Minor minor parties VI

I’ll now look at three parties which I think belong in the same section but I can’t think of a collective label for them.

What Women Want Australia

This party has been set up to address issues affecting women. They feel that politics has been dominated by males for too long and that women should be given more say in the direction of the country. Here is their youtube ad.

Their policies include:
- Medicare should cover dental, midwifery, physiotherapy and complementary and natural medicine. The evidence for complementary and natural medicine efficacy is minimal or non existence. Medicare should not be used for treatments that just don’t work.
- Right to choose whether to continue with an unwanted pregnancy.
- Do not support Work Choices.
- Paid parental leave.
- Same sex couples to have same rights as heterosexual couples.
- A critical assessment of our welfare system that often provides little incentive for people to find full-time employment.
- Free preschool program for children.
- Better funding for public schools.
- Abolishment of HECS and reintroduction of free university education.
- Water: Reduce, reuse, recycle. Free water tanks for homes. No dams.
- Energy: Ratify Kyoto protocol. Invest in renewable energy, but not nuclear.
- Invest in new rail, walking and cycling infrastructure.
- Support fair trade and humanitarian relief and welcoming to our shores refugees from war-torn countries.

Carers Alliance

This party has been formed by carers of those with disabilities who believe that the mainstream parties have neglected their role in our society. There are about 2.6 million carers in Australia. Their policies are all geared towards having a say in the funding and structure for the carers. The want to implement Recommendations 18 and 19 of the House of Representatives Inquiry into Balancing Work and Family which are as follows:

Recommendation 18 (8.42) The Australian Government consider allowing adults, who incur care costs for the care of elderly relatives or relatives with a disability, to have the choice of either receiving all current carers’ benefits or claiming these costs as a tax deduction where they can demonstrate that paid care was necessary to allow them to work.

Recommendation 19 (8.53) The Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs make access to its funding programs more flexible, including the $19,000 per child per annum under the Inclusion Support Scheme, so that community groups and businesses can establish child care centres that have expertise in the needs of children with a disability and allow the development of after school hours care and vacation care for special needs children.
They also want more funding and services for mental health care. Also, if carers move interstate they lose disability services. They believe that no one should be disadvantage by moving states.

Non-custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting)

This party’s main policies relate to divorce or separation. They believe that the starting point of any judgment should be that of 50:50 equal share parenting. They believe that both parents are important for children growing up. They also believe that there is an ingrained culture in the Family Court that prevents them from looking at equal share parenting. They wish to abolish the Child Support Agency and repel the Child Support legislation.

They support the Marriage Manifesto. This includes that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life and that children have a right to a father and a mother. They list 21 points as to why marriage matters. The points have certain claims. For example: Point 20, Married women appear to have a lower risk of experiencing domestic violence than do cohabiting or dating women. This statement is based on a US study using data from 1987-88 and 1992-93. I don’t know whether this may apply to Australia.

Other policies include:
- Do not support the Iraq or Afghanistan wars.
- Support free trade and globalisation.
- Recognise climate change exists. They support the removal of emphasis on coal power but don’t want nuclear power. However further down on their web page they say that alternative sources are by themselves not solutions to the problem and then go on to say that coal and nuclear are the only two viable sources of power.
- Support a Commonwealth dental scheme.


This last party has the feel of a party that came into existence because of one angry man. It has one core issue and the rest of the policies have just been put together in haste. The other two parties seem to have had more thought put into their ideas and seem reasonable.