Policies

The Climate Sceptics Party is based on two fundamental principles:

• All policy and legislation should emerge from a balanced and objective assessment of available information.
• The rights of every Australian must be protected.

These principles may seem basic, but together they form a powerful framework that allows “obvious” policy formulation.

Our policies are summarised below, and described in more detail in our policy PowerPoint.

Climate alarmism

Being the issue that spurred the creation of the Climate Sceptics Party, our position on climate alarmism is clear:

• Climate science is far from “settled”, as evidenced by the revelations of recent months and years.
• The alarmist theories propounded by the IPCC and other political bodies are crippled by huge uncertainties.
• An objective and quantitative risk–benefit analysis of any proposed “climate” legislation is crucial.

Elected members of the Climate Sceptics Party will:

• oppose any provision of any Bill that uses carbon dioxide as an arbitrary criterion;
• call for a Royal Commission into climate science; and
• urge Parliament to cease diverting attention to climate alarmism, to the detriment of real environmental issues.

Property rights

As climate alarmism has already encouraged governments to take unprecedented actions against its own citizens, it is natural that the Climate Sceptics Party seeks to protect the fundamental property rights of all Australians—whether in the name of climate alarmism, or on the basis of other, valid grounds—and to reverse any injustices already perpetrated:

• Governments should not appropriate the property rights of Australians except in extraordinarily urgent situations.
• The objective evidence for the need for such action must be overwhelmingly conclusive.
• Our constitutional guarantee of “just terms” compensation must be strengthened and extended to the States.

Water

We consider water to be the real environmental issue of our time:

• Securing a reliable water supply for all Australians is of primary importance.
• Governments have a crucial role to play in terms of desalination, recycling, and other
  water infrastructure.
• A national plan for water infrastructure to rural communities and industry is crucial as our population continues to expand.

Bushfire protection

The Bushfires Royal Commission in Victoria has shown how favouring ideology over objectivity led to a horrific loss of life and property.
We want to ensure that the mistakes of Black Saturday are never again repeated:

• Preservation of human life should always be the highest priority of any environmental policy.
• Landholders and communities should have the inalienable right to implement balanced fuel reduction measures.

Broadband

Digital communications are the lifeblood of the 21st century:

• All Australians expect and deserve access to a continuously-improving broadband infrastructure.
• Governments must ensure the highest level of service for the lowest possible cost with full transparency.

Housing affordability

We are concerned by the extended and unprecedented property price bubble that now encompasses most of the nation:

• Home ownership is increasingly out of reach for those Australians who do not already own property.
• Many are forced far out into the fringes of cities, where the development of infrastructure and “satellite cities” is lagging.
• Any bursting of the property bubble will lead to severe hardship for those who are over-extended in debt.
• We will push for more land releases, faster public transportation to city fringes, and the development of satellite cities.

Environmental incentives

We believe that governments have an important role to play in ensuring the sustainability of our nation:

• We support incentive-based policies that reward good land-care outcomes.
• Direct action should be favoured over feel-good advertising or education programmes.
• Issues such as farming native animals or leasing national parks should be based on objective assessments.

Unemployment training

Australia is currently blessed to have a relatively low unemployment rate, but the issue may quickly come to the fore if the economic cycle continues to deteriorate:

• Work for the Dole is too inflexible to deal with the changing requirements of a rapid economic downturn.
• Training programmes do not always recognise that many unemployed people have learning disabilities.
• Community groups can often provide more suitable training than centralised bureaucracies.

Political campaigns

We support the moves of the major political parties to reduce their reliance on private donations, but the health of our democracy demands that any resulting legislation should not simply entrench the positions of the major players:

• New parties and Independents must be provided public funding commensurate with that of established parties.
• Public funding of television and radio time must allow Australians to fairly hear all viewpoints.

Retirement

The shifting demographics of the Australian population provides the most severe challenges for governments in the coming decades, but such challenges must not be used as an excuse for poor or expeditious policy decisions:

• We support linking pension increases to metrics better representing the true increase in the cost of living for pensioners.
• We support greater incentives for Australians to reliably and stably fund their own retirements.
• We do not support the punishment of Australian workers through a continuous increase of the retirement age.

Transport and fuel taxes

The vast size of our country demands that our transportation infrastructure is of the highest priority:

• Spending on our national transportation infrastructure should better reflect the amounts collected in fuel taxes.
• The shortfall should be clearly and honestly reported to the Australian public annually.

Red tape

Governments have a crucial role to play in many areas of policy, but they
should be as useful and efficient as possible:

• Bureaucratic “red tape” incommensurate with the benefits provided should be minimised or eliminated.
• Incentive-based programmes should be employed where possible; enforcement should be boosted where necessary.
• Public servants should be rewarded for eliminating inefficiencies, and should be redeployed rather than retrenched.

Greater democracy

Today’s technology makes it much easier for all Australians to voice their opinion.
Governments should embrace these changes, and use them as an opportunity to enhance our democracy:

• Issues of fundamental importance that have not been decided at an election should be
  put to a plebiscite or referendum.
• Citizens should be able to initiate such a vote if a reasonable proportion of voters supports such a proposition.
• Local issues might be voted on at a council or State level.
• The mechanisms for acting on the results of such votes should be evolved as experience with them develops.