When our existing main political parties act like two legs of the same animal, it's refreshing to have common sense and courage for the sake of the people and a party that dares to be different.
TRANSCRIPT:
(This transcript is derived from an automated process. The video recording is authoritative.)
Thank you Jewel, as always. You're just too kind. I, I take it today. We've got a pretty politically aware group here and that's why you're here. And it's also why I'm keen to address you.
Jewel's asked me to talk about time for new approach and I'm from the Queen Libertarian party of Queensland, so that's what I'm going to talk about. We've got a federal election just around the corner, and we'll have a Queensland election before then. And as Jewel always agrees, voting matters. It's time for the politically aware among us to start formulating what you, how you're going to vote at these coming elections. And things have been changing.
It's not the same as four years ago or three years ago. What I'm hearing as that we've got a, and I I, I'm not sure if I can say this in public, so I'll say a blank in the lodge, but you know what I mean, who promised $275 off electricity bills who promised to United Australia by introducing voice treaty and truth, who undertook the to bolster defense forces in two decades time, but nothing now who promised a false fairness for all, um, but not his salary and perks, who gives away funding to organizations influenced by terrorist regimes who is appealing, uh, who's repealing legislative tax cuts, which he promised to retain in order to spread round some larges to his voting followers.
And that will impose an additional 28 billion in income tax over the forward estimates and have bracket creep embedded back into our tax system. We've got an opposition leader who loosely uses the word liberal in their party name, who took six weeks vacillating on whether to support a tax cut or not, who vacillated for months on the referendum questions, which would've divided Australia on racial grounds, who can't seem to dent, make any dent in the po in his polling popularity of the, um, blank person in the lodge and who is personally deeply unpopular. So does that make you feel good about our environment at present? You may not agree with all of that, but that's the stuff I'm hearing.
There's the, there's a party that started off as an environmental party, so called, and another party that of independents who also uses a color to identify themselves, but they refuse to criticize the greatest destruction going on in our rural and regional areas today.
Um, and you'll hear more of that about that perhaps from Jim Wilmott, where they're blowing the tops off mountain ranges and the dividing range in Queensland to erect turbine monstrosities. And we read in some states up to 70% of the arable land and grazing land may be used for their plans, but those reports are now being hidden from the public.
So how do you feel about your choices so far, not hidden from the hidden Thomas? The reports on how much arable land is going to be used for, um, turbines and, uh, and solar.
Let's go on. You could vote for a party which promises it in its name to be one nation, but it's also got in its name, it's founder's name whose aging politician. She's about my age and I'm retired and she's gonna retire soon too. I know most of you probably like Malcolm Roberts and I reckon he's a great bloke. I, I'd consider voting for him, but his name's not in the party, not in the party name.
Then there's another party whose founder, or should it be funder, has made a colossal error and they've excluded themselves from registration in the next federal election.
So your choices are going to be a bit modified from what they have been in the past. And so far there's little o optimism and few prospects for a brighter future.
Australians always want to be optimistic and want a better future. We all want to leave a better place for our kids, our grandkids, and for future generations. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about the Libertarian Party in particular, the Libertarian Party of Queensland.
The Libertarian Party is the federal entity formed out of the liberal Democrats, which was founded in 2001. The name was changed last year after changes in legislation. The specifically required we not use the word liberal in our name anymore.
It was contested in spite of having used that same name since at least 2007. It was contested in the high, contested in the high court and narrowly lost four three.
Since then, the party has immediately set about renaming itself, reforming and is on a pathway to rebranding. The Libertarian Party of Queensland is a brand new entity. It's got its own Australian business number formed in July, 2023 with its own constitution and affiliated with the liberal party, the federal Libertarian Party.
Federally, I I was elected as president of the Libertarian Party of Queensland, which I agreed to do temporarily. And I keep telling me there's no definition to the word temporary. So here I am still, I am not a politician. Yeah, I ran against Jim Charmers in Rankin twice in 2016 and 29, but I'm very sad to report that he's still running the economy today or should I have said running it down.
