Greetings,
This open letter comes from the Libertarian Party of Australia, you can check out our website at https://libertarianparty.org.au. We are writing this for any interested parties participating in the Liberal Democrats “name change vote” being conducted on Saturday, May 13.
This email is somewhat long and we have therefore broken it up into subsections. These are:
About Us
The Libertarian Party of Australia was conceived around July of 2020 and launched on the 5th of November in 2020. The aim was to build an organisation that promotes radical libertarian ideals through the political sphere and to have a party that always puts integrity and principle above votes, a party that uses the political soapbox to educate Australians, and a party that will never sell out principle. Much work has been put into the party, including branding, platform and strategy. We based our platform on the 1975 Workers Party platform, spending many weekends working on how to include more recent issues including the Orwellian/surveillance state, Bitcoin, and more, while making minimal changes so as to honour the work of the giants that came before us. This was a huge undertaking. Please take a read.
A major part of the Libertarian Party’s direction has been guided by Bob Howard’s 1979 reflective essay in Playboy, particularly that it’s a better long-term strategy to be driven by radical ideals rather than populism. Last year (during 2022) a few of us flew to Brisbane to meet with Bob Howard and discuss the Libertarian Party. Bob signed two books for us with different messages, these were:
The Workers Party and lessons learned
In Bob Howard’s 1979 reflective essay in Playboy, many reasons were given for where the party went wrong. These included the party straying from principle, the party losing its radical messaging to pursue “issues of the day”, the party’s inability to attract young people by not being idealistic enough, the push by non-libertarians to make the party something that it is not, and more. Instead of libertarians, the party was somewhat seen as pro-big business and conservative.
We are also guided by this quote by Ron Paul, "Ideas are the only things that count, and politicians are, for the most part, pretty much irrelevant."
In stewarding the Libertarian Party, we want to prevent the same mistakes from being made. In an LDP context some recent mistakes in just over the past roughly two-years that we would have rather seen avoided include, the:
Our strategy can be found at https://libertarianparty.org.au/strategy. Our ten points of strategy have been adopted and adapted from the Rothbard Caucus of the Libertarian Party in the United States. There is no reason why a radical strategy (the Libertarian Party) can’t exist beside a more moderate party (the Liberal Democrats).
Take as an example how the Libertarian Party would seek to differentiate its messaging from some of the recent LDP NSW campaign:
Merger discussions with the Liberal Democrats
We only became aware that the LDP were looking to change to the “Libertarian Party” after it had been recently announced in the Liberal Democrats Members and Supporters Facebook group. After some enquiries and with a fairly short time-frame, we floated the idea of a merger and started informal discussions.
Our party is very open to a merger. If something can improve libertarianism in Australia, we are for it. After some brief phone and Zoom discussions, the initial email from us asked “what would an offer look like that very much serves both parties and very much serves libertarian activism for not only now, but for many years to come?“.
From our side, a “framework” for discussion was quickly developed, and the four points at the very top were, word-for-word, copy-and-pasted:
We understand politics can be dirty, but in the same way the “Liberal” party hardly represents liberalism, we would hate it if the word “Libertarian” was used by a party that moved in a direction away from the ideals and dirtied up that word too.
Unfortunately, due to the short time constraints from when we became aware of the LDP’s potential name change until now, we weren’t able to resolve these issues to any satisfaction.
We then asked that the LDP defer name changes to a later date so we could continue discussions and to give LDP members more time to consider the change and what a merger might look like. We were told that the name change vote would go ahead anyway.
This open letter comes from the Libertarian Party of Australia, you can check out our website at https://libertarianparty.org.au. We are writing this for any interested parties participating in the Liberal Democrats “name change vote” being conducted on Saturday, May 13.
This email is somewhat long and we have therefore broken it up into subsections. These are:
- About Us
- The Workers Party and lessons learned
- A Radical Strategy
- Merger discussions with the Liberal Democrats
- Some Q&As about the Libertarian Party in relation to the LDP’s proposed name change
- Finally
About Us
The Libertarian Party of Australia was conceived around July of 2020 and launched on the 5th of November in 2020. The aim was to build an organisation that promotes radical libertarian ideals through the political sphere and to have a party that always puts integrity and principle above votes, a party that uses the political soapbox to educate Australians, and a party that will never sell out principle. Much work has been put into the party, including branding, platform and strategy. We based our platform on the 1975 Workers Party platform, spending many weekends working on how to include more recent issues including the Orwellian/surveillance state, Bitcoin, and more, while making minimal changes so as to honour the work of the giants that came before us. This was a huge undertaking. Please take a read.
