Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I had a Zoom on weekend with my wonderful Labor Party branch members in my electorate. They're good people who share common values and they come together month after month, year after year—a few of them even campaigned for Gough!

I suspect I'll get howled down if I post this on social media, but I want to record a call-out to all Australians who care about our democracy, who share a set of common values, to join and get involved in a political party. I'd say Labor, but maybe those opposite if they're your values. The reality is at most elections most MPs in this place are here because they're voted in by the community because they're chosen by their political party. It's party members who remain largely invisible, but they do critical work. They recruit, train and select candidates and members of parliament and government. They do the hard work of putting together a platform and policies so people have a choice at an election and campaign for new ideas. If political parties don't work well, people don't have the choice. It's party members who hold MPs directly to account.

Every month I'm grilled and challenged by local members and get feedback, ideas and free character assessments. I know that flying the flag for political parties is not popular, but well-run parties of government play such a critical role in our democracy. Citizens benefit when they work well, yet are all the poorer when they don't.

I know Independents are sexy this decade, but I make the point: politics is not a team sport but government has to be. We can't have a ragtag government of Independents. That's the sort of rubbish these people push to go and get votes, frankly. Unlike with Independents, people know when they vote Labor what kind of values I sign up to. People know that I'm part of a democratic party and subject to the discipline of people who share my values. People know I'll be part of a government or opposition, doing the hard work of holding the government to account.

I don't think that's the same with the fake personality cult parties that we've seen spring up—the ones without real members: Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party, Clive Palmer's United Australia Party, Fred Nile's Christian Democratic Party or even the populist Greens political party. I don't think they're serious choices if you want to change the country for the better. The Greens, Palmer, Hanson and Nile actually all share the same populist business model—a protest model. They all harvest votes by pretending that there's no difference between Labor or the Liberals. There is a difference. The Greens, Palmer, Hanson and Nile can promise whatever they like in their imaginary governments and their fantasy budgets; however, it's the serious political parties of government that actually do the critical difficult work, yet fewer Australians join political parties these days.

There's lot of talk of the threat to democracy in the West from authoritarian and liberal models, be it China, Russia or others. I say to Australians: democracy is fragile. So, if you value our democracy, if you're frustrated with the parties, if you're frustrated with us, then come along, listen, share your ideas and join a party. It's surprisingly cheap and easy. You might even enjoy it, and it certainly does our democracy a good turn. Thank you.