Blatantly Partisan Party Review XLII (federal 2022): The Silent Majority
Running where: Group A (Len Harris and Debra Yuille) on the QLD Senate ballot
Prior reviews: None, this is a new (and unregistered) party
What do you expect when you see two grouped independents with a website under the unregistered party name The Silent Majority? You might expect they are racist cranks claiming to bravely say what you allegedly think. You might also assume they are antivaxxers, a la Group P in WA being the No Mandatory Vaccination Party. Now, both are probably true, but what we have here is simultaneously the most boring and baffling unregistered party I’ve encountered so far.
Lead candidate Len Harris was formerly a Senator for One Nation, 1999–2005, and he has been motivated to seek a return because of… property deeds of ownership. No, really. He's going around the state whipping up anxiety among the homeowners who will listen to him too.
In the past decade, Australia’s states and territories have shifted their property conveyancing from paper systems to online conveyancing via each state and territory adopting an Electronic Conveying National Law. This follows the practice of jurisdictions overseas. It means that paper title deeds are now of historical value only and the legal deed is kept, communicated, and exchanged electronically. Now, admittedly, I neither know an awful lot about this nor does it interest me an awful lot, but it’s something industry groups in banking and law seem to think is a good idea—for the legal sector, for instance, documents are now simpler and more accurate, and communication delays and resultant miscommunications are largely obviated. The sky certainly has not fallen in and people aren't suddenly finding they are landless.
Len Harris, however, has decided that the Queensland government, in implementing this system, has “cancelled all title deeds” and that Queenslanders now have “no legal way of providing homeownership documentation”. He’s campaigning so that “we can once again have Guaranteed Deeds of Ownership to our Homes in our own safe custody, which is in our own hands”. Yep, he seems to think that without physical deeds, Queenslanders do not have secure ownership of their own homes.
Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Sorry Gramps.
Also, The Silent Majority’s other policies suck. Harris's running mate Debra Yuille claims to "live by the Libertarian Creed". The party stands for “libertarians and freedom lovers” who want to permanently abolish pandemic powers, oppose digital ID systems, don’t like genetically modified food, and are anti-abortion. Their how-to-vote card gives the highest preference to covid conspiracists and antivaxxers at the Great Australian Party and Informed Medical Options. They suggest you preference far enough to get to Legalise Cannabis, but not to either of the majors. One of the slogans on the HTV also urges you to “keep cash alive”—yep, here's another example of the conspiracy theory that cash is being banned or eliminated. All in all, it’s a bit of a grab-bag. The Silent Majority’s demands for transparency in government seem to largely come back to the electronic conveyancing thing and a belief that governments have sneakily and with no-one noticing robbed people of security of property ownership.
(I also can’t help suspecting that if you raised native title with Len Harris, you’d immediately get some tirade that people must be secure in their homes or else Indigenous peoples will take their backyard.)
My recommendation: Give Group A (The Silent Majority) a weak or no preference.
Website: https://www.thesilentmajority.org.au/
