We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.

- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

By drupal_2_admin, 26 April, 2025

Introduction

There's been a good deal of interest in my 2022 election commentary , and I thought I'd make one for this election. I'm officially not setting preferences, as I'm hoping to make a case that Fusion is a good alternative for people who would otherwise support Liberal, Labor or the Greens. Keep in mind that if you do decide to vote for me, you do need to number every box consecutively in order for it to be a valid vote.

Contents

 

Major Parties

Still, I do have an opinion, and while I hope to appeal to everyone, will in the end be saying that while Labor are problematic, they are not as problematic as the LNP. Before that sounds too negative, keep in mind that I do recognise the worth of past Liberal party leaders like Dr. John Hewson and Mr. Malcolm Turnbull, and if we had someone like Mr. Turnbull I'd be able to be a lot more positive. Further, I'm drawing on what seem like accurate, credible sources to me. Yes, I could be mistaken - we all could be. I can only say, I'm doing my best to draw the threads together.

If you've mixed feelings about the Greens, you may find us a better option. Perhaps you'll resonate with some of their position, but also feel they're too extreme in other elements. I'll also be commenting on the other minor parties, but I'm trying to not to be personal, and don't want to punch down or sideways. Sniffing the wind, it does seem this election may become aggressive, and I suspect my commentary will be mild in comparison. I'll also include my more general political reflections as well.

To be sure, with a lot of my criticism of Labor, the LNP would be worse, but that doesn't get Labor off the hook. Saying "we're not as bad as the opposition" gets a bit tired after a while.

Critiques of Labor

First, some critiques of Labor. Importantly, they're not the one that the LNP makes, probably because the LNP would not be a clear improvement in these areas. But; to be sure, Labor are lacking in terms of accountability and transparency. They've been dragging their heels in responding to Freedom of Information requests, as noted by Rex Patrick. They tried to keep details of the peacekeeping operations in Timor Leste from coming out - not mentioning "security concerns" till their initial approach failed, after which they tried to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Then there's spending around $650,000 after Morrison spent $250,000 trying to stop the details of Robodebt from coming to the surface. While it seems Labor wanted to attack the Libs over Robodebt, at the same time they wanted to protect the government's ability to keep some stuff secret, and this would have, strangely, set a bad precedent. Then there's details of the Foreign Investment Review Board deliberations and the suppression of MPs travel expenses, while they wanted the Government to reveal the exact same thing when they were in opposition. You also have the controversy over fish farms in Tasmania, and the impacts on local fish like the Maugean Skate, where here again, the Government tried to keep its ruminations secret.

Further, they've been using Non Disclosure Agreements. And further, with the support of the Greens, they've muzzled debate in parliament.

Strangely, this is from a Government which supposedly had a commitment to openness and transparency. The reality seems somewhat strange. Yes, there's a battle with the opposition over what happened with things like Robodebt, but at the same time, they seem to want to preserve the ability of the Government to keep things secret for when they are in Government, while also sometimes sleepwalking into contradictions, as with the PMs travel plans.

Whistleblowers and Julian Assange

Their support of whistleblowers has been missing in action; Fusion has a comprehensive approach. Notably, the treatment of Richard Boyle, David Mc Bryde and Julian Assange has been lacking.

Julian Assange may be free, but he is not free to speak out. The US has not recognised that Mr. Assange revealed material in the public interest, nor accepted they tried to try a foreign citizen over laws relating to their domestic citizens, and basically over-reached. It is reminiscent of Aaron Swartz.

Mr. Assange spoke about his situation We in the Pirate branch of Fusion have long spoken out for Mr. Assange. Now that he is back in Australia, he has requested privacy and we all respect that request, but the situation is worth noting. While it seems Mr. Assange is limited in what he can say, it is also quite understandable he would want to have some private time to heal himself from the psychological damage he has suffered.

