Election 2013: Sex Party launches campaign

The Australian Sex Party has officially launched its election campaign.

Election 2013: Sex Party launches campaignElection 2013: Sex Party launches campaign

Election 2013: Sex Party launches campaign

The Party is fielding candidates in every state and territory, in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

 

The Australian Sex Party, which is running 29 candidates in Victoria alone, says churches should pay tax, and marijuana sales should be regulated and harvested for tax purposes.

Party president and Victorian Senate candidate Fiona Patten says about a quarter of a million people in Australia use cannabis daily, which amounts to around 300 tonnes a year.

 

"Now if we were to tax that in much the same way as we do alcohol that could reap a tax benefit of about 2.4 billion dollars. We estimate, and this is a conservative estimate, that the cannabis industry in Australia is worth around six billion dollars."

 

Ms Patten also says churches are tax dodgers and should pay their fair share.

 

"So the churches in Australia probably avoid paying about 20 billion dollars' worth of tax every year. Now this is not about taxing charitable businesses, it's not about taxing charity. It's about taxing the money-making side of churches. Churches are the biggest landowners in the country yet they pay no land tax."

 

Fiona Patten says in some seats, like Melbourne which is held by the Greens' Adam Bandt, Sex Party preferences will be crucial.

 

She says while the party has given its preferences to the Liberals and the Greens in other seats, in Melbourne they've gone to Labor.

 

The candidate for Melbourne, James Mangisi, says he doesn't expect to win the seat, but expects his campaign to raise different issues in the community's consciousness.

 

Mr Mangisi says it's in the Senate where the Australian Sex Party is likely to do best.

 

"We're now looking at a particularly frightening set of circumstances where the last Victorian Senate seat is likely to go to Fiona Patten of the Australian Sex Party or Family First. Let me just leave that with you for a moment just to detonate inside your brains that Family First could be returning to federal politics. I think when the stakes are this high, it is incredibly clear how important it is to make sure that you vote 1 for the Sex Party in the Senate, for Fiona Patten so that we can continue the progress, continue moving forward, continue to build an Australia where everyone is equal."

 


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