Don’tDon’t VoteVote Liberal*Liberal*

* Or Labor, Tree-Tory Greens, One Nation, ’s Conservative National Party, UNITED PARTY, Christian , Love Australia or Leave Australia, Australian , , , Katter’s , Anti-vaxxers, australian better families, etc.

Honi soit’s election manifesto Contents The Northern Territory on the grounds of protecting Aboriginal Editorial Intervention children from child abuse. They relied on the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Introduced by: The Coalition and Act 1975, effectively denying Indigenous This edition is a biased analysis of There are undoubtedly positive 3 // First Nations Policy in continued by the Australian Labor Party. Australians protections from discrimination Australia issues relevant to the upcoming policies adopted by the Australian Involved Governments: Howard, Rudd, afforded to every other Australian citizen. federal election, written by students Labor Party. But those policies have Gillard. Despite the absence of any data to demonstrate with political positions. not and never will be premised on 4 // Voter Suppression Laws Years: 2007- present. the benefits of these measures, and a range When it comes to issues of morality. The currency of change Overview: The Northern Territory of criticisms from various human rights rights for communities which have, is ballots, not ethics. Our article Intervention constituted a set of discriminatory organisations, the ALP chose to continue 6 // Running for Parliament as at best, been ignored and, more on voter suppression laws will laws in which the Howard Government this host of discriminatory measures a student realistically, been actively targeted demonstrate how those ballots have banned the sale and consumption of alcohol through the “Stronger Futures Act” (2012). by successive Labor and Coalition been stolen from Australia’s most in Indigenous communities, excluded The policy is emblematic of the bi-partisan governments, there is no benefit vulnerable communities. 7 // Diaries of our Policy Makers cultural factors as a relevant consideration in support for the destruction of Aboriginal tip-toeing some centrist path. Of course, in writing this we do sentencing and bail decisions and compulsorily Communities in contemporary Australia. Its However, before any not forget that greater evils than acquired leases over declared Aboriginal land. psychological and social effects persist to this impassioned boot-licker looking Labor and the Coalition exist in The package of measures was justified day. Make your to climb the party ladder feigns the Australian political landscape. outrage, we remind them that Parties standing for all forms of vote count merely pointing to the existence of oppression are running in this possible bias does not undermine election. But to think their existence House of Representatives: an argument. We refuse to take in isolation is folly. They are part This ballot contains a vertical list empty accusations of bias from the of a broader system of hegemony, of candidates. This is compulsory, puppets of establishment politicians which both major parties actively preferential voting. Every box seriously. participate in and reap the benefits First Nations Policy in must be numbered to reflect who In writing this, we aim to shed of. As the profile in this edition you’d like to be elected. Don’t be a light on the self-assured hubris of reflects, when young people attempt galah: check you have not repeated career politicians whose conscience to affect change, they are met with Contemporary Australia or skipped any numbers. feeds on collective amnesia the full powers of nationalistic, regarding the subjugation they have conservative vitriole — we hope this Senate: wrought. We hope that the article does not deter new generations. Quite a large piece of paper. You on First Nations policy reveals We encourage readers of this can either vote above or below just some the hypocrisy shared by election edition to consider a whole the horizontal line. If you vote members of parliament across all range of alternative options that are above the line, you need to at least parties. available to them. number tbe boxes 1 to 6. If you vote below the line, you need to number at least 12 boxes. Do not number boxes both above and below the Acknowledgement of Country Treaty with First Closing the Gap line. Nations Peoples The Federal Election selects a Parliament for an illegitimate settler-colonial Vote #1 the party you like the state. The Australian project has slaughtered First Nations people, taken ALP Stance : In the upcoming elections the Introduced by : The Australian Labor Party most, not who you think will children, incarcerated, and erased language and culture. Both major parties ALP has given its support to a treaty. and continued by The Coalition. get in. Giving a party your first carry on a legacy of dispossession. Coalition Stance: The coalition does not Involved governments: Rudd, Gillard, preference gives them $2.756! The Parliament House stands upon on stolen land — three nations have a support a treaty. Abbott, Turbull, and Morrison. Australian Electoral Commission connection to the land now called Canberra: the Ngunnawal, Ngambri and Record: No government from either party to Overview: Closing the Gap refers to a series funds parties that receive at least Ngambri-Guumal people. date has ever entered into a treaty with First of targets established to reduce inequalties four per cent of the total first When a new cohort of parliamentarians is elected, there will likely Nations peoples. faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander preferences in the election. be very few First Nations representatives among them, nor will there be Overview: A treaty with First Nations communities in terms of health, life expectancy, many who will go on to wholeheartedly facilitate decolonisation. For 47 Peoples would be significant in terms of mortality, education, and employment. It makes Honi suggests that after exhausting years and counting, a Tent Embassy has stood in some form or another recognising the sovereignty of First Nations, no mention of incarceration rates despite your preferences on ideologically adjacent to Parliament House, demanding reparations, genuine land rights, providing rights and assurances in terms of Australia’s Indigenous population being one admirable parties, you preference and honest legal protection. Over time, members have been violently self-determination and recognising Australia’s of the world’s most incarcated groups. 3% of Labor above the . removed by police, and the embassy temporarily taken down. It still not subjugation of First Nations Peoples. Treaties Australia’s population is Aboriginal compared Preference both above the sweep considered an official embassy by the Australian government. have been called for since at least the 1970s. to 28% of the prison population. of racist, homophobic, ruling-class When you approach the ballot box this weekend, remember: your In 1988 the ALP’s Hawke Government Beyond its failure to recognise gaps in parties in this election, even less democratic empowerment requires the disempowerment of First Nations’ promised to enter into a treaty but ultimately incarcertation, many of the targets have not deserving of federal parliament. self-determination. You should vote accordingly. never delivered on this. been met by ALP and Coalition governments