In terms of transparency, I expect the LNP to be worse. They were the people responsible for watering down the effectiveness of NACC for example, though you wonder why Labor could not have done a deal with the Teals or Greens.

Labor's Positives, bureaucracy and the LNP

At the start of the term in office, I recall Labor made a point of putting the people and money into processing veteran's compensation. There's a lot of theatre around bureaucracy, and I think the LNPs record is much more problematic. Yes, there's waste - worth engaging with. But there's too much bureaucracy protecting ministers from bad press and calculating numbers nobody ever looks at, and too little bureaucracy monitoring important things liked aged care and childcare. Importantly, here there was a lack of resources processing veteran's compensation, probably the result of the LNP knee jerk cutbacks - throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

The LNP, in initially associating itself with Trump has caused some problems for itself. Yes, there's a point to engaging with the bureaucracy, but the US style "DOGE" is no way to do that. Then you have the raft of tariffs that Trump has imposed. It seems to me the US was always something of a Mafia Don - but now they've really gone off the rails.

Labor will of course talk about its own achievements, and there's a good summary by Professor Jenny Hocking. Labor have been kind enough to put me at preference number two, so it is nice I can find something good to say about them.

Labor and the Economy

Labor does claim to have done a decent job of running the economy. The LNP previously claimed that Ms. Bullock, Governor of the Reserve Bank criticised Labor for causing inflation, and also for their expenditure. In fact, neither of these are correct. Ms. Bullock was responding to criticism that she was adjusting interest rates when others claimed that it was what was going on internationally of greatest concern. She disagreed, saying that inflation may have previously had international causes, but now its causes were internal to the Australian economy ( AFR, Nov 23, 2023, p4). It was not a comment on how Labor was running the economy, and in fact later on, she explicitly said that Labor's approach to expenditure was reasonable ( AFR, Aug 29, 2024, p42). Sure, there have been some tensions between Ms. Bullock and the Treasurer over what the interest rate should be - but her position is nothing like the LNP make out.

The LNP also claimed "no credible economist endorses Labor's approach to the economy". However, Ross Gittins of the SMH has endorsed their approach. Now, what are the options? Mr. Gittins is not a credible economist, or the LNP are wrong? How do we know an economist is credible? If they're good with Labor's approach, that means they're not credible? Sorta presuming the answer you want, isn't it? Or do you want to say that any economist giving Labor credit must have an inherent bias against the LNP? I suppose the door swings both ways.

There are some generalisations you can point to. If the economy is going well, and you're in Government, you'll claim credit. If it is going badly, it is circumstance and the international economy. If you're in opposition, it's reversed. As we've seen above, transparency and accountability appeals a lot more when you're in opposition compared to Government. But - back to economic management - to be sure, if you want to make sense of what is going on, you can't rely on claims made by the parties themselves - you have look outside, and consider the analysis - like, Mr. Gittins for example.

Out of the box on the Economy

Of course, we can think even more laterally about economic issues. Why is it that we've had an increase in poverty and homelessness in Australia when we seem to be surrounded by such wealth? Why is it that in order to regulate the economy, we need to have certain rate of unemployment? It's called NAIRU, the "non accelerating rate of unemployment"

Then there's the fact that capital has had an increasing share of the national pie over time, and that we had a Governor of the Reserve bank previously saying that there needed to be a wage increase in order to improve the health of the economy. He seems to have been hinting that labour was not paid its "market fair share", but rather a function of labour's negotiating power, something previously in decline. So, you can wonder if maybe we can increase wages. Ms. Bullock, however, is concerned this will trigger a wage-price spiral, rather than capital relenting on its share. Then again, some say the chance of this is less, exactly because labour does not have the negotiating power it had decades ago. So, the issue becomes more complex.

