With 16 independents and minor parties elected to the crossbench, we take a look at significant minority parties in the upcoming election:
Legalise Cannabis
Is Snoop Dogg’s discography playing through your head as you step into the voting booth on election day? We all have our vices, and weed might just be yours. Originally founded in 1993 under the candidate name Nigel Freemarijuana, the Legalise Cannabis Party has its roots in hippie-central Nimbin, NSW. Now, they’re running in every state and territory, and have even snagged a seat in the NSW Upper House. If you’d like to unleash your free spirit this party may be just for you. Sometimes, a bevvy and durry just isn’t enough on a night out.
Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers Party
If the new fisherman aesthetic is taking over your social media, it might be time to take it one step further: through the Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers Party. Founded in 1992 by Sydney native John Tingle, the party formed after the NSW government proposed to tighten gun control laws after a string of mass shootings and attacks. For Tingle, owning firearms was vital to self-defence… wait, this is starting to all sound quite familiar?! While they’ve expanded to now represent recreational fishers and rural farmers, the opportunity for Australia to dick-ride the United States doesn’t stop here.
Animal Justice Party
On the other end of the spectrum, the Animal Justice Party (AJP) defends all our furry friends — no, not those furry friends! — campaigning for a federal animal protection body to defend critters, large and small. They focus on preserving native species, ending live animal exportation, banning duck shooting, and phasing out animal experimentation and entertainment. Cementing itself in the minds’ of Australian voters as “the one with the ex-stripper”, the party’s Victorian MP, Georgie Purcell, is well-known for her unconventional, tattoos and all approach to government. AJP also supports climate action, asylum seekers, abortion, decriminalised cannabis, and raising the age of criminal responsibility. These guys are the Greens’ cooler, younger sister.
Jacqui Lambie Party
Platformed as “not your average politician”, Jacqui Lambie and her flagship party have taken root in Australia as one of the political sects with the most integrity. Love her or hate her, Lambi is willing to plant both her feet in policies and stand firmly, especially now that she’s broken off from Clive Palmer and his Big Bird brain. Grounded in the ‘everyday Australian’, the Jacqui Lambie party primarily invests their time in veterans affairs and services, Government transparency, and reducing foreign investments in housing and politicians. Sure, these policies can sound ocker and slightly racist at times, but you know it’s true to the heart of Lambie and her party. Running two Senate candidates each in NSW, SA, QLD, and the party’s homeland of Tassie, if you can guarantee anything from the Jacqui Lambie Party, it’s that they’ll put up a bloody good fight for what they believe in.
Family First
What is more bizarre, dysfunctional, and problematic than family? This conservative party champions “family” values such as banning gender-affirming surgery, “protecting” children from LGBTQ+ ideology, abolishing “coercive” diversity training, eliminating critical race theory in schools, and incentivising monogamous, heterosexual marriage. They are staunchly anti-abortion, because of course, they are willing to welcome all children into their big, happy family — just as long as they aren’t ‘diverse’.
FUSION
Formed after an increase in the quota for minimum party membership to run in a federal election, the Fusion Party fuses the Pirate Party, Secular Party, Science Party, Vote Planet, and Climate Change Justice Party in an attempt to hold my small word count for this paragraph hostage. The building blocks of this conglomerate are “ecological harmony”, “liberty” and “self-actualisation”, “ethical conduct”, and a baseline of “equity” in all policy decisions. Purportedly grassroots, the Fusion party seeks to consult volunteers and communities to discover pragmatic and vital solutions to reversing the climate crisis, as well as through investments in public education and science. Notably, they support ending the nuclear power ban, but for the purpose of developing nuclear fusion — living up to their name! Their foreign policy seems to follow their vague ethos of fusing diplomatic relations internationally. However, their lack of specificity here leaves us wondering what sort of cuisines they’d truly be harmonising if they were a metaphorical restaurant.
