encourages creativity rather than litigious activity by corporations. There is support for secular humanism, which is a nod to the Secular Party—their policy to replace the national school chaplain programme with trained counsellors has carried over.

I have my reservations. The free speech policy seems to come from Secular Party concerns with blasphemy laws but is simplistic and does not address racial vilification. The foreign affairs policy is so vague that it could mean whatever you want it to mean. And the b_auspol review captures something I missed on my first read, and then just about got whiplash when I did see it: to fund a Universal Basic Income, they propose “a flat tax rate? What? A FLAT TAX RATE? … just abandon[ing] any sign of a progressive tax system? Whatever your feelings about UBI vs a better Centrelink rate, the flat tax policy is completely out of step with assisting people’s finances and off in libertarian dream land.”

But all in all I think this is a party worth consideration for those on the left. It’s not as left-wing as some, it emphasises pragmatic reaction rather than ideological ambition, and some of the policies are clearly a little underdone in trying to reconcile five platforms, but most of their positions contain worthwhile goals.

My recommendation: Give Fusion a decent to good preference

Source: Club Penguin Times, issue #450

Source: Club Penguin Times, issue #104448 (#448)

“I got so MASSIVE-“

“I used to be so small…”

OH YEAH-