Education

Investing in quality, accessible education allows social mobility. The Science Party will:

• Increase school funding on a needs basis
• Incentivise teaching in disadvantaged schools;
• Increase funding for adult education; and
• Implement a national school curriculum including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) classes at all levels.

Science and Research

The Science Party will plan for the future through targeted government investment in areas that encourage economic and technological development. We will:

• Double spending on research from $9.2 billion to $18.4 billion;
• Encourage research into safer sources of nuclear energy, including fusion reactors.

Energy

Renewable energy is pivotal to reducing pollution from energy production. Our energy policies include:

• Dramatically increasing our renewable energy target;
• An emissions trading scheme to encourage renewable energy;
• Modernising our grids via mandatory installation of ‘smart meters’; and
• Connecting the eastern and western Australian electricity grids—smoothing out fluctuations in power generation—using a high voltage DC connection within 20 years.

Climate Change and the Environment

The Science Party is in favour of:

• Declaring a Climate Emergency;
• Strong actions against global warming;
• Protecting native forests;
• Genetically modified organisms for use in research and industry; and

Australian Charter City

The Science Party has a vision for a new Australian charter city that will be:

• Connected via high speed rail
• A university town, focusing on low-capital-cost STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects;
• High in population density and designed to reduce congestion; and
• A special migration zone to generate a greater influx of skilled migrants.

Economy

The Science Party believes strongly in using markets as a means to achieve competition for success. We also see a role for the government in guiding the economy through effective taxation, regulation and public spending. The Science Party's economic policy includes:

• Support for expenditure on science and technology research, education and health care; and
• Opposition to corporate monopolies.

Democracy

Along with the core principles of open, efficient and secular government, the Science Party supports the following:

• an Australian republic, with the Governor-General elected by parliament;
• a multi-member House of Representatives system;
• a single national Senate; and
• Strong whistleblower protections.

Freedom and Rights

In line with our core principle of individual freedoms, the Science Party supports:

• Online privacy and freedom of communication, with no data retention, warrantless access to data, or government-imposed internet filters;
• Marriage Equality: legal recognition of marriage between any two consenting adults; and
• Euthanasia. The Science Party is committed to health care and life-extension, but also believes physician-assisted dying should be legally available.

Tax, Superannuation and Welfare

The Science Party believes these systems need to be substantially streamlined while better supporting people in need:

• Simplify Marginal tax rates;
• Land tax to replace stamp duty, council rates and payroll tax; and
• Remove welfare traps, to ensure people get back to work as painlessly as possible;
• Raise the rate of Newstart by $75 per week.
• An independent body to set "sin taxes" (gambling, tobacco and alcohol).

Health

Public health policy should include:

• A focus on preventative health care to extend life, improve quality of life and reduce expense;
• Promotion of healthy eating decisions through accurate and informative labelling;
• Decriminalisation of drug use with the aim of harm reduction;
• a focus on mental health with increased funding and training; and
• Legal and accessible abortion.

Communication

The Science Party supports a National Gigabit Network through Fibre to the Premises (FTTP).

This technology will boost education, healthcare, business and social connectedness, particularly for rural, regional and remote Australia.

Transportation

The Science Party supports:

• Legalising driverless cars for use in Australia as soon as it is practical and safe;
• A high-speed rail link (Brisbane–Sydney–Canberra–Melbourne);
• Optimising existing transport infrastructure to decrease travel/transport times; and
• Additional suburban train lines.

Defence

• Anti-war. War should be the absolute last option. In recent history, countries (including Australia) have entered into war too easily.
• Release non-operationally important national secrets.
• The use of autonomous weapons should be governed by a global convention that specifies a minimum level of human involvement in their use.

Housing

The Science Party proposes the following policies to improve housing affordability and increase service provision:

• Loosen height/density restrictions on urban infill areas with high demand;
• Increase land releases to encourage increased density, while also increasing public open space; and
• Encourage density by increasing local service provision and allowing mixed zone developments.

Law and Order

It is Science Party policy to:

• Increase rehabilitation programs in gaols to decrease rates of recidivism and hence reduce the burden of crime on all members of society;
• Consider drug use as a health issue; and
• Address the over-representation of Aboriginal people in prison and among deaths in custody.
See our detailed policy

Immigration

The Science Party is a pro-immigration party, as immigration provides a net benefit to those already living in Australia as well as to new migrants.

Regional Australia

The following are the Science Party's policies specifically regarding non-metropolitan Australia:

• Increase the pay of front line government employees in remote areas;
• Reduce regulation on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in regional areas;
• Subsidise online university education for students in remote areas; and
• Advocate to remove agricultural trade barriers.

Childcare

Increasing accessibility of childcare will tackle inequality between income brackets and between genders in the workforce. The Science Party will:

• Subsidise 95% of childcare costs up to a maximum benchmark rate, to maximise access to childcare.

Animal Welfare

The Science Party supports:

• Creation of an independent office for animal welfare;
• Clear labelling of animal products;
• The current Code of Practice for animals in scientific research; and
• Research into in vitro meat production.

The Science Party opposes:

• Live export to countries whose animal welfare standards have not been approved by independent Australian regulators;
• Battery cages and sow stalls; and
• Horse jumps racing.

Treaty

The Science Party's policy is to establish a treaty organisation to develop treaties for ratification by parliament and indigenous groups throughout Australia.

Space

• Support and develop the Australian Space Agency
• Accept the invitation from the European Space Agency to become an associate member
• Introduce regulations that encourage the building and development of space infrastructure in Australia
• Undertake a Space Innovation and Growth Strategy Study.