2 3 Five staff were fired from the recently enacted in a number of marginal seats. Recent polling has Enrolment Branch, and four in the conservative American states, demonstrated that age is more Indigenous Participation and Voter which many have accused of important than political ideology in Education Branch. In the face of disproportionately disenfranchising terms of determining the likelihood countless communities that lack people of colour and poorer voters. someone supports action on climate the infrastructure to cast a vote, Unsurprisingly, a study of the change. these cuts can only represent state Queensland requirements found negligence, and arguably, malice. them to have excluded more Voter Most worryingly, enrolling voters in Indigenous and remote approximately 20,000 people communities. More generally, would easily swing a close election. turnout in the 2015 election saw the Although Labor MP Warren lowest Queensland turnout rates In these ways and many more, Snowden has held the seat for since 1980. Australian elites manufacture Suppression decades, Jacinta Price, Warlpiri and Despite this drop in turnout, participation in elections, shoring Celtic woman and Country Liberals the federal Coalition has continued up their continued hegemony and candidate, is expected to closely contest much of conservative urban Lingiari. One’s right to vote is contingent on their Laws However, poor engagement is right to have their vote genuinely facilitated harmful regardless of the influenced election result. Parties are left with less impetus to make adversarial to consider such reforms. This is in protecting their interests. Electorate and Liam Thorne Nina Dillon- Britton policy for many of the communities spite of consensus amongst electoral boundaries are moved, just like living around the poverty-line experts that voter fraud is essentially America. We void the rights of across the NT. One’s right to vote non-existent. Whilst it is difficult to prisoners with sentences greater is contingent on their right to have know if such requirements change than three years to vote, despite their vote genuinely facilitated — the outcome of elections, they have their incarceration being likely this is especially true in communities not met the onus of proving that explained by their socio-economic manhandled by settler-colonial they are required. environment. Even those eligible In a world where Republicans are same restrictive reforms American an election. A quarter of the NT policies like the Northern Territory are not adequately engaged; in gradually restricting the right to conservatives have implemented, population of approximately 250’000 Intervention Act. 2013, only 1 per cent of roughly vote by creating new barriers for and turnout rates amongst young are First Nations rights-holders. In addition to refunding 10,600 enrolment packs provided prisoners, working class people people remain relatively low. The territory also easily has the programs that promote community to NSW prisons for inmates to and people of colour, Australia Though subtler than American lowest voter-enrollment rate in the engagement, the AEC should Access to voting also cuts across complete postal votes ahead of the seems a model functional suppression, these policies reflect country at 83.9% – 12.3% lower than establish direct enrolment across the generational lines. Whilst a 2013 election were completed and democracy. Mandatory voting, the choices of a political elite as to the national average, which means NT. Direct enrolment programs use number of states have expanded returned. elections on weekends, easy who is heard, and who is not. 26,731 adults are not on the electoral government lists to automatically postal voting, to account for older We often question why voters registration, voting rights for most roll. When booths open this coming enroll people unless they opt-out voters, NSW remains the only state don’t support serious political action prisoners, long enrolment periods weekend for the federal election, 1 in — they are currently used to great to allow enrolment on election towards decolonisation, for wealth and short voting wait times mean 3 First Nations adults will not even effect in urban areas, including days, which appeals to younger equality, or against climate change. that Australia has one of the be enrolled to participate. This reality Darwin, however, are not used voters. Queensland’s identification Perhaps we must begin with those world’s highest voter turnouts. In modern elections, the Northern should provoke major anxiety for the in most of Lingiari, where postal requirements also reveal a bias who cannot even vote. Additionally, Parliament’s Territory (NT) is given relatively health of democracy in the region. services are deemed too ‘unreliable.’ towards older voters, as younger ability to restrict voting rights little attention. With only two Despite the longstanding under- In the context of compulsory voting, voters are more likely to vote in or registration opportunities are electorates — Solomon, recently enrollment of Territorians, the the Coalition government’s refusal person. limited, the High Court finding won back by Labor from Country Coalition government chose to to protect the democratic rights of The groups we divert resources such restrictions to be largely Liberals, and Lingiari, a Labor safe cut $1.5 million in funds to the NT entire swathes of disadvantaged towards encouraging to vote, and the unconstitutional. communities is voter suppression, way our electoral policies are made That view, however, is plain and simple. are both political choices. Current incomplete. Although voting in The Coalition government chose to cut electoral policies betray indifference Australia is far easier than most on the part of both major parties to industrial democracies, voting $1.5 million in funds to the NT Australian the votes of young people. remains incredibly difficult for Electoral Commission (AEC) office In 2015 the Queensland LNP These choices have clear the most marginalised. Tens of government passed legislation outcomes. A YVote study of the thousands of First Nations voters requiring voters to present 2016 federal election found that if remain ineligible to vote because seat across the rest of the territory Australian Electoral Commission government-issued identification in young people had voted at similar of cuts to AEC funding, the federal — broader Australia rarely invest (AEC) office, with a further $8.4 order to vote. The move mirrored rates to other age groups, it could LNP is considering some of the much energy into this corner of million planned in future years. voter identification requirements have changed the outcome of ten