Within Fusion, we focus on a Universal Basic Income, and innovative ideas in taxation like reducing the impact of Capital Gains Tax and removing religious tax exemptions. But, the point is that with UBI, unemployment doesn't "hurt" the way it does now, being used as a tool to regulate the economy. We can see that as a whole, the economy does not provide enough inexpensive accommodation. There are stories about "supply", but a lot of land is deliberately held out of supply, so making life easier for developers doesn't really help. We can stretch out even further, thinking about low growth economies and circular economies. You could get me talking about endurance of goods, intellectual property, and the right to repair ( I'm involved with the Lane Cove repair cafe. )

To be sure, this is context in which people think about economic issues, and Labor has to "play the game" so they don't scare the horses. The criticism they're fending off from the LNP is within the context of "normal" ideas about the economy. They tried even mild tax reform with Shorten, and look how that went. Actually, the LNP tried having a reasonable leader with Turnbull, and look how that went. Labor runs scare campaigns around Medicare, and the LNP runs scare campaigns around Franking credits, that even scare pensioners that don't have share portfolios. Sigh. Much as I see the worth in these ideas, I accept that we need a lot more support for innovative economic ideas before Labor can move forward.

The LNP

The LNP, on paper, are about applying yourself and seeing the benefits. There seems to be a side agenda about helping those who have assets preserve them too. Scott Yung, the Liberal candidate, certainly means well and tries to capture those sentiments. Indeed, the Liberals have been kind enough to preference me at number three, and I do thank them for that. Mr. Yung asks whether things have gotten better or worse during the years Albanese was in Government. Well, you know, maybe they have gotten worse. If you look at inflation, if you look at real disposable income, OK that's not good. However, we've maintained lower unemployment compared to other comparable economies. So, the sentiment could be "we've done better than you might hope for, considering". The question is how much slack that term "considering" gives you.

There's a deeper issue of how well the Liberal Party captures those "values". In the face of what former supporters see as contradictions, it's led to the rise of the Teals, something I consider in my article, actually disagreeing with a position put forward by the greens where they wrongly "over greened" the Teals.

There's the other initiatives the Libs talk about. Some are reasonable. Others, about safety, feel to me like they're overstating matters. While I have my disagreements with the LNP, I've also seen some strange criticisms of them, that they have irrationally decided to double down with their approach Climate Change, to ignore it and focus on other things. Now, the LNP can make mistakes, as can anyone, but they're not stupid. While I can disagree with the LNP, this critique feels like it somehow denies them the prerogative to make their own choices, whatever those choices might be. I'd point out that I do see some right wing attitudes denying the prerogative of their opponents to make their own choices, and I get uncomfortable regardless of who is being targeted.

But, there's another controversy - around Mr. Yungs past fundraising activities. Here, OK maybe there's a point to him answering these claims. But, equally, we should also consider how the courts, AEC administration etc. are dealing with this. If there's sufficient evidence for them to take action, then we should note that and leave them to it. If there isn't, then while there may be a point to asking the question, I don't think we should hound him, either - something we've seen in the media.

Fusion, yes, we're a small party

You'll find most small parties talk about how they're struggling with limited resources and a difficult situation. Us too. But let me try to flesh out the details a bit.

Because of what seems to be the result of a joint effort by both Labor and Liberal to increase the members needed for party registration, we've had something of a "shotgun wedding" between multiple parties. We all try to get along, but there's going to be tensions. I remember someone said we wouldn't last three months. Thanks, mate for giving me the endurance to stick it out for this long, couldn't have done it without you. As a result, individuals and indeed party branches have a lot more opportunity for separate policies under the Fusion umbrella. As I discussed with fellow candidate Owen, we're more of a party than the Teals are, and less of a party than Labor is. You as the voter have always had the choice of focusing on either the party or the candidate, but with our party, this is even more something you need to think about. But, please don't blame us, blame the majors for upping the needed votes to form a party.

And for sure, the Fusion party is going to be a grab bag, with varying degrees of detail in the policy set. And you'll then have people criticising our policy set for being "superficial". Well, contrast that to the Pirate Party Policies. That's got a lot of detail, references and so on. I find it sad that people who criticise Fusion over its policies have no sympathy for the situation forced on us, or for the fact that branches have done what they could to retain a detailed policy set.

