Sustainable Australia Party

Summary

Policies & Commentary

Sustainable Australia²Because of their original name – the Stable Population Party – I keep thinking of them as the ‘Stablents’, but I shall refrain from doing so here for two reasons: (1) They’re not called that anymore; and (2) I suspect not enough people have read Only Forward to get the reference. summarises their plan for Australia thusly:

• Put our environment first
• Basic income for all
• Stop over-development
• Slow population growth
• End the housing crisis
• A diverse economy

They have 32 policy headings, although it’s not always clear which of those six points a given policy serves – nor do any of them have anything to do with the slogan that the party’s running under. In fact, a lot of them don’t seem to be informed by any of the six (seven, counting their slogan, which is oddly MIA from their plan despite being what they’re apparently running under.). Rather, they seem like a collection of ideas someone liked, without much consideration for how they fit under the party’s goals. In addition, the SAP will allow any elected members a conscience vote – but only for a range of social (usually moral or ethical) issues, a phrase vague enough to leave plenty of wiggle room to rule things in or out. There’s not enough detail here to tell how this would work in practice, but enough vagueness to throw every policy position into doubt.

For example, the first policy heading is Ageing. It’s a reasonable enough thing to have a policy about, but the policy itself is aimed at prolonging the lives of the aging – a goal I support, but wouldn’t increasing lifespans cause an increase in population rather than slowing growth? Also under this heading, SAP wants a UBI (although the details are explained more fully in their Welfare and Wellbeing policy section), but they’re also included a fallback in case that doesn’t get through: a NZ style aged pension, which would return the retirement age to 65, which would mean that even more people would qualify for it. Also, the NZ scheme they wish to adopt is not means tested, which means it goes to people who are wealthy enough to have no need of it. This seems wasteful to me, but of course, it’s never the rich who have to tighten their belts, is it? This does not seem very ‘sustainable’ to me, especially financially.

SAP want to Slow population growth then stabilise Australia’s population size as soon as practicable, but also rules out restrictions on family size and coercive efforts to reduce fertility. What does that leave? Well, the SAP has a LOT of thoughts about immigration, all of which can be neatly summarised in two words: reduce it. (Although it’s nice to see that they do not regard asylum seekers as the problem and are supportive of resettlement efforts for them.) Aside from that? Well:

• Provide free universal access to contraception and related family planning, reproductive and sexual health services, to help prevent unwanted pregnancies
• Limit government baby bonus-style birth payments (e.g. the Newborn Upfront Payment through Family Tax Benefit Part A) to each woman’s first two children

The first of these sounds like something the Secular Party (now part of Fusion), would have loved – and that various Christian-aligned parties will scream the roof off about. Personally, I think it’s a great idea, but I also think that all the people who came against Safe Schools will also hate this. The second is the continuation of a scheme that is, like the pension scheme they want, not means-tested. I can’t for the life of me imagine why they’re not just calling for its abolition entirely, if they really think that a one off lump sum payment of $667 per child³Per the Services Australia website. is that much of an incentive to have a child.

They also have a lot of ideas about how we can spread the population stability gospel overseas, including leading by example (I don’t think anyone much is looking to Australia as an exemplar these days – we’ve violated too many environmental and refugee treatment agreements for that), and tying foreign aid to environmental targets specifically chosen to ease population pressures (which has its own issues, largely that there is rarely a single easily identifiable and treatable issue leading to overpopulation). That’s actually about it in terms of foreign policy, by the way – there’s a defence policy that mentions alliances and not getting caught up in regional struggles (and again, using targeted aid packages to help prevent them occurring in the first place), and there’s a strong policy of banning future foreign investment and working to reduce that which already exists. I’m not sure exactly how any of this would work, although I do like that one of the aspects repeatedly mentioned whenever foreign aid comes up is that they want to see it increased (in the case of aid for family planning and reproductive health services foreign aid from $50 million (in 2016) to at least $1 billion!!!)

SAP is very firm on the idea that their motivation in calling for reduced population and migration is in no way racist, but instead arises from environmental concerns on their part. And I mock, but really, in Australia in 2025, there really is little compelling reason not to just come out and say you’re a racist if you are – several candidates and parties have done just that. On balance, I’m inclined to believe SAP on this one. Because it has to be said, their environmental policy suite is one of the most detailed out there – at least as detailed, if not moreso, than that of the Greens. I’m just going to summarise some of the high points, but believe me, there’s a lot here to chew on and I will be barely scraping the surface.

• Stronger protections against over-fishing and land-clearing
• Widespread urban, rural and marine animal habitat protection, including avoiding habitats of all threatened, vulnerable and endangered native species in housing, mining, agriculture, forestry, etc developments, which would also include Improved and better connected wildlife corridors – the urban part there is unusual, not even the Greens have that.
• Programs to eradicate invasive and feral species
• Implement mandatory and independently regulated best practice animal welfare management in farming, agriculture, conservation, research, sporting, breeding and domestic environments, – which would also include phasing out factory farming, ending live export and stronger penalties for animal cruelty crimes.
• Publicly audit our various national resources (mineral and otherwise), and conservation policies to ensure that we make them last, including a Resource Super Profit Tax.
• A very detailed policy regarding waste disposal and recycling.
• Very strong support for renewable energy, including bans on nuclear power, fracking and new coal mines.
• Invest more in environmental education and the protection, maintenance and ecological restoration of the natural environment
• Reduce car-dependence by supporting car-sharing schemes and supporting pedestrian, cycling and public transport options
• And finally, of course, High Speed Rail (Drink!) is on the agenda!

In addition, they also have excellent policy suites in the Arts, Media and Education areas (the latter including the complete abolition of HECS/HELP!), and some solid economic ideas too – moving Australia away from its dependence on the construction sector to be more diverse and resilient, taking steps to prevent the brain drain, etc.

It seems like every election, whichever of us is looking at this party starts off doubting and comes away persuaded. This is a party of smart policies and moreover, one that pays attention to how those policies interact with each other. Sustainable Australia will be near, if not at, the top of my ballot.