2025 Policy Platforms
Cost of living and a fair economy
This is the first in a series of posts outlining the policy platforms we’re taking to the 2025 federal election. Stay tuned for more!
Early childhood education and care
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Schooling
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Higher Education
Stronger public universities are vital to the success of dynamic, innovative economies, and more inclusive labour markets. But decades of fiscal restraint and corporatisation have eroded the democratic governance and equitable delivery of public higher education in Australia.
Agriculture
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Rural and remote communications
Telecommunication services are essential services, as important to our health and way of life as the electricity and water in our homes. We rely on phone and internet services in emergencies, for work, banking, telehealth services, social cohesion – everything. We need a policy agenda that reflects the indispensable nature of telecommunications. Regiona…
Rural and remote services
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Right to Repair
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Good health!
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Waste and recycling
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Plastic in the ocean
Up to 11 million tonnes of plastic pollution is sitting on the ocean floor. Every minute, a garbage truck’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. CSIRO Plastic production rates are intensifying and the volume of refuse humans release into marine systems is growing at an exponential rate.
Biodiversity
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The environment
Spending on the protection and restoration of nature isn’t just a nice-to-have item. More than half our GDP relies on natural systems and healthy nature is vitally important for the health and wellbeing of people and communities.
Decarbonising the power sector
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Adapting to climate change
“Human-caused global warming is already irreversible on the timescale of people alive today and will worsen in decades to come.” – NASA
Political party financing
Without spending caps, our election debates are dominated by those with the biggest bank balance, not those with the best ideas.
Lobbying
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Let’s have truth in political advertising
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Freedom of Information
“A well-functioning and comprehensive FOI system acts as a deterrent against corruption within political systems, as those involved are aware of the high likelihood of being exposed. It also empowers the public with independent access to information, enabling greater participation in the political process and fostering a healthier democratic environment…
Securing the Nation
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A gendered perspective on foreign affairs
Women’s leadership is essential for their empowerment, human rights, peace and stability.
Climate protesters criminalised
Governments across Australia have criminalised people who are peacefully protesting by proliferating a worrying number of anti-protest laws. Over the past two decades, 49 laws affecting protest have been introduced in federal, state and territory parliaments. New South Wales has introduced the most anti-protest laws, while South Australia has the toughe…
Media
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The Arts
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Youth Mental Health
A world-first review into youth mental health describes a lack of action as a “scandal” that is having big implications for the health, wellbeing and productivity of young people.
Stop locking up children
‘Ultimately it (detaining young people) will lead to worse outcomes for children and young people, and it will make the community less safe.’
Family violence
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Standing with First Nations
Successive Governments have failed our First Nations People. In 1992, Paul Keating in his Redfern speech called on us to, in essence, participate in the truth-telling:
Nuclear weapons and power
“So long as anyone has nuclear weapons, others will want them. So long as anyone possesses nuclear weapons, they are bound, one day, to be used, by accident or miscalculation if not by deliberate design. And any such use would be catastrophic for our world as we know it.”
Science
Despite having a high proportion of globally ranked universities, Australia’s research impact, business R&D investment, and proportion of R&D expenditure relative to GDP, remains low.
Reducing gambling harm
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Reforming the Constitution
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Lower the voting age to 16
The evidence shows elsewhere that [young people} have been taking up the vote when they have the opportunity to do so, and in Australia we know… that young people are extremely active in mobilising and supporting one another, and using technology as well to raise issues, to campaign and to highlight and to push for change, so they are extremely politica…
Transport
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