Reason Party (Australia)

Australian Sex Party
File:SexPartyLogo.jpg
Leader	Fiona Patten
Founded	2009
Headquarters	10 Ipswich St Fyshwick ACT 2609
Membership	7,000 (2010s)
Ideology	Civil libertarianism Sex-positive Progressivism Secular liberalism
Political position	Centre-left to Left-wing
Colours	Yellow and   Red
Victorian Legislative Council	1 / 40
Website
sexparty.org.au
Politics of Australia Political parties Elections

The Australian Sex Party is an Australian political party founded in 2009 in response to concerns over the increasing influence of religion in Australian politics. The party was born out of an adult-industry lobby group, the Eros Association. Its leader, Fiona Patten, was formerly the association's CEO. Patten describes the party as a "civil libertarian alternative". Patten is a veteran campaigner on issues such as censorship, equality, and discrimination. Patten was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council at the 2014 state election.

The party was briefly federally deregistered by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) on 5 May 2015, after an audit found that it could not demonstrate that it met the statutory requirement of 500 members, but was re-registered in July. The Sex Party is registered at state level in Victoria, where it has parliamentary representation, and in the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory.

Parliamentary actions

In 2015, party leader, Fiona Patten, put forth a Private Member's Bill calling for a 150-metre (490 ft) "Safe Access Zone" around hospitals, GP clinics and health services that perform abortions, where it will be an offence to engage in behaviour that harasses or intimidates women seeking to access an abortion. The Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Safe Access Zone) Bill 2015 formally passed the Victorian Legislative Council without amendment.

In 2016, the Sex Party renewed its call for religious institutions to pay more state-based taxes, and to overturn long-standing exemptions.

Election results

2009 federal by-elections

The party contested elections for the first time at the Higgins and Bradfield by-elections in November 2009, gaining over three percent of the primary vote in both seats, coming fourth of ten, and third of twenty-two candidates, respectively.

2010 federal election

See also: Senate results for the Australian federal election, 2010

The party contested six of 150 House of Representatives seats and all states and territories (except Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory) in the Senate at the 2010 federal election. Receiving more than 250,000 first preferences, the party won 2.04 percent of the national Senate vote. After the major parties and the Australian Greens, the Sex Party during the vote count were "neck and neck" with the Family First Party for the fourth place in the national Senate vote. The party "outpolled several more prominent minor parties and came within about 10,000 votes of Family First for the Senate in Victoria". After the party's first federal election contest, Patten claimed that the Sex Party was "now the major minor party in Australian politics":

We’ve polled better than the Greens did in their first federal election and believe that our vision of Australia as the most socially progressive country in the world is equal to the Greens environmental messages of 20 years ago.

Whilst the Sex Party did not win any seats, their preferences were substantially beneficial to the Greens who won a Senate seat in every state for the first time.

2010 Victorian state election

The party contested seats at the 2010 Victorian state election on 27 November, and received 1.9 percent of the vote in the upper house. Labor, the Coalition, and the Greens all directed preferences to the ASP in the multimember proportional upper house.

2011–13 Victorian state by-elections

The party received 5 percent and 8 percent of the vote at the 2011 Broadmeadows and 2012 Niddrie by-elections in the absence of Liberal Party of Australia candidates. Patten contested the 2012 Melbourne state by-election, coming third out of 16 candidates, receiving 6.6 percent of the vote, in the absence of a Liberal candidate. She says the party preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens on their how-to-vote card at the Melbourne by-election due to the "anti-sex feminist movement" within the Greens, but that future preferences may change again. The Sex Party produced a split Labor/Green how-to-vote card at the 2013 Lyndhurst by-election and won 8.4 percent of the primary vote, again in the absence of a Liberal candidate.

2014 Victorian state election

The party received 2.54% of the upper house primary vote at the 2014 Victorian state election. Fiona Patten was elected to the Legislative Council as a member for the Northern Metropolitan Region.

2015 Victorian state by-election

President of the Rationalist Society of Australia, Meredith Doig, contested for the party at the 2015 Polwarth by-election, receiving over six percent of the vote in the absence of a Labor candidate.

2016 Federal election

For the 2016 federal election the Australian Sex Party fielded Senate candidates in every state and territory as well as two candidates in New South Wales and four in Victoria for seats in the House of Representatives. In several states, the Sex Party only fielded one senate candidate, teamed up with the Marijuana (HEMP) Party to share a column on the ballot paper.

2016 Australian Capital Territory general election

The Australian Sex Party ACT contested the 2016 Australian Capital Territory general election, with lead candidate Steven Bailey receiving 7.9% of the primary vote in the Brindabella electorate.

Policies

Party leader Fiona Patten

The Australian Sex Party's policy platform has been described as libertarian. It is opposed to mandatory internet censorship, and supports the introduction of a national media classification scheme, including a rating for non-violent sexual content. The ASP also supports a royal commission into the sexual abuse of children in Australian religious institutions, and is in favour of legalised abortion, gay rights, voluntary euthanasia, the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use along with the decriminalisation of all other drugs for recreational use. However, although this said decriminalisation, or more specifically the removal of criminal sanction, is of interest to the party, they do recommend that this is dealt with by referring one found with illicit drugs to a corresponding treatment centre. Additionally, the party is also in favour of sexual rights for disabled individuals. Based on the science, the Sex Party supports vaccination to protect public health and reduce the spread of preventable diseases. In a 2016 response to the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network's Meryl Dorey, the Sex Party stated: "Choosing not to vaccinate your children amounts to medical neglect; this is a serious ethical issue".

Links

The Australian Sex Party's close links with the adult industry lobby group, the Eros Association, are seen by some as the party being its political wing.

The party has had some involvement in Glenn Druery's Minor Party Alliance.

External links

• Australian Sex Party official website
• "Sex Party vs Family First debate", Sunrise, 2 August 2010