But, these higher bars for membership do tilt the playing field in favour of the majors. One thing we're unable to do is nail our corflutes to telegraph poles. I've had a parade of emails from various councils telling me, don't put your damned corflutes on our telegraph poles. But, this sort of thing hits us minor parties a lot harder than the majors. At a past election, I saw a sea of blue at some of the voting places, and it was something that you just shook your head about. As Anatole France has said, The law, in its majestic equality, prohibits both the rich and the poor from sleeping under bridges. And you wonder just how come these sort of laws were passed by council, something that favoured the majors. And, yes, we don't have the money or resources the major parties have, I'm not the first person to notice that.

Of course, going back far enough, people nailed up a reasonable number of corflutes to telegraph poles and removed them after elections, and perhaps it was in the past abused. One idiot spoils it for everyone, as they say. Still, you can also see how these laws benefit the majors, and provide another hurdle for parties such as ourselves.

Other Parties

OK, so now I'll comment on the other parties. Please note, in spite of my more general comments, I recognise fellow candidates may be good meaning people, putting themselves forward for their own good reasons.

HEART, vaccines, Covid and Climate Change

Well, they do have some positives in terms of their views on personal freedom, digital rights and transparency, though you can worry about where that comes from. They focus on, for example, stuff about vaccines while the fact the Government has been increasing surveillance and the ability to hack into our phones doesn't seem to be that prominent in their approach. I think they've got it wrong when it comes to light from led lights causing problems, and radiation from power lines causing problems. However, I do have concerns about forever chemicals and particulate pollution, causing more asthma close to roads, so there are some things I'll feel concerned about.

However, I see them as completely wrong when it comes to Human Induced Climate Change. I attended a meeting of the Libertarian party, one of their fellow travellers, and heard a presentation challenging climate change; I made a pro-climate change video .

They're also concerned about Covid and vaccination, which HEART challenges. I wrote something about this in my 2022 article, so I'll try not to cover too much of the same ground here. I did talk about Covid more generally on Gene Tunny' podcast. There I talk about the excessive and inflexible bureaucracy that built up when it could have been different, and how there might have been different options for dealing with Covid : open air covid isolation, young volunteers deliberately catching covid in away camps, and group deposits to facilitate attending weddings, funerals and perhaps other events like social dances. And maybe there was a class and race overlay to how the Covid regulations were imposed. But all this in the background of Covid being a real and legitimate concern, regardless of the details. I know of people who were hit hard not just with Covid, but long covid, along with people who were hit hard by the vaccines. But, I've been vaccinated at least four times, and "playing the odds", it always made sense to me.

Further, the claim about "excess deaths" resulting from vaccination is dubious, because they didn't have it in WA. WA also had the same vaccination experience we did. However, there were other differences - we had more Covid in circulation, more severe lockdowns, and also had bushfires ( remember how the skies were grey ?). So, it's quite possible Covid had some part to play, but not vaccinations by themselves, but if so in combination with something else. Sure things could be totally perverse, but that's the most reasonable explanation.

I'll note that I have met the candidate, Mr. Barry Devine, who has been gracious enough to turn up to candidate forums even though a lot of the audience disagrees with what he says, and he does seem like a decent person. It's a choice to make, between the person someone is, and what they stand for.

Family First

In Fusion, we emphasise "Secular Humanism", and it does seem to me that embracing religion to the degree in Family First does more harm than good, while I'd certainly embrace the individual right of conviction. But, again, I don't wish to criticise the genuineness of the candidate.

Pauline Hanson One Nation

A lot of my comments are echoed from those I made in my 2022 article. PHON has a lot of problems in its history, even though some of its candidates may well stand for some good things as candidates, and that may be true this time around. I suggest Fusion is a better option, but equally, I don't want to criticise them too strongly - your vote is your own, of course.

