‘Slightly better than average party’ eyes Australian Senate seat

[Mighty AU]

When Australians go to the polls on May 18, one party will be exhorting voters to tick its box with the underwhelming pledge to 'make Australia slightly better than average again'.

The Together Party may have its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, but founder Mark Swivel is serious about a tilt at the Senate.

The party is one of many that have sprung up as a reaction to the rise of far-right politics in Australia.

'Slightly better than average'

'Making Australia slightly better than average' was the subheading of a book-cum-manifesto that Mr Swivel published last year around the same time canary-yellow billboards started popping up bearing a Queensland mining magnate's image.

"'Make Australia great' resonates with a certain fellow with orange hair over in the US and it occurred to me that we needed to make fun of that," Mr Swivel said.

"Obviously Australia is a fantastic place but, in my submission, we're as blessed as we are broken at the moment and there's a lack of urgency in our politics."

Mullumbimby in northern New South Wales, with its rolling green hills and charming post-Federation weatherboard homes, is Together-central and where the party's nucleus of left-leaning scientists, lawyers and creatives nutted out Mr Swivel's vision at a recent conference.

The party's focus was reinvesting in public institutions — the 'Common Wealth' — including transport, universities and housing.

"We reckon we should also include dental care and ambulances on Medicare," Mr Swivel said.

The party's inaugural conference drew speakers including the head of La Trobe University's law school, Patrick Keyzer, former Murdoch press China correspondent, Michael Sainsbury, and former GetUp! chairwoman, Anne Coombs.

One of the big drivers for many of those who joined the party is action on climate change.

Mr Swivel is the company secretary of the community-owned renewable energy company, Enova.

Also on the party's senate ticket is Belinda Kinkead, an engineer and Australian representative of US-based tech energy company LO3 Energy, which has been using blockchain technology to supply renewable energy.

Filling the Democrats' void

Could 2019 be the year that the political middle ground also sprouted a swag of players?

Mr Swivel said the party was playing in the political space left vacant when the Australian Democrats imploded.

The Democrats were founded by colourful Victorian Senator Don Chipp in 1977 with the promise to "keep the bastards honest".

"People like Natasha Stott Despoja, who's the last of the great Democrats, are the kinds of people that we need in Parliament now," Mr Swivel said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-13/slightly-better-than-average-political-party/10996680