Picture small government. Smaller. Smaller. Even smaller than that. That's what the Liberal Democrats are trying to achieve. They want to sell everything - education, health, the post office, ABC, SBS, our National Parks... all in the name of personal freedom and lower taxes. Well known for running candidates who used to be part of one of the two main parties, this year it's QLD's former Premier Campbell Newman. Amusingly their website features the Eureka flag, which will almost certainly result in them being shortly "paid a visit" by the Victorian CFMEU.

Representing people is hard, so they represent animals instead. Despite representing a non-voting, non-human constituency, they have actually managed to get elected to two state parliaments. They want to make it illegal to sell processed meats to people under the age of 18 (good thing bacon-loving teens can't vote). If you're a cottagecore cat lover, your vote doesn't get any more on-brand than this.

The current government. You should already know about them. If you don't, well, they're a fairly boring set of white conservatives that have presided over corruption, incompetence, economic damage and natural disasters of biblical proportions yet are not doing (and will never do) anything useful about it.

Australia's main centre left party and current opposition. Focused on higher wages, cheaper child care and... oh look, you know who these guys are. It's a bunch of mostly inoffensive politicians, a tad left of centre. Will they win and do something useful this time? Who knows.

The Australian Family Party, putting a *very specific* type of family first. Pretty much an all-you-can-eat of extreme conservative christians. Anti Gay Marriage, Abortion, Divorce, doesn't believe in Climate Change or taking *any* action on Covid, and very pro-Israel. They're fine with refugees who immediately convert to Christianity. Everyone else goes in the sea.

Fully subscribed to the conspiracy lifestyle. Think that taxation is optional according to the constitution, the UN stole our sovereignty in the 70's, and the covid vaccine is a conspiracy. Want to remove the word 'government' from 'local government' for some reason. Their website features a very detailed set of instructions for an oven cleaner which they do not sell. Their only senator (a defector from One Nation) was charged with assault, kicked out of parliament, and currently lists his profession as 'senator in exile'.

You can tell there's an election coming up when the Nationals start referring to the Liberal party as "the government". A bunch of right wing mostly male trolls who nevertheless are a source of infidelity...er inspiration. Whenever you worry about how little one person can make a difference, just remember that a mere twenty National Party politicians managed to derail the whole world taking action on Climate Change at Glasgow.

They want to cap Australia's population at about 30 million, and significantly reduce Australia's immigration intake to achieve that. But they're not an anti-immigration party! Their policies in general are vaguely left wing, but the kind of left wing that your nimby aunt and uncle would get behind (as long as it didn't affect their real estate value).

What do you get when an independent, a former Green, and Jacqui Lambie's media advisor walk into a bar? The Local Party! (Local as long as you live in Tasmania or South Australia anyway.) Their policies are a mix of green/nimby/community consultation. But it doesn't matter, because they're not really a political party, they're all local independents! Not beholden to anyone, not even each other.

After a brief stint being named The Australia Party/Give It Back (yikes), the newly renamed AFP is a loose collection of conspiracy theorists and people who spend too much time on the internet. They want Australia to be neutral but demand China withdraw from Hong Kong. They hate vaccines, want to abolish superannuation, and think we should revert to the Gold Standard. Whackadoodles.

The Democrats used to be a significant force in Australian politics. Now they aren't. They got deregistered, but have risen from the dead to ineffectually nibble at the heels of politics like a very tiny zombie. They're 'Centrists' with a strong position on building more social housing, increasing social support and more funding for aged care. Are apparently very worried about a hypothetical terrorist plot to blow up the new hypothetical nuclear subs once they're built but before they're launched, leading to nuclear fallout, which certainly isn't in my top ten concerns right now but sure.

Drew Pavlou is the guy from the University of Queensland free speech scandal, where he criticised the Chinese Communist Party and then entirely coincidentally got suspended. A regular in the News Corp press, including on Sky News, which isn't exactly a character endorsement. His website also strangely includes a committment to green energy, presumably because it's green and not red.

Dial M for multiculturalism! Candidates that are successfully staying 'mysterious' and 'aloof' by having almost no information available about them published whatsoever. All that is known is that one of them is a 'hard working mum' and that they want to promote multiculturalism, women and small business. Look, at least they're not racists, that's something.

FUSION is an amalgamation of five former micro-parties, running on an evidence and science-based platform of climate action, social justice, privacy and digital rights. We tried to imagine what a secular, scientifically trained climate pirate would look like, but all we can picture is Megamind with an eyepatch.

Nick Xenophon is back, and he's running to make South Australia relevant again! Or at least, his own political career. Strangely enough, he's not running with his former centre alliance colleagues this time, nor his old party SA Best, so he'll be up against Rex Patrick in the coveted South Australian liberal movement centrist protest vote stakes. There have been no shameless media stunts this time, which means there will be an unfortunate lack of big props in this campaign. We'd like to tell you more about how he provided legal advice to Huawei, but that would draw unnecessary attention to this page from ASIO.

The third largest party in Australia, after Labor and the Liberals. (Yes they get twice as many votes as the Nats, yes they want you to know that.) Their policies include dealing with climate change, expanding medicare, and solving the housing crisis. But they don't take donations from big corporations, so you can guess how well *that's* going.

Originally a single issue party on vaccinations, they've now spread out to be anti fluoride, 5G, abortion, GMO, and the UN. They should probably have checked what 'imo' is short for before picking a name with that acronym, but honestly, the "in my opinion" Party is surprisingly apt.

Rex Patrick is a former submariner and current senator thanks to the Centre Alliance Party (which he left). Policies are mostly around Federal ICAC, economic protectionism, and a bunch of thinly-veiled anti-China rhetoric.

The original right wing racist party, in recent years Pauline Hanson has branched out into other forms of far-right populism. Her most recent efforts include complaining about vaccinations, lockdowns, and spreading misinformation about voter fraud. Attempted to run candidates in all 150 lower house seats only to be called out by the AEC for several of these candidates living in other states.

Formerly known as the HEMP party, Legalise Cannabis Australia are seeking to tap into a mood amongst the Australian people that after the last 3 years, we badly need to get high without getting arrested. Let's face it, after our respiratory systems have already been destroyed by bushfire smoke and a pandemic, what further harm could a little marijuana smoke do?

Populist bastards who will say and do anything to get elected. Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly's right wing libertarian United Australia Party is promising to give you back your freedom. They are vehemently opposed to lockdowns that already ended, to vaccinations which 97% of people already got, to border closures that Mark McGowan already lifted, and to debt that both parties racked up. Proposing a mining tax on iron ore, which won't hurt Clive's coal mining businesses, but will probably hurt them in Western Australia.

Anti-semitic hardcore conspiracy theorists - the renamed (and infamous) "Citizens Electoral Council". Amongst other things they believe that the Queen controls the drug trade, love nuclear power, and think Peter Dutton wants to reinstate the national draft. Oddly, they support Australia signing up for China's Belt and Road scheme. They also want to change classical music tuning to 432HZ instead of 440Hz for conspiracy reasons.

Miscellaneous independent candidates. Only really relevant if you're voting below the line and if you are then I salute you.