I'm not a politician. Others who are who or who could be politicians in future on this platform today. And I encourage you to listen to them. I'm going to give you a very brief synopsis of the Libertarian Party of Queensland, then hand over the floor to those others.
More political than I. Libertarian Party of Queensland is both autonomous but also affiliated without federal counterpart. As an organization, we've got a modest but a robust balance sheet with no liabilities.
We own most of the equipment we need for campaigning as a minor party being a affiliated with our federal counterpart. We can share responsibility for running candidates in federal elections.
And we are about to embark on registering with ECQ, the Electoral Commission of Queensland as a political party in Queensland, ECQ have already given our constitution a tick. We now need to produce a list of at least 550 members of the party who enrolled to in vote and will confirm membership of the party when requested by ECQ to do so.
We have nearly half those members as financial members today, and these are a solid and committed group who will confirm when they receive an email or a mail out from ECQ.
We've got a further 3000 people in our data database have liked supported or maybe they've enrolled as associate members in the past. We're about to start testing how many of them are still with us and how many of them will actually confirm with ECQ?
They're still members today. There's only eight political parties registered in Queensland, and that's evidence of how difficult it is in Queensland. My judgment is it's tougher to register in Queensland than any other state of Australia.
Libertarian party of Queensland aims to be the ninth party to register. So what is LPQ'S unique proposition? What makes us different to other political parties? Why can we be optimistic and give you hope, um, when it's a bit dismal elsewhere?
First, we're not burdened. We're the founder in our name. The party is democratically, um, run with all official positions elected, and we've learned how to make this work. It does work. We're all volunteers in an age where volunteering is under threat and fading in Australia, tradition of volunteering is alive and well in LPQ.
If you want to join us and help us run the party, you won't get paid, But we'll gladly accept your skills and your efforts. The cause is worthwhile. It's the future of the country and the future of Queensland.
Libertarian Party of Queensland has a demographic other parties crave. We have female members who are equals and sometimes our betters aren't they, Jewel? We have a greater cohort of younger people than just about any other party.
And comparable to the Greens, there's there's a myth that all young people are lefties until they grow up. And I'm here to tell you that's not so. Libertarianism is sexy.
Some young people will love it, and some of them come to us from the Greens too. By the way, libertarianism is the new wave, sweeping the world as I expect you'll hear from other speakers today, even though it's been a concept that's been around for centuries.
Yesterday, we had our annual general meeting in Brisbane and a very upright young man came to me while I was standing at the registration desk of our federal conference and asked could he meet a few Queenslanders?
So I politely asked him about himself and I discovered he's a fourth year cadet at RMC Royal Military College at Duntroon, as well as being a member of the Libertarian Party last night at our gala event, late in the evening there, he was huddled with another graduate from Duntroon and an ex-premier discussing military careers and careers post-military.
That is the sort of young member we have who I suspect is going to be a very good budding politician. We just gotta wait a decade or so, decade or a bit more, but we've got 'em in our party.
We're a party for now and we're a party for the future. So watch us. We have principles. Yes, we have to campaign. And politics is politics, but libert, libertarians do have principles of stack of cards that I've distributed.
And you'll notice they're, they're in the old liberal Democrat, uh, livery. But what has not changed when we've reformed, renamed, and are rebranding is our principles. They're still the same.
They're embedded in our constitution. All our policies and promises will never waver from these bedrock principles. You'll never have to wonder what a libertarian candidate stands for. And there'll just be, there are a couple of principles I'll highlight to you.
Okay? I'm nearly at the end. We're are strong supporters of private property rights, and you'll hear from Jim Wilmott a bit later, great believers in civil society, rule of law, were optimists on individuals taking responsibility for their own future.
I'm going to give up the platform now to speak as more political than I am.
Two things. If you'd like to join the party, talk to me and I'll help you. And second, when the elections come round, vote one libertarian. If you've got a libertarian standing in your electorate vote to anybody else you damn like.