4 5 ational legislatures to be this old man in a suit and When they see a young and young people are tie with grey hair and a receding candidate, they say ‘yeah, let’s get Diaries of Your Federal two things that are not hairline, or can it be someone behind this new way of thinking commonly associated. young?” about politics’,” Parissis explains. NThe average age of Australian The influx of young candidates “In the same vein, the Liberals Federal Members of Parliament comes at a time of record youth and the right are then using that Members of Parliament has hovered around 50 since enrolment — over 4 million voters same argument to dismiss me federation, and at last entirely. I can’t have an count was 51. In the opinion because I’m United States, citizens RUNNING FOR PARLIAMENT too young, or I can’t As part of this year’s election coverage, Honi Soit made a series of Freedom of Information requests relating to under the age of 25 engage in political campaign materials used by party officials. In a box of documents ultimately released by the Liberal party, we are constitutionally AS A STUDENT commentary because found two campaign diaries which we believe to have belonged to Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott. Honi received disallowed from I don’t have the lived legal advice not to publish excerpts from these diaries. We refuse to be silenced when the public interest is at stake. sitting in the House experience.” of Representatives. Two weeks before Throughout Western the election, Parissis Below are key pages from each. democracies, politicians was caught up in the are almost universally flurry of media stories characterised as older that exposed a variety than the general of candidates’ old populace. social media posts. It’s precisely this The Daily criterion for candidacy Telegraph reported that young candidates that Parissis had around the country shared a number of are poised to question controversial posts, this Federal Election. including memes that Almost 120 candidates News Corp dubbed under the age of 35 have anti-Semitic. The nominated to enter images labeled the the 46th Parliament, Israeli Defence Force including 38 students. “terrorist” and Israel as The Greens have put “occupied Palestine”. up the most number of Parissis apologised student candidates, with for posts encouraging 15, at least two of which violence against attend the University of police and retained Sydney. the endorsement of “People are labelling Joe Verity interviews Greens his party, arguing that me as a ridiculously the smear campaign young candidate,” Greens candidate Connor Parissis. had failed and that candidate for Barton and candidates “saw USyd student Connor Parissis under the age of 35 are enrolled through the bullshit”. told Honi. Parissis is currently to vote in the 2019 Federal When asked about his goals, studying a Master of Publishing Election, a number that pundits Parissis is blunt. after finishing his undergraduate have speculated was assisted by “We’re not expecting to win, degree last year, and has been the enrolment push in the 2017 obviously. I’m not expecting to heavily involved with student Marriage Equality Plebiscite. beat Linda Burney anytime soon,” politics during his time on campus. Most of these student he explains, referring to the Labor “I’ve been asked at polling candidates hold a very small incumbent. Here at Honi Soit we cannot and will not stand for this type of unacceptable behaviour from those in the booths whether I’m actually legally chance of winning their electorate. But Parissis doesn’t think that’s nation’s highest office. If you share our outrage we urge you to pick up the phone and start dialing. Call the allowed to vote. People just look at According to Parissis however, any reason not to run. Scotster and Tone’s office and ask them, in as clear terms as possible, how could you? me and say, ‘holy crap, you’re really candidates like him are there “It’s the biggest platform you’re young’,” he goes on to say. mainly to send a message. going to get. People like me — Tony Abbott: (02) 9977 6411 “That’s been the main thing — “A lot of people are really young people and uni students — challenging the idea of who can into this anti-establishment idea, who want to step up and have that Scott Morrison: (02) 9523 0339 run for Parliament. Does it have particularly a lot of swing voters. platform should do it.”

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