Voting for sex, not sects

When I saw the other day that the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) had agreed to the official registration of a political organisation calling itself the Australian Sex Party, I didn’t get too excited at first.

After all, Australia’s major parties are pretty liberal these days. Even to the point, as I’ve mentioned before, of the Labor government’s boasting the nation’s first openly gay federal minister, Malaysian-born Penny Wong.

And in any event, Australia’s roster of almost 30 registered political parties is already replete with unelectable, single-issue outfits like - I kid you not - the Family First Party, What Women Want (Australia), the Australian Shooters’ Party and the Fishing Party.

Then there are those crackpot reactionary organisations like Pauline Hanson’s formerly much-feared but now virtually defunct One Nation; the dreadful Ms Hanson’s latest attempt to re-boot her career as the pin-up girl of right-wing ratbags, Pauline’s United Australia Party; and the Reverend Fred Nile’s group of guardians against all that they consider ungodly, the Christian Democratic Party.

So, as appealing as I found the idea in principle and as sympathetic to my own preoccupations, I wondered whether we really needed a party with sex in its name and, presumably, nothing but gender on its agenda.

The more I thought about it, however, the more seductive if not outright irresistible I came to find the idea. Not least because, as I found from visiting the new party’s website, it revealed that as serious a body as the Australian Electoral Commission apparently has a sense of humour.

Well, maybe not humour exactly, but certainly honour. Reportedly faced with predictable objections that the name ‘Australian Sex Party’ invoked ‘orgiastic notions’, the AEC was duty-bound to discuss and decide whether the name of the party and/or its abbreviation could be held to be ‘obscene’ and thus in breach of Section 129(1)(b) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

After lengthy consideration of the issue, which had never before arisen in Australian electoral history, the AEC issued a five-page minute of its findings, which were, in brief, that the name was “unlikely to ‘deprave and corrupt’ voters” and that “the perception by any members of the public that the name is ‘obscene’ is not enough” to refuse its registration under the Act.

In a press release welcoming this decision, Australian Sex Party convenor Fiona Patten justly praised the AEC, saying that the thorough investigation and landmark ruling was “evidence that the AEC cared about free speech and the democratic rights of various groups in the community”.

“The AEC appeared to be able to interpret community opinion on obscenity far better than the major political parties could,” she added.

“The fact that the AEC spent so much time considering the word ‘sex’ further exhibits our need for honest and open discussion about sexual matters - be they censorship, education, health or discrimination ones.”

Existence good for Oz

As high-minded as it sounds in its press releases, however, and as honourable as its intentions may appear, how will the Australian Sex Party perform in practice? Will it prove to be all that it is cracked-up to be, bound and determined to deliver on its public-relations promise to work wonders for pubic relations?

Or will it fall somewhat short of pure and altruistic idealism, and be revealed to be consorting with marketers of sex aids or politically pimping for the porn industry?

Both, it appears, from what my research has revealed. If Ms Patten really was “good mates” with the late, great founder of the Australian democrats, Don Chipp, as claimed on the ASP website, she’s just about clinched my vote already.

I also admire her candour, as she replied to my email asking for more about her background by quickly sending me a CV detailing her background as a long-time lobbyist for prostitution law reform, and founder and first president of the adult retailing and entertainment lobby group, the Eros Association.

Currently CEO of Eros, she has also, in the past, narrowly missed being elected as an independent in a state election, and founded a fashion house named ‘Body Politic’. So her coming out of the commercial closet, so to speak, to start a political body, seems altogether appropriate.

But the Australian Sex Party is about more than supporting the sex industry. It also means business when it comes to the sexual well-being of the community at large, with policies including:

• a national sex-education curriculum for secondary schools to help prevent the sexualisation of children;

• total equal rights in all areas of the law for gay, lesbian and transsexual couples;

• sexual rights and freedoms for the disabled and elderly in institutions; and,

• a measure that especially takes my personal fancy, the listing of Viagra and similar performance-enhancers on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Admittedly the Sex Party’s not everybody’s scene, however, and somehow I doubt it will ever win a seat, let alone sweep to power. But nevertheless I think its existence is good for Australia, and would be even more advantageous elsewhere around the world.

Like Malaysia, for example, where it would be a great step forward for the sex industry to be legalised instead of allowed, as now, to enrich corrupt police, people traffickers, pimps and other assorted criminals. And the authorities could concentrate their efforts on prosecuting genuine sex offences like rape, paedophilia and incest instead of trumped-up sodomy charges.

It would be a welcome change, too, for people to have a choice to vote for a party representing something as racy as sex instead of a collection of competing races and sects.

Because, let’s face it, the old system of Malays being expected to support Umno or PAS, Chinese the MCA, Gerakan or whatever, and Indians the MIC, has turned out to be nothing but a national hex.

And unless enough Malaysians rise-up in support of non-sectual parties like PKR and DAP, there’s no telling what obscenities the BN government has in store for the nation next.