Ms Ryan said that she planned to introduce another private member's bill during the upcoming term of federal parliament, after an initial bill in 2018 failed to pass.

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[–] MHLoppy@fedia.io 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Daily reminder for what this independent stands for. She is a big L Liberal who just happens to believe in climate change and that queer people exist.

I'm not sure I can agree - using your own source, here are the people which her votes most closely aligned with, in descending order:

Agreement	Name	Party / Electorate
97%	Zoe Daniel	Independent Representative for Goldstein
94%	Kylea Tink	Independent Representative for North Sydney
94%	Sophie Scamps	Independent Representative for Mackellar
92%	Zali Steggall	Independent Representative for Warringah
92%	Allegra Spender	Independent Representative for Wentworth
92%	Kate Chaney	Independent Representative for Curtin
91%	Helen Haines	Independent Representative for Indi
81%	Andrew Wilkie	Independent Representative for Clark
79%	Max Chandler-Mather	Australian Greens Representative for Griffith
77%	Dai Le	Independent Representative for Fowler
77%	Elizabeth Watson-Brown	Australian Greens Representative for Ryan
76%	Stephen Bates	Australian Greens Representative for Brisbane
75%	Adam Bandt	Australian Greens Representative for Melbourne

Slightly below that are 95% of current/former ALP members ranging from 62% to 42% in one almost-contiguous block, with 95% of current/former LNP members below that at 40% to 18% in another almost-contiguous block. If her voting record was just LNP + [climate change / queer people existing] then these numbers don't make sense.

There look to be (based on this source) several other policy areas that aren't in the bucket of [climate change / queer people existing] where she's voted progressively. I don't think judging based on a single policy is the right way to accurately classify political leanings here.

edit: softened language slightly because I was just broody about something unrelated to this thread when I first replied

[–] MisterFrog@aussie.zone 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

On social and environmental issues only. Which is nice, but she's as anti-worker as the moderate Liberals are.

[–] MHLoppy@fedia.io 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If the majority of her voting positions* don't align with "big L liberals" then it seems an inaccurate way to classify her, even if she's not voting progressively on some key things like workers rights etc. Social and environmental issues (which is a significantly expanded scope compared to the previously stated subsets of just [climate change + queer people existing]!) covers a lot of important policy areas.

Given that her voting record seems to be unambiguously and substantially more progressive than any of the LNP members I glanced at, it would be more accurate to describe her record as broadly-progressive-except-in-X.

* relying on this source - I don't know whether this generalizes accurately to her actual voting or not, but I'm assuming it's at least decently accurate

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Considering Frog's first comment did specify "big L Liberal who just happens to believe in climate change and that queer people exist", I think it would be fair to redo the analysis excluding environment and LGBT+–related votes. Having not done that analysis myself, I'm not going to comment on how the result would change if you did it.

[–] MHLoppy@fedia.io 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Her voting record (again with the disclaimer that we're relying on this one source for that information) is thankfully on the short side. If excluding anything that's only "believe in climate change and that queer people exist" (and not the much larger "social and environmental issues" scope), the majority still looks overall progressive to me.

Very non-exhaustive examples:

[for] Increasing access to subsidised childcare
[for] Increasing housing affordability
[for] Ending immigration detention on Nauru
[for] Reducing tax on lowest income bracket
[for] The territories being able to legalise euthanasia
[against] Reducing tax concessions for high socio-economic status

She then does have the stuff that Frog alluded to:

[against] Criminalising wage theft
[against] Improving pay and conditions for gig workers
[mixed] Increasing workplace protections
[mixed] Increasing workplace protections for women

But even mixed-tending-against can be a sliver more progressive than status quo in a policy area, since status quo typically means voting against all changes.

[–] MisterFrog@aussie.zone 1 points 2 days ago

This is fair and reasoned criticism of my somewhat uncareful expression. And I apologise for being a rage merchant on the internet.

She's better in many ways than the Liberals.

But I'm still going to call her a fuckwit on something as black and white as making wage theft criminal.

There's just no justification for that. Unless your worldview is fundamentally inequitable, where you believe some people are more deserving than others.

Which is why I can never see her as anything other than right-wing, despite all her decent positions as you point out.