dickie,
Not a very constructive post, old chap, but I did take your advice and found The Shooters' Party site.
What a breath of fresh air. Policies laid out clearly and I found that they have been really active in Parliament, and have had a couple of acts passed.
Quite an achievement for a party with only one representative, very impressive. Here's a link to what they have achieved and to what they attempted.
I was surprised at the apparently helpful things that The Greens opposed.

http://www.shootersparty.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=45

Example:
Quote:Brought in so-called “Granny Bashing” Bill to provide heavier penalties for unprovoked attacks on the defenceless and vulnerable (very old, very young, mentally or physically impaired, people in vulnerable professions etc.) which became law in April 2002. Was opposed only by the two Greens and the Democrat in the Upper House, and went through the Lower House unopposed. unquote.
Would have thought that the Greens would have supported that at least.
Had another look at the Greens' web site, thought that I must have missed anything on their parliamentary achievements but they either haven't had any or they just forgot to put them on the site.

Is Mise

You state that: "I did take your advice and found the Shooters' Party site. What a breath of fresh air".

The remainder of your post contains very flattering commentary on the parliamentary achievements of the Shooters' Party.

However, in your thread "The Great Gun Buy Back", you report in your post of 20/2/07:

"Just found this during a Curiosity visit to the Shooters' Party site."

Is Mise, I do believe you have raised this thread on the Greens in a covert attempt to promote the Shooters' Party.

Those who have a hidden agenda by encouraging debate on one subject, to influence readers' thoughts on another, should first ensure that they are endowed with a good memory.

Gord, talk about reactionary! From Granny bashing to Labour bashing, Democrat bashing, the anxiety now is that the ALP will win by a landslide with current polls.

So they don't bother Labour Bashing, here we go, next easiest target: Green Bashing. Comm'n bullyboys, let's bash a few little Greens. How easy is that? How brave are you. Let's go bash the little Greens. We will look so clever. So tough. So credible. braaaahaahahahaha!

And Ludwig, your patronising statement "It pains me as a former Green in Queensland" does not give you credibility at all. It totally discredits you as an opportunistic rat setting new lows in arrogance. The Green's party is chock full of sections on sustainability and working with farmers. That is why it is called a Green Party.

The ALP goes into depth about "clean coal", whatever that is. The Liberals hint at Nuclear energy, but are not foolish enough to spell it out just yet. They won’t say whose back yard the nuclear power station will be built. They refuse to say how much it will cost and how long it takes to construct the things.

As to the policy on guns, the details could be pedantic but the gist of the guns being locked away from children sounds sensible to me. I wouldn't want my children having access to guns.

Their policies could be more general, but then they get the other accusation that their policies are "too thin". We can at least work out what kinds of things they have in mind, and the pedantic details can be sifted through later. I'm still not sure whom to vote for myself. It is a tough call...

dickie,
You're right, I do have a lousy memory. I'd completely forgotten that I'd previously visited the Shooters' Party site, and you did cause me to find it again, so now I've bookmarked it, thanks.

I guess I did extole them a bit but you must admit that in the absence of any claims by the Greens that they have any Bills to their credit then the Shooters' sole MP looks to be more effective.
I am at a complete loss as to why the Greens opposed the 'Granny Bashing' Bill. I would have thought that it would be in line with a careing attitude.

saintfletcher,
There is already a law that requires guns to be locked away.
Farmers and graziers who have dog or fox problems probably completely ignore it, as they must if they are to be anyway effective when dogs attack. There simply isn't time to go unlocking combination locks.
Here's one Green idea that's pretty clear:

17. The abolition of existing minors' permits.

With hat do they intend to replace them?
Or are they going to stop those aged between 12 and 18 years from having instruction in the safe handling and use of firearms?

If this latter is the case then the Greens must stand accussed of gross indifference to the future safety of the community.
On the one hand they demand the training of firearms users (which is already a requirement for a licence) then on the other they would deny such training to teenagers.
Strange

I posted this in response to Saintfletcher a couple of days ago and have just discovered that it didn’t go!

.
“As for sustainability, the Greens policy outlines more on sustainability than any other party running in the NSW State election.”

Well of course, but that’s not saying much.

“The coalition wants population growth. Tony Abbott wants an Australian population of 60 million people in the next 10 years for a viable domestic market. Is that sustainable?”

Obviously this is a million miles from sustainable. In fact it is absolutely horribly antisustainable. Just imagine how effective we would have to be in reducing per-capita resource consumption of just about all resources, and per-capita waste production and impacts on our environment, for the total impacts of a population three times the current size just to break with present impact!! How on earth are we supposed to make significant improvements on current levels of impact that are so badly needed in many areas?

The sort of population growth philosophy of Abbott and Costello is not one tiny bit less whacko than their namesake comedians’ antics were. But unfortunately it is 500 orders of magnitude more serious!

And what have the Greens got to say about it? Absolutely stuff-all!

Saintfletcher, lots of aspects of green policy would be good parts of a sustainability strategy. But in isolation, and especially without direct attention paid to the continuous growth paradigm, they fall way short of the mark.

Just to show that I'm not an all out Greens basher.

The Greens are on a winner with their proposals for more use of the rail network.
Any policy that reduces the number of heavy trucks on our highways has got to be a good thing.

Country NSW desperately needs the existing rail network to be opened up and the mothballed or abandoned lines to be brought back into use.
India, for an example, is investing heavily in railways. Thier's is probably the biggest in the world and is growing.

NSW which once had a large system, both in mileage and rolling stock, now lags far behind other countries.

India runs Express Passenger trains which consist of 22 x 60 foot long bogie coaches. Not just the one or two per day but dozens (or more).
NSW by contrast doesn't run any locomotive hauled passenger trains any more.
We have the self contained Explorer 4 and 6 car sets. Which have such an unfortunate habit of breaking down that they became known on the railway as the 'Exploders'.