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With the federal election approaching it is a good time to review some of the major party policies and how they relate to the interests of the Sustainability Party.

Party Policy:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/sustainability-party/sustainability-party.html

I have added a new board on the OzPolitic forum for discussing the party:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?board=spa

Population:

It is great to see this issue being taken seriously in the media for the first time and great to see people talking about more than the implications for the economy. Everything I like about Australia is attributable to our low population. Unfortunately, commentators in the Australian still equation population and economic growth.

Carbon taxes:

The Greens have the closest policy to us. They have tried introducing legislation for a carbon tax. They still claim that their long term goal is a trading scheme, yet also have a general policy promoting the taxation of resource consumption.

Rudd's CPRS was a bit of a mess, but with a cap on the price it looked a lot like a carbon tax. Labor And the coalition are blaming each other for it's failure.

Unfortunately Tony Abbott has shied away from conventional economics and is favouring direct government interference as the solution. His committment to any action at all is justifiably under question.

Marine Parks:

Labor and the Greens are pushing huge marine parks around the entire coast in federal waters. Being so far offshore I see this as a low priority, but it is still a good sign. Tony Abbott caused a stir by claiming he would put the marine park expansions on hold. However, a closer look at what he actually said shows that there would also be more marine parks under a coaltion government. They claim to be taken the interests of fishermen into account, though what this means in practice is hard to tell.

Handouts

Unfortunately both major parties are buying votes again. The baby bonus keeps going up (with implications for population). It will soon be suplemented by paid parental leave. The first home owner grant has gone up and back down and is no doubt contributing to higher house prices in Australia.

Electoral Reform

Unfortunately all talk of electoral reform still focusses on whether we are a republic or monarchy and ignores the far more important democratic issues. The organisation GetUp! has had two recent successes in the high court. We are now allowed to register to vote online, and the short time frame to register to vote after an election is called has been struck down. The Sustainability Party supports voting by delgable proxy, which allows for both direct and representative democracy at the same time - leaving the choice of how involved to become up to the individual voter and getting rid of the problem of 'safe' seats.

Tax Burden

Tax Freedom day in 2008 was April 22. That is, the government consumes about 31% of our productivity.

Water

There is still no sign of a rational approach to water consumption. The rains have returned and dams are starting to fill, yet we are stuck with the absurd situation of contractual obligations to buy water from desalination plants in a time of plenty - wasting money and generating CO2 emissions. It is misleading to claim that the power comes from wind turbines. Without the desal plants, those turbines would be powering other industry and reducing our greenhouse emissions.

Foreign Policy

Both major parties still beat their chest over the whaling issue, but fortunately shy away from genuine action. Meanwhile, the International Whaling Commission scientific committee is drawing up plans for the resumption of commercial whaling.