A major part of the Libertarian Party’s direction has been guided by Bob Howard’s 1979 reflective essay in Playboy, particularly that it’s a better long-term strategy to be driven by radical ideals rather than populism. Last year (during 2022) a few of us flew to Brisbane to meet with Bob Howard and discuss the Libertarian Party. Bob signed two books for us with different messages, these were:
- “Do it right and do it once.”
- “Remember: The slow way is the fast way. Good luck.”
The Workers Party and lessons learned
In Bob Howard’s 1979 reflective essay in Playboy, many reasons were given for where the party went wrong. These included the party straying from principle, the party losing its radical messaging to pursue “issues of the day”, the party’s inability to attract young people by not being idealistic enough, the push by non-libertarians to make the party something that it is not, and more. Instead of libertarians, the party was somewhat seen as pro-big business and conservative.
We are also guided by this quote by Ron Paul, "Ideas are the only things that count, and politicians are, for the most part, pretty much irrelevant."
In stewarding the Libertarian Party, we want to prevent the same mistakes from being made. In an LDP context some recent mistakes in just over the past roughly two-years that we would have rather seen avoided include, the:
- last WA State Election, where the LDP ran on building a freeway that the Labor and Liberal parties wouldn’t build, banning development to “protect the Perth Hills”, and state-based payment “bonuses” for babies. The LDP had one of its worst-ever results.
- recent Federal Election, particularly in Queensland where there was a distinct lack of libertarian candidates and messaging. A lot of effort and money was wasted and it doesn’t seem that the LDP’s Queensland branch is any healthier because of it.
- recent close-call with Barry Reed/David Leyonhjelm and co. in NSW. We are pleased that John Ruddick got up and are hoping for good things, but it really was a mess.
A Principled StrategyOur strategy can be found at https://libertarianparty.org.au/strategy. Our ten points of strategy have been adopted and adapted from the Rothbard Caucus of the Libertarian Party in the United States. There is no reason why a radical strategy (the Libertarian Party) can’t exist beside a more moderate party (the Liberal Democrats).
Take as an example how the Libertarian Party would seek to differentiate its messaging from some of the recent LDP NSW campaign:
- “Capitalism”? We are for private law, voluntarism.
- “Coal or nuclear”? We are for a free market in energy.
- "Covid-Justice"? We are for private property rights.
- "Colour-blind"? We are for voluntary association.
- “Cuts"? Abolish! Reduce the burden of the state.
Merger discussions with the Liberal Democrats
We only became aware that the LDP were looking to change to the “Libertarian Party” after it had been recently announced in the Liberal Democrats Members and Supporters Facebook group. After some enquiries and with a fairly short time-frame, we floated the idea of a merger and started informal discussions.
Our party is very open to a merger. If something can improve libertarianism in Australia, we are for it. After some brief phone and Zoom discussions, the initial email from us asked “what would an offer look like that very much serves both parties and very much serves libertarian activism for not only now, but for many years to come?“.
From our side, a “framework” for discussion was quickly developed, and the four points at the very top were, word-for-word, copy-and-pasted:
- What's best for libertarian activism? How can it grow?
- Certainty for all parties: get an assured outcome
- Legal fight/money + Electoral Commission fights won't serve anyone well
- Radical libertarians need a venue they can be proud of
We understand politics can be dirty, but in the same way the “Liberal” party hardly represents liberalism, we would hate it if the word “Libertarian” was used by a party that moved in a direction away from the ideals and dirtied up that word too.
Unfortunately, due to the short time constraints from when we became aware of the LDP’s potential name change until now, we weren’t able to resolve these issues to any satisfaction.
We then asked that the LDP defer name changes to a later date so we could continue discussions and to give LDP members more time to consider the change and what a merger might look like. We were told that the name change vote would go ahead anyway.
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