“We don't need another green party. It will only split the green vote and further reduce its influence.”

Bronwyn, I appreciate your concerns. But it would be nice if we had a REAL green party in the first place!!....instead of a very pale pseudogreen mob that basically allows the liblabs to continue running the country in a grossly and ever more unsustainable manner, without even protesting about the most obvious factor – absurdly high population growth! The Greens are tinkering around the edges and ignoring the proverbial elephant in the living room.

I don’t know if New Australia will trigger the Greens to get their backsides into gear or whether their policies are right in terms of the most urgent thing of all – gearing our society towards a sustainable future, but I sure do know that the Greens need an almighty boot up the collective quoit. (And as you know, this perspective comes from me as a former Qld Greens member and state candidate).

Yes, NA could simply dilute the Green vote and thus aid the Coalition, which is traditionally a little further removed from the Greens than Labor in the minds of the voter. But crikey, something has got to be done!

It seems that it is impossible to reform the Greens from within. If it hasn’t happened by now, then it ain’t likely….or at least not until Bob Brown departs the scene! Ohh, if only Bob could get his head around the core of the population / sustainability issue!!

What we desperately need is a party that holds the concept of quickly achieving a sustainable society at its core and gears everything towards this paradigm. I’m not sure that NA is doing this – the concept of sustainability seems to be a bit incidental to them at present. So they could dilute the Green vote and consequently extend the life of our antisustainability-oriented political paradigm.

But they could also act as the vehicle for greatly improving the situation.

Do you really want an answer to that, Alan?

>>Maybe Treasury are idiots as well?<<

It didn't escape my notice that you did not actually address the points I made, but referred me instead to a source that made precisely the same mistake that I was pointing out.

Your training as a politician is clearly bearing fruit.

But the "$3 billion annual cost to revenue could deliver far better health outcomes if directed to additional capacity in public hospitals" is not at issue. I have not at any stage denied that this money would be retained for whatever wall the government chose to... point it at.

It is the $7 billion contributions that are placed in jeopardy, six of which find their way into the hospital system anyway. The other billion is spent on jobs in the Private Health Industry, which you would also apparently be happy to put on the scrapheap.

What, if anything, do you propose to do about that?

This is not "policy detail".

It is fundamental, this-is-what-we-stand-for stuff.

Ludwig

I hear what you're saying and agree with it to some extent. I do think the Greens though are a much darker shade of green than you give them credit for. Just because they haven't been successful in reigning in the growth-at-all-costs policies of the Coalition and Labor doesn't mean they haven't been trying to. Their numbers in both houses have always been small and their ability to gain media attention is comparitively limited.

I think if you followed their voting patterns carefully, you'd be hard pressed to find evidence of them supporting population growth policies. I doubt they would have voted for the baby bonus for example or for increasing skilled migration to the high levels of the recent past. I'm sure they were opposed to these moves at the time, but whether they were successful in obtaining a media grab to highlight their opposition is another thing entirely.

Population growth is a huge problem on a world scale, but when considering Australia's domestic situation, within which the Greens operate, I don't see it as the huge overbearing issue that you do. I don't believe in encouraging population growth, but as far as prioritising policies I don't see that actively reducing it needs to be at the top of the Greens platform.

If we adopted the sustainable practices the Greens have been advocating for years, our population levels wouldn't be impacting as negatively as they are. A strong decentralisation policy and strong policies to protect our soil, water, air and forests would overcome our current population pressures.

If the Greens, under the practised leadership of astute and experienced politicians like Bob Brown and Christine Milne, are still having trouble cutting through, what makes you think some Johnny-come-lately group of unknown amateurs is suddenly going to make a difference? It won't.

All this group would do is take votes from the Greens and very likely prevent them from taking seats they might otherwise have finally wrestled from the major parties. We don't need two struggling green parties. We need one.

Somebody posted earlier that one of New Australia Party's policies would see all recipients of unemployment benefits having to work for dole, or at least that was my understanding of that person's post.

I've searched the New Australia Party website in relation to their welfare policies and cannot find mention of this. Could someone supply a link to this "work for the dole" policy at their website please?
Aime.

their defence policies would leave us virtually defenseless

The Democrats aren't dead... just sleeping. One day a handsome prince (ss) will come along...
www.newdemocrats.org.au/
So what tag will this party wear? I voted Dem because I prefer social Liberalism (private ownership, small business) to social democrats (government ownership) but hey. The Laboural party were supposed to be social Dems, and for the last 20 odd years they've been neo-liberals; very confusing.
I agree with the ideology of their defence policy; Australia -and the rest of the world- should concentrate on defensive, rather than offensive weapons. So why do we need fighter/bombers at all?
Change the name of the Navy to Coast Guard, Army to Ground Security, and Air Force to Coast Watch. Let the world know we will defend our border vigorously, but we will NOT invade other countries.
We just balanced the budget, and made our land more secure.