By Leith van Onselen

Regular readers will be aware that I am a paid-up member of the Sustainable Australia party.

I support Sustainable Australia because I believe it has the best policies surrounding immigration, housing, the environment, and a range of other issues, and believe that its centrist approach is far superior and socially responsible than the divisive policies of One Nation – the other lower immigration party on offer.

Last week, Dick Smith announced that he had joined Sustainable Australia – the first political party he has ever joined – although he ruled-out running for parliament. And Sustainable Australia President, William Bourke, is hoping to leverage Dick’s support into launching several candidates into the upper houses of state parliaments:

Mr Bourke, who believes the party can land multiple candidates into the NSW upper house, said Mr Smith had been a “friend of the party for several years”. “We’ll be doing everything we can to convince Dick to run, but there’s a whole lot of water to go under the bridge,” he said. “We’ve got a whole range of high-profile candidates and many people that are approaching us now that Dick’s formally on board.” While immigration is a federal issue, Mr Bourke said there were a number of ways state governments could “push back”. “States do have significant input into the immigration issue,” he said. “State governments make agreements with the Immigration Department to set up international migration programs, so states can withdraw from those agreements. They can put pressure on the federal government to say, ‘This is overloading our cities, suburbs and towns, overdevelopment is a problem and our environment is suffering.’” Mr Bourke said while property development was an important industry, it was “dominating our economy and it shouldn’t be”. “We need to diversify the economy and invest excessive capital that’s currently going into property into our factories, farms and small businesses,” he said. “The sooner you move away from an unsustainable property Ponzi the easier it will be to transition to a sustainable and prosperous economy.”

Yesterday on Facebook, William Bourke gave an update noting that Dick Smith’s endorsement has led to a flood of interest and memberships into the party:

This is great news. Sustainable Australia is the only viable option for those like me that want the immigration issue addressed in a sensible non-divisive way.

Join the revolution here. Memberships are currently free for those living in NSW.

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