Would you vote to make Australia 'slightly better than average again?'

Posted

When Australians go to the polls on May 18, one party will be exhorting voters to tick its box with the underwhelming pledge to 'make Australia slightly better than average again'.

Key points: Mark Swivel decided to form the Together Party prompted by audience members at his satirical show Alternative Prime Minister

The Democrats are back with a new leader, Adelaide high school teacher Elisa Resce

One political expert believes single-issue, minor parties don't just want to be listened to, they are demanding their say

The Together Party may have its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, but founder Mark Swivel is serious about a tilt at the Senate.

The party is one of many that have sprung up as a reaction to the rise of far-right politics in Australia.

'Slightly better than average'

'Making Australia slightly better than average' was the subheading of a book-cum-manifesto that Mr Swivel published last year around the same time canary-yellow billboards started popping up bearing a Queensland mining magnate's image.

"'Make Australia great' resonates with a certain fellow with orange hair over in the US and it occurred to me that we needed to make fun of that," Mr Swivel said.

"Obviously Australia is a fantastic place but, in my submission, we're as blessed as we are broken at the moment and there's a lack of urgency in our politics."

Get a wrap of the key stories and analysis from the ABC's chief politics writer Annabel Crabb. Sign up

View Privacy Policy More Newsletters Download the ABC News app

Mullumbimby in northern New South Wales, with its rolling green hills and charming post-Federation weatherboard homes, is Together-central and where the party's nucleus of left-leaning scientists, lawyers and creatives nutted out Mr Swivel's vision at a recent conference.

The party's focus was reinvesting in public institutions — the 'Common Wealth' — including transport, universities and housing.

"We reckon we should also include dental care and ambulances on Medicare," Mr Swivel said.

The party's inaugural conference drew speakers including the head of La Trobe University's law school, Patrick Keyzer, former Murdoch press China correspondent, Michael Sainsbury, and former GetUp! chairwoman, Anne Coombs.

One of the big drivers for many of those who joined the party is action on climate change.

Mr Swivel is the company secretary of the community-owned renewable energy company, Enova.

Also on the party's senate ticket is Belinda Kinkead, an engineer and Australian representative of US-based tech energy company LO3 Energy, which has been using blockchain technology to supply renewable energy.

Filling the Democrats' void

Could 2019 be the year that the political middle ground also sprouted a swag of players?

Mr Swivel said the party was playing in the political space left vacant when the Australian Democrats imploded.

The Democrats were founded by colourful Victorian Senator Don Chipp in 1977 with the promise to "keep the bastards honest".

"People like Natasha Stott Despoja, who's the last of the great Democrats, are the kinds of people that we need in Parliament now," Mr Swivel said.

"I think that's what Don Chipp was all about when he started the party.

"It's not politically correct to call anyone a bastard these days — but bring it on."

Democrats: 'We're back!'

On Monday, 11 years after their last Doc Marten-wearing MP farewelled the house, the Democrats re-registered as a party.

The President is 34-year-old South Australian school teacher, Elisa Resce, who joined four years ago after reading policy flyers at a market stall in Adelaide.

"My mum comes from a rural farming family where everybody votes Liberal," she said.

"My dad comes from Italian immigrants so everybody votes Labor, and I realised there are good ideas on all sides.

"It's about cutting through to what's going to work for the community and the Democrats represented that for me."

The Democrats floundered for a few years after deregistration, but began to regain momentum after merging with the CountryMinded Party, a move which signalled a focus on issues affecting regional and rural Australians.

It has been a modest, grassroots comeback without major financing, and the party will not be able to field candidates in every state.

"But the people that we do put up, we hope, are going to be able to represent these values [of transparency and integrity] and let people know that we're back," Ms Resce said.

The rise of single-issue parties

In the recent past, Australian elections have been characterised by a rise in single-issue and micro parties and there will be plenty of single-issue parties adding columns to the already voluminous Senate ballot paper.

In 2014, preference whisperer Glenn Druery engineered to have the Motoring Enthusiast Party's Ricky Muir elected with just 479 first-preference votes by convincing micro parties to preference each other.

Electoral Reform Australia's vice-president, Stephen Lesslie, described the parties as "a rabble of self-interested lobbyists".

Mr Lesslie said in the recent NSW election at least four micro parties would secure a legislative council seat without even making the quota of 4.5 per cent of the vote.

"In my view that's not representing communities, it's just pot luck," Mr Lesslie said.

A splintering of the far-right edges of the political tapestry saw a second life breathed into Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, and the birth of the Palmer United Party, Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives, Fraser Anning's Conservative National Party, and a range of other parties with thinly veiled anti-immigration agendas.

Holding the majority to ransom

Mr Lesslie said extreme-right parties were not interested in being persuaded by the majority, but would use the power and influence they had to hold the majority view to ransom.

"Democracy is that the majority have the say, but minorities should be listened to," Mr Lesslie said.

"But these minorities don't want to be listened to — they're demanding their say."

Ms Resce said the increasingly strident views of far-right groups had been a cause for concern.

"Those extreme parties are saying 'let's go to war' and I'm saying 'absolutely not'," she said.

"We really need to be actively and proactively bringing it back to building communities and getting outcomes that are for the best of all of us.

"The alternative you can't win from — no-one is going to win from that."

Competition for middle ground

A long-time political watcher and councillor in the NSW town of Lithgow, Stephen Lesslie, said the Shooters, Farmers and Fishers Party had become a minor, but mainstream, player.

He likened the party's rise to how the Greens began as an interest group in Tasmania after the plan to dam the Franklin River and remained a presence in the political landscape.

And there are plenty of other small parties staging a contest for the protest votes of middle ground.

The Centre Alliance party, formerly Nick Xenaphon team, the 64-year-old Democratic Labour Party, the socially and economically liberal Secular Party, and the Citizens Electoral Party will all lay claim to a column.

A self-described "low-flying lawyer", Mark Swivel founded Together after audience members in his satirical show Alternative Prime Minister suggested he should run.

He's philosophical about the party's limited resources.

"We're a bit like Leicester City when they won the Premier League, you're looking at a different approach," he said.

Despite being minnows in the contest, Mr Swivel was optimistic that there was a mood for change.

"We need to make much bigger decisions than what we're making now," he said.

Topics: elections, federal-elections, federal-election, climate-change, minor-parties, federal-parliament, alp, political-parties, greens, democrats, federal-government, one-nation, liberals, government-and-politics, lismore-2480, adelaide-5000, melbourne-3000, mullumbimby-2482, lithgow-2790, la-trobe-university-3086