Foreign Policy

It's harder for me to link this directly to the different parties, so I'm putting this here. I've given talks on this subject here and here, from some time ago, but I think what I said is still relevant now. Also, going back a few years I wrote about Noam Chomsky receiving the Sydney Peace Prize, and I think the observations I made at the time are still valid today. But, focusing on a few recent developments:

AUKUS

We recently went through the process of procuring nuclear submarines from the US, and I see not a problem with nuclear subs in and of themselves, but rather multiple issues around whether they will be delivered and whether we will have total sovereign control over their use. Their greater range makes their usage ambiguous - they can patrol locally for longer, but they can also project force outside our locality. A broader issue is that an orderly procurement process has been subverted, with Governments "jumping the gun" to procure a particular sub that suits their alliance inclinations rather than a defined and stated need, with a degree of laziness around setting contracts.

We have previously been hanging off the coat tails of the US. This was always a problem, and is now worse, given how the US has gone off the rails. We need to pull out of AUKUS. Having said this, this should not mean we end up in the arms of China, as I point out in my videos above.

In these times, it means we must "find our feet" and operate as a proud middle power on the world stage. Clearly there are local problems with our economy and cost of living. Nevertheless, there are benefits from such an approach to foreign policy. First, there are the benefits of international collaboration, building closer links with countries such as Canada, and perhaps also Japan - during the Great War, a Japanese task force helped escort our ships from Albany to the Dardanelles. But, secondly, standing tall on the world stage would lift our mood - and mean that we were more economically productive, as a result.

Gaza and Israel

This is something of an elephant in the room, and I worry that whatever I say, it will put someone off side. But I will say something. First, let me say I endorse the Fusion position, but have some points of my own to add.

I see the Labor Party both taking initiatives to support Palestinian statehood at the same time as it tries to maintain good relations with Israel. I don't see a total contradiction here, but you can see them trying to walk a tightrope, or trying to thread a needle as it were. For sure, you can see problems with that trade - not in finished weapons, but in spare parts and components that can be used in weapons. - and here we have a legitimate criticism of Labor, though they have tried in their way. We combine this with the determination by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of a "plausible risk of genocide" in Gaza, such that there are international obligations we should fullfill.

Of course, advocates will dismiss the credibility of the ICC, but there remains a principle I support: the notion that outside parties and concepts are good things for appraising Gaza. We can draw on the Geneva conventions and historical ideas about just war more generally. In natural justice, there is the notion that no person should try their own case, and here Israel is trying to being the sole arbiter of its own actions, so a good guide is in fact the assessments of credible groups that are not Israel. The challenge, then, for any partisan side, is to establish who would be a "credible third party" or "honest broker" they can make reference to which people generally would recognise. I've not seen this though, much more table thumping about your own version of events, and when you do engage with outside parties, it's mostly just to reinforce your own case. To be sure, the ICC charged both Israel and Hamas with war crimes. However, there's certainly more to the picture.

First, attacks or harassment of any Australian citizens - be they Jewish or Muslim - is a problem. We have seen examples of both, something identified by Mr. Bob Carr. Mr. Carr has interesting things to say here, and he has separated his position from that of the Labor party. To be sure, however, you can criticise Israel without being anti-Semitic; being Jewish does not mean you necessarily identify as Israeli or an Israel supporter, and we should not forget there are Jews who challenge Israeli actions and/or support Palestine.

At the same time, the scale of anti-Semitism has been overblown for political purposes. This is being taken advantage of by the Liberal Party, to expand their case that there's some sort of organised, irrational lefty conspiracy out there they need to defend us all against. The real world, whatever its problems, is a lot more complex than simplistic emotional appeals like this would have you believe.

Conclusion

I hope you've found this commentary interesting, and I give you my best wishes that you'll find a candidate worth voting for, be that myself or someone else.

Authorised by K Hunt, FUSION, 254 McLeod Ln, Mansfield

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