Comment on Suffering from minor party confusion? Some links I found helpful
thisisdee@lemmy.world 2 weeks agoOh wow. I didn’t know it was this bad. I was planning to vote 1 for them cos they’re the only left minor party other than Greens where I am. I guess I have to rely on Greens and Labor instead.
Ilandar@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
This is only from Victoria, it doesn’t mean necessarily mean that your local candidate or branch is the same (depending on where you live). Fusion is a micro party that attracts a very wide range of people, so I don’t think a painting them all with the same brush is a particularly smart or helpful thing to do.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
That’s true, but I also think it’s actually sort of part of the problem. Because Fusion isn’t one party, but instead a…fusion…of multiple different parties, it is inevitably very unclear where they stand. And they don’t exactly make it easy to see who’s who, or what they stand for.
I’ve got no idea where the Fusion candidate in my seat, or the ones on my state’s Senate ballot, stand on important issues. But I do know that they are happy associating with a party that’s willing to put Libertarians, Labor, and even the LNP and Family First ahead of the Greens. And that I find to be deeply concerning about anyone’s political reliability.
Ilandar@lemm.ee 1 week ago
Again, I don’t necessarily agree with that last part because every candidate and branch may (or may not) be different. Frankly, I don’t really care who is being preferenced in Victoria when I’m voting in South Australia. But yes, I absolutely agree that Fusion as a concept has a major issue in that it’s values and policy positions are so broad that it makes it very difficult for me as a voter to determine which aspects of the party platform are core, where influence lies and why my candidate is running under the party banner. I like a lot about Fusion but I expect that I’m actually a minority in that regard and that people are probably more likely to be attracted by specific elements of the party, which is a problem for stability and transparency. I am fortunate to have a lower house Fusion candidate in my seat but I can’t preference him above The Greens guy because it’s not at all clear why he is running or what he stands for.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 week ago
In a completely unrelated thread, I just know read a user say the following:
I actually don’t entirely agree with it in the context it was presented. It’s hard to “remove” someone from an informal ideological association (though at the least, some members of the ideology should denounce others as necessary rather than remain silent).
But in this context, I think that quote works perfectly. It’s a formalised political party. By being a member of the party, and especially by being a candidate for that political party, every one of their members are explicitly expressing agreement with the party’s methods.
If one Labor candidate decided to put Family First ahead of the Greens, we would widely say that reflects badly of Labor as a whole. We wouldn’t excuse Labor Left because it was a Labor Right candidate who did it, we’d say that Labor Left chooses to remain unified with the ALP and in so doing they have endorsed Family First above the Greens.
We can acknowledge that they might have disagreements behind the scenes and work towards improving, while also believing it valid to tar them with the same brush that their party’s public actions have crafted.
Yeah I think it’s a complicated nuanced situation because there are multiple separate issues going on here. One is the ambiguity created by multiple separate parties merging into one party but semi-retaining their separate identities. Another is exactly what those individual constituent parties might stand for (just how libertarian are the Pirates, anyway?). And a third is the degree to which individual members should be held to account for the actions of the party as a whole, or other members of the party.