BRISBANE — The Australian Sex Party could decide the outcome of the next Queensland state election.
Local polls are suggesting that there’s a virtual tie between the conservative Liberal National Party (LNP) and the green Australian Labor Party (ALP) and that the Sex Party’s influence could tip the balance to the more liberal ALP.
Sex Party president Fiona Patten said that the party would be using this week’s Sexpo in Brisbane to talk to the 40,000 people who will attend and try and get them to switch their vote.
“This will be the first Queensland election we have run in and we expect to pull voters from the conservatives to the Greens. We’re also keeping our eye out for interesting candidates who turn up at Sexpo,” Patten said.
The organization claimed that its influence in the last federal election determined the outcome of the last Queensland Senate seat. The party will be the seventh political party registered in Queensland.
Patten failed to win an upper house seat in the last Victorian election by only 3,000 votes, but the party expects to double its vote in Queensland in the state election as it did in Victoria.
The goal of the party, according to Patten, is to appeal to younger and older Queenslanders who wanted law reform around the pressing social issues of the day. “Both the LNP and Labor are old style parties created before the Internet and social networking whereas the Sex Party was born in the middle of these social changes. The old fashioned parties have buried important social reforms that strike deeply at the personal freedom of individuals,” she said.
Patten added, “Queensland is Australia’s most conservative state and has censorship laws like China and Iran and abortion laws totally out of step with community attitudes."
The party leader is calling for Queensland’s conservative abortion laws to be revoked and the acceptance of euthanasia laws that allow people to die with dignity. She’s also asking that censorship laws be relaxed to match the rest of Australia and that drugs be regulated instead of being banned.
Patten has also reached out to maverick Australian Party chief Bob Katter as a possible ally.
“Bob Katter pays lip service to some civil liberties in Queensland like the right to burn off and the right to fish where you want but he will not champion the more important rights like gay marriage and drug law reform,”,she said. “I am sending Bob a couple of tickets to Sexpo for himself and Mrs. Katter so they can come and see me and chat about the possibility of joining forces on civil liberties in Queensland."
