The NewAustralia Party: Challenging the Lib/Lab Hegemony on population and other major issues

The New Australia Party is the second new party with a small population policy, we have covered in two days, but it is not single-issue. The population policy appears to be an important and central one. The party has a wide range of policies and which members can contribute to. They are also looking for members. The policies they have had which I have read quickly seem very good - better than the major parties at any rate. See in the notes section at the end of this article a comment about their views on the kangaroo meat industry, which at time of writing I note are currently subject to a yahoo poll.[1]

I would suggest that this party is a good one for people to get involved in if they have specific interests in policy formation.
Here is some information about the founder, Alan Ide.

On the party site, it says that "NewAustralia was founded following the collapse of the Democrats at the last election. Some NewAustralia members and in particular the founder had tried hard to steer The Democrats in the direction now adopted by this site. After the election we resolved to use the accumulated policy material to try and launch a new party."

Below are links to the New Australia Party site, the policies and the way to join.

Alan Ide, the founder of the New Australia Party writes:

"In the lead up to the election Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott are trying hard to convince us that there is some difference between the parties beyond the spelling of their names.

In reality though Lib/Labs present a united front on almost all aspects of policy.

Tony Abbott's climate package reminds us that the Lib/Labs will never do anything serious about the Greenhouse problem. The two packages on offer are just two different ways of continuing business as usual. Both avoid the polluter having to pay. The Libs are more honest - they don't charge the polluters at all. Labor's muddled ETS charges some of the polluters via the sale of emission permits, but then offsets this cost with even more fossil fuel subsidies. The result will be the same - Australia will remain dependent on coal and the world's worst greenhouse polluter.

The Lib/Lab position on population is the more the merrier. For them there are no limits to growth. Not enough water? Build another few coal-fired desal-plants. GDP will go up. GDP per head may even go up as people have to pay more for accommodation, food and water. Quality of life however will be going down.

On transport, the Lib/Labs will continue to heavily favour road-based transport as they do at the State level. Even when money is allocated to public transport it is often wasted. In Victoria billions have been poured into public transport - to fund a ticket system that doesn't work and a wavy roof for a station. Meanwhile road building continues apace.

Defence is another are of near-total agreement. The Lib/Labs will continue to pour money into expensive but obsolete 'assets' such as the Joint Strike Fighter, destroyers and assault ships. This is even as the chorus of criticism about the slow, short range JSF grows louder and its clear inferiority to competitors becomes more apparent. At the same time it becomes more and more evident that the era of the surface warship is well and truly over - yet still the Lib/Labs pour billions into these indefensible future war graves.

Right now the only other choice is the Greens and a few single-issue parties. Unfortunately though Green policy involves massive tax increases, open door migration and little if any national defence. No wonder they are stuck on about 10% of the vote!

NewAustralia offers a way forward. We are a multi-issue party. We do propose a major tax swap, not a major tax increase. We propose a more cost-effective defence strategy, not a no-defence strategy. We advocate a stable population for the world and Australia. We would preference the Greens and other like minded policies - adding to the net environmental vote, not splitting it.

But to do this we need members - 500 of them. If you like what you see at www.NewAustralia.net then click the Join button. Its free and you don't have to do anything else - until we get 500 members.

Alan Ide
Founder"

Candobetter Editor's Notes

Given the presence of animal activists and anti-kangaroo industry activists on this site, it is relevant to note that the New Australia Party is very strong on ecological values, but it is obvious that it has come from a different direction than many of the activists on this site. It comes from the same direction I initially came from, and supported the kangaroo industry for idealistic reasons, which some members will hotly defend. As a participant in their 'Supporters' Forum' I managed to have the statement at the end about statistics not being adequate to go ahead inserted to modify their policy (See below). There was even some discussion about getting rid of it since it is not core policy and I now see that there a poll on the issue has just been posted at yahoo - see below.

Below is the policy, and the paragraph in question in the poll with the statement that I wrote highlighted at the end.

"Kangaroo - Farming kangaroos to produce Kangaroo meat rather than beef and sheep meat may have environmental benefits. Kangaroos have much lower methane output and water inputs during meat production. Kangaroo is also healthier to eat then beef or sheep, and kangaroos have a lower impact on the land. For this to work kangaroos would have to be properly farmed as opposed to hunting roaming populations which would not be sustainable on a large scale. Climate Taxes on methane producing animals may assist kangaroo farming to become economically viable - although higher fencing and other costs may make kangaroo farming unviable.

Harvesting of roaming native populations should only be continued once the statistics on kangaroo and other indigenous fauna became reliable, which is currently not the case."

Poll to remove the kangaroo paragraph from the New Australia Party policies:

Enter your vote today! A new poll has been created for the
NewAustralia group:

Should NewAustralia remove the 'kangaroo paragraph' (http://www.newaustralia.net/rural.html#kangaroo) from its web site?

o Yes
o No

To vote, please visit the following web page:
the following web page.

Thanks!

Note also that the Justice for Animals Party may incorporate a small population policy; I know that one of the organisers is working on this.