Science party has long had a policy to establish an Australian space agency. In fact, we were the first party in Australia to have an explicit space policy in the modern era. This weekend, the Labor Science Network will hold a session as part of the NSW Labor Conference discussing whether or not the Labor Party should have a space policy. 

Labor Conferences are used to float new policy positions and judge broader excitement and support for ideas inside the party, as well as use the media attention to assess public reaction without having the proposal part of the platform. With any luck, the leadership of the party is taking notice, and will push for additional funding for space exploration and research.

This is not the first time that this has happened. In May 2015, the Labor Party adopted the Science Party position that we should be teaching programming in schools from an early age. The Labor Party also made moves on Marriage Equality in May 2015, another long-standing Science Party policy. We’ve had both these positions since our start in January 2013. We say this is great, and look forward to more Science Party policies becoming Labor Party platform in the future, because we care most about getting good policy adopted.

In the meantime, if you want to support the rest of our good policy now, join the Science Party.