ESSAY 16: FEDERAL ELECTION PREVIEW
A SEARCH FOR COMMON SENSE POLITICAL POLICIES
Editor’s Note:
No comments in this Essay are intended as offensive to any political party, or to any person who contributes to any political party. The Essay’s analysis is made in good faith but is inherently subjective. Any genuine corrections notified to us will be promptly rectified.
Background
Essay 16 looks at policies on offer from the main political parties contesting Australia’s 2022 Federal Election.
Our reference point is unashamedly, issues identified in Common Sense for Australia’s 15 Policy Essays to date (as at April 2022). If any political party’s policy resonates with the content of one of those 15 Essays, it scores a point for that Essay. Each Point Scored is indicated, by words which appear further below, emboldened in gold. (If you are reading this on a phone, you may need to scroll your screen to the right, to see the columns for each separate political party).
The party’s proposed policy solution does not need to be optimal to score a point. A party is scored a point, provided that its solution appears to be genuine. In fairness, we note no political party can achieve a perfect score (10 / 10), as none share the common sense political philosophy which is expounded in Essay 1!!
Scoring is initially marked out of a maximum 16 points – two points being available for Essay 2. Any points scored on Federation Reform Essays (7 of the 15 Essays) are then rounded down to a single point, to give a more balanced and fairer scorecard, for each political party (giving a final score out of 10 points).
In the end, the ’rounding down’ for the Federation Reform Essays only impacted the Liberal Democrats, who uniquely among other parties, managed to score a point for its policy of Decentralising Education. None of the other party platforms scored a single point (out of 7 on offer) pertaining to Federation Reform.
Summary
The Coalition and Labor both scored Zero (0 / 10).
One Nation scored highest (5 / 10). This is largely attributable to its focus on concerns shared by Common Sense for Australia (as opposed to scoring points for One Nation’s solutions for those concerns). The Liberal Democrats and The Greens both scored 3 / 10, pipping United Australia which scored 2 / 10.
Editor’s Note: It was not the expected outcome of these Common Sense Political Policy Stakes, that the Wooden Spoon would reside with the three political parties, who respectively hold the largest numbers of seats in our Federal Parliament’s House of Representatives (Labor, Liberals and Nationals).
The Analysis
Click on the words emboldened in gold in the column headed ‘Our Proposal‘ for details thereof.
| Essay | Issue | Our Proposal | Coalition | Labor | Greens | One Nation | United Oz | Lib Dems |
| 1 | Philosophy | Utilitarian | Muddled | Muddled | Far Left | Autocratic | Autocratic | Freedom |
| 2-a | Price of Housing | Deflationary | Inflationary | Inflationary | Deflationary | Deflationary | Not credible | Unknown |
| 2-b | Public Debt | Restore CGT | Ponzi Scheme | Ponzi Scheme | Tax the Rich | Not credible | Iron Ore Tax | Cut Spending |
| 3 | Population | Stable | Ponzi Scheme | Ponzi Scheme | Stable | Stable | Unknown | Unknown |
| 4 | Pandemics | Section 51(ix) (quarantine power) | Ignorant? | Ignorant? | Ignorant? | Ignorant? | Ignorant? | Ignorant? |
| 5 | Energy | Nuclear | Renewables | Renewables | Renewables | Nuclear | Nuclear | Nuclear |
| 6 | Fed Fix # 1 | States raise own money (mostly) | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 7 | Fed Fix # 2 | Kick the Feds out of service delivery | Centralised control / $ | Centralised control / $ | Centralised control / $ |
Unknown | Unknown | Decentralise Education |
| 8 | Fed Fix # 3 | State taxes seen and felt by all voters | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 9 | Fed Fix # 4 | Section 51(iv) (Fed power over state debt) | Ignorant? | Ignorant? | Ignorant? | Ignorant? | Ignorant? | Ignorant? |
| 10 | Fed Fix # 5 | Fed keeps GST; States rely mostly on land tax | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 11 | Fed Fix # 6 | Broader Benefits of Proposed Fed Fix | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 12 | Fed Fix # 7 | Fed HALVES personal tax (land tax tradeoff) | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | Flat Tax |
| 13 | Industry and Job Creation | Single Smartest Thing Federal MPs Can Do | Talk | Talk | Talk | Talk | Talk | Talk |
| 14 | Water | Fix Biggest Interstate Fraud Since Federation | Conflicted by Marginal Seats | Conflicted by Marginal Seats | Ignorant? | Pushing Change | Talk | Talk |
| 15 | Family Law | Back ‘Friendly Parents’ | No interest | No interest | No interest | Pushing Change | No interest | No interest |
| Score | Out of 16 | 16 / 16 | 0 / 16 | 0 / 16 | 3 / 16 | 5 / 16 | 2 /16 | 3 / 16 |
| Score | Out of 10 | 10 / 10 | 0 / 10 | 0 / 10 | 3 /16 | 5 / 10 | 2 / 16 | 3 / 16 |
For and on behalf of Common Sense for Australia Inc
Authorised for publication, 25